I had a marketing visit from my son’s friend who has a summer job selling kitchen cutlery for an international company. It’s an excellent product, a well-known brand and is about 20 times more expensive than the average knife set you buy from the store. It was a good sales call but it got me wondering about the corporate brand.

The company puts its brand marketing in the hands of door-to-door sales people who are almost entirely college students. After a little training, they have to buy their own display product and start cold calling their friends and neighbours to set up presentations. So, the company’s brand is owned and marketed by unpaid people who are in their first years of work, with little direct experience of the product or its competition. I imagine the churn rate of unsuccessful young sales people is huge.

It’s a non-traditional approach to marketing.

The Marketing thought

A company’s strategic marketing choice about how it wants to distribute its products reflects on its brand. For example, if it only sells product through retail stores that have an awful reputation, the brand will be tarnished. Eventually the two become synonymous. Poor sales experience = poor brand. A great product with a strong brand name should have a great matching distribution network.

Just a thought.
Tim

Photo taken and licensed by fa73.

Tagged as: bad marketing ideas, brand promise