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Musings on a diet cola…
Not long ago I was having lunch with my fellow brown baggers in the Sage lunchroom when I noticed that all the women in the room were drinking Diet Coke, while all the men were drinking Coke Zero. Being in the Diet Coke camp myself, I mentioned to the gang that we were falling nicely into the gender-specific marketing plan of the manufacturer. I had recently read that the two products mentioned above were marketed to specific genders because men were somewhat resistant to products that have the word “diet” in their name, but still are calorie conscious and want to eliminate the calories from their beverages, while women are more accepting and actually look for the word “diet” in products they use. The skeptical engineers in the room didn’t believe that this was true until we took a closer look at the soda cans. Sure enough, on the Coke Zero cans the marketing message was for the film Avatar, while the Diet Coke cans display a red dress and a message about breast cancer awareness. Granted, one can argue that the movie has appeal to both sexes and that everyone should be aware of cancer prevention, yet it still seems likely to me that these two products are targeted at specific gender markets.
So this whole conversation got me thinking more about brands than I usually do. That night I stopped at my local supermarket to stock up on sodas. When I plunked my case of diet cola on the check stand, it occurred to me that I’ve never ever heard a checker say anything negative about what’s in my grocery cart. Occasionally I might get a positive comment about something, but never anything that resembles “Why are you buying that Diet Coke? You should get Coke Zero instead!” It just doesn’t happen.
And that observation got me thinking…..if the supermarkets have this whole thing figured out about not saying anything bad about products customers might buy, why is it that some of us in the software industry think its ok to do it? I mean, in the olden days where every software product was an island unto itself (circa 1999), it was sort of acceptable to bash competitor’s products. But in today’s marketplace, more and more software providers, including Sage, are looking at a portfolio approach to their products. And some of those products that used to be competitors are now part of the Sage portfolio. That means that those of us who sell and support any Sage ERP product represent the entire portfolio even if we don’t actively sell all of the various products in the portfolio. If someone writes or publishes something unflattering about one of our brands, it diminishes the whole brand and makes it that much harder for all of us to be successful. We, all of us in the entire community, are responsible to defend the brand to outsiders. Just like when you were kids, it was ok for you to pick on your little sister, but if the neighborhood bully picked on her, you socked him in the eye. We’ve all got to stand up for the Sage brand and work on protecting it, and, figuratively not literally, sock anyone in the eye who tries to diminish our brand.
The brand that Sage markets and will be investing marketing dollars in the future is Sage ERP. The portfolio products under that banner are Sage MAS 90 and 200, Sage MAS 500, Sage Accpac and Sage X3. So, with Sage ERP being the primary marketing focus, and the product brands being the secondary one, what is it that you plan to do the next time you see someone publish something less than flattering about one of our portfolio products?
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