Meet the Ps: Marketing Trends Live from NOSH LIVE Winter 2017

Watch out, the four Ps of marketing, Product, Price, Place and Promotion have two new members of the family: Purpose and Personalization.

By Tamar Dolgen, Co-Founder and Marketing Visionary , B-Cauz Ventures 

Watch out, the four Ps of marketing, Product, Price, Place and Promotion have two new members of the family: Purpose and Personalization.  

These two Ps showed up this week at the Project Nosh conference in Santa Monica hosted by BevNet, which brought together hundreds of successful and aspiring entrepreneurs in the natural and specialty food category. Woven throughout presentations and interviews was the trend of Purpose and Personalization in the food industry. 

Having a purpose, or a mission, isn’t a new concept.  Any Marketing 101 course will cover this, but brands used to limit it to employee handbooks or the About Us section of their website. Now mission is part of the direct communication with consumers. Authenticity is the non-negotiable that brands must demonstrate to develop a relationship with consumers. Trust doesn’t have to be built on years of brand loyalty, but instead demonstrated through brand authenticity.  John Foraker, the former CEO of Annie’s Inc. revealed that finally after 10 years in business Annie’s finally wrote their mission statement, and soon after hit $100 million in sales. He pondered if they would have achieved that growth faster with a mission from the beginning. ADAM DURRANI of Saffron Road echoes the importance of purpose having built a business inspired by faith based values, built on authentic taste. Purpose must be authentic.  Echo Capital Group, mission based investments focused on millennial companies, feels a brand’s story and attributes are keys to success, but brands must be authentic because younger consumers “can sniff out their B.S.”  SPINS retail measurement services show that consumers are more than ever influenced by transformative & emotional value drivers, such as health & wellness, social impact, and safety.  For example, 81% of consumers want to know more about how their food is produced and 51% check labels for social and environmental impact. In short, purpose can drive commercial success.

As much as the consumer cares about the You and your brand story, what matters most is ME. We are living in the era of SELF(ies).  And not all selves are created equal. This is especially true when it comes to eating. Not only do we have varying tastes and cravings, but our bodies process food differently.  A diet or eating preference that is healthy for your digestive system may be more difficult for someone else to process.  Advances in technology such as DNA mapping and personal devices now allow us to celebrate and exploit our uniqueness. Look to companies with Individual customization for growth opportunities. NEIL GRIMMER, who innovated the organic baby food industry as co-founder of Plum Organics, has now launched Habit, the first personalized nutrition company with an at home test kit. To tie back to the importance of mission, Habit is based on the principle that everyone deserves an owner’s manual for their own body because nutrition was never meant to be one size fits all. 

While Purpose and Personalization are gaining more popularity, they will never take the place of the T word. TASTE is still king in the food industry.