Consumer Goods Marketing and Sales

Hello people. Hope everyone is safe & has found a rhythm of working from home and I hope we soon resume normalcy because unlike for people like us for whom this is a matter of lifestyle and ways of working, for millions it is the thin line that divides destitution and livelihood. apologies for the morbid beginning but well we are living in uncertain morbid times. And I am also sorry for being away for so long. A lot happened in the last year or so including a role change, lots of work related travel, craziness overall but most importantly, writers block. I just wasn't sure what should I write about next. So thanx to a dear colleague who drew up a list of topics I could write about and this is the first one I have chosen. Before I delve deep, just a reminder - this blog is for FMCG/CPG beginners and hence may not be relevant for the experts or people who have done this for many years. Consumer promotions are what I call the absolute necessary evil of FMCG industry. You cann...

Hello people! Continuing our journey into the murky waters of inexact science of consumer insights; here is my 2 nd post on the topic. Also, as promised I am doing 1 every month (I started this in Feb just never managed to finish it & maybe I will do 2 in March) I personally find doing qualitative research or groups is relatively easier than doing one on one consumer immersions. For those who are hearing this term for the first time; it’s a fancy word for consumer home visits where you get someone to recruit consumers for you and you go and talk to them by yourself. In the beginning you can also request for a moderator to know how its done or accompany someone else who has done a few of them. Eventually however, you will have to find your own rhythm & way of doing them. For me, it is also what I love about being a FMCG marketer most – the joy of talking to the consumers. Unlike popular belief, I am a socially awkward person and hence talking to strangers doesn’t come...

Hello hello.......... Happy 2019 to everyone. Wishing for lots of goodness for everyone. I didn't keep up my promise of one blog entry every month last year but I am hoping I am going to be better this year.  This year I plan to focus on the 'not so exact science' part of marketing. As Dumbledore told Harry in the Half Blood Prince - we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into the thickets of wildest guesswork. Consumer insights is pretty much like that. There are of course concrete quantitative proofs of what works for your consumers but we shall not focus on that part here. My entire focus in this piece will be to outline what is an insight and how to get there (at least eventually).  Let me begin by putting down some caveats. This, as said above is my personal experience with delving deep into the realms of a person’s motivations, triggers & aspirations. There can be (in fact, definitely i...

Its been a while since I wrote & apologies for that. Clearly I couldn’t keep up the discipline of writing at least once every month (much like my diet).  What prompted me to write today was actually the Maven Meet - IIM Indore - Mumbai campus’s marketing event. It was a one day event with 8 speakers including me and the theme of the event was Disrupt or Die. Each one of us had picked up a trending topic within innovation to show how innovation is the only step forward. The event made me realise I haven’t covered Innovation at all on this platform so far. So here we go - Innovation 101!!! During the course of this post; I will try and cover two fundamental things about Innovation: 1. Renovation vs Innovation 2. When to Innovate Before I start, putting out a caveat - these are my experiences & views about innovation and may not be 100% relevant for all categories and companies. So be like goblin forged metal - imbibe only what makes you stronger (apologies ...

Hello people. I am trying to keep my promise of doing at least 1 post in a month although I am super delayed on this one. Let me try and be punctual and deliver on promised timelines in the future. The genesis of this post is a conversation I had last week at the lunch table with some colleagues who were trashing Kotler and saying how it was a waste of time & how it didn't help them to learn anything at all that has aided them in delivering on their jobs. I of course disagreed because I personally am a big fan of Kotler. I know a lot of you will be scoffing right now and may not read the rest of the post at all because of this. But honestly, step back once and think - did Kotler not make all of us know 4Ps of marketing inside out. We all have evolved our thinking on the 4Ps and in fact have moved into more evolved models of 5Ps and 7Cs and all of that. But the first time we all understood what does marketing mean is through Kotler and often enough we all resort to jargon from ...

So I have always been super passionate about FMCG, and if there is one person who has helped me channel this passion and take it to the next level, full credit would go to Swapnil Kumar, who took the FMCG Branding course at MICA. He's an IIM-L alumnus who started his career off with Unilever and now is the Global Brand Manager for Vaseline - he has spent time across Marketing and Sales and can be found here . This is a letter that he wrote for the incoming batch of MT's at Unilever a few years back. ------- Let me start by writing that this is not a definitive guide to what to choose and also what you shall get once u have made your mind up – given that u have to make your mind up right away. There is also a disclaimer attached that these are all points of view of what I have heard and the writer doesn’t necessarily subscribe to the points written hereafter. Even though I have spent more than 8 years in these streams I am not too sure if I have also experienced most of the th...

I should have probably written this first, but better late than never. I have received a lot of feedback, and most people have said that a glossary of sales terms should be included – so here it is! The response to the blog has been overwhelming, please continue sharing and giving in your inputs – Thanks for your encouragement! Primary Sales:   These are sales from the company to the distributor Secondary Sales: These are sales from the distributor to the retailer. Usually, targets are always based on secondary sales Offtakes: These are sales from the retailer to the customer. While offtakes are not tracked by the company, trends of offtakes are tracked by Nielsen, which is a market research agency. Nielsen provides cumulative data of offtakes to brand managers in terms of market share. The accuracy of this is debatable as Nielsen takes only a subset of the number of traditional trade stores (which is then extrapolated) and does not track some modern trade chains ...