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TOPICS
Branding & Reputation
SPEECH TITLES
What's different about you?
Don't be afraid of a niche market
How entrepreneurial and big business can work together
New consumers, how to reposition an exisiting brand
Outsourcing and increasing products speed to market
BIOGRAPHY
Mark Palmer is Global Brand Director of Green & Black's organic chocolate. Since he joined the company, sales have risen from £4m to £40m, driven by a successful repositioning exercise, which took the brand from niche organic to premium everyday chocolate. Green & Black's became the fastest growing chocolate brand in the UK, leading to its acquisition by Cadbury Schweppes. Mark remained with the company, leading development both at home and abroad.
Green & Blacks retain an entrepreneurial approach and rely on instincts, applying common sense instead of figures, when trialing new products. They can bring a product to market in six months instead of the industry norm of twenty one. When Mark joined, the company had achieved 95% market share in the organic sector, but did not even register on overall chocolate sales. Mark changed the marketing proposal from organic to premium and now their approach is to enter existing markets and raise the bar.
Mark's skills have been recognised by the industry and he featured in the Marketing Power 100 for two successive years in his unofficial role as champion of entrepreneurs and small business. The Marketing Society voted him their Marketer Of The Year and Marketing Week readers voted him the third most influential practitioner in the UK.
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Q&A
JLA: What advice would you give to companies looking to reposition themselves?
MP: Be sure why you are doing it - don't do it because you are bored and fancy a change. There is a lot of crap written by marketing people about how we should be doing something different all the time. Repositioning is good but don't lose existing customers in the process.
JLA: What advice would you give to a small company offering a new take on an established product?
MP: Make sure the product is good enough before you start spending your marketing budget. At Green & Blacks we also knew we had a superior chocolate. It's not about having a cool brand. It's about substance.
JLA: What are the three key points to successful marketing?
MP: Know what your product does differently or better than any other. Have a good product that delivers! Be very clear who you are targeting. Green & Blacks do extremely well by appealing to 5% of the market, a huge share for a small company. Do have a distinctive point of view. Say something memorable, don't be a low budget version of the big guys.