I'm surprised that, apart from the usual sporadic social fizz, Amazon's Dash (+ Wand) and more recent Echo services are not causing household brand directors to roll around on the floor foaming at the mouth. And not in a good way.
Do you see what I see?
The old Game of Thrones between brand, retailer and more recently consumer has played out over more or less a century. And as connectedness and data have arrived front and centre of this benign, bloody war.
Household brands are caught in a nasty pincer movement.
Ruthless retailer on one side, squeezing ever-harder on name brand equity with unavoidable in-store promotion, own-brand competition and - let's face it - a control of key shopper data that is more or less comprehensive.
And connected consumer, only ever a swipe away from the best price. Not to mention the new basket aggregators like MySupermarket.com, stripping away value from everyone, except of course, the shopper.
It's well-established that the traditional split between shopper - going to the shops, in one way or another, and consumer - connecting with the brand in the context of use, typically the home - is disappearing. Douglas Rushkoff has written most coherently about the underlying drivers of this shift in his recent book Present Shock.
As we know, name brands have been trying to push back into the retail space to regain a sliver of power behind the battle lines.
And till recently, the home has been a sort of sanctuary for the beleaguered household brand. Until, at least, the time comes for replenishment. And isn't it replenishment that FMCG marketing is all about? Who'd build a brand that was bought once on a promotion, then only bought again when the dreaded yellow label - the new uber-brand that all value-conscious shoppers - catches the eye to offer 50% off, 2 for 1, or whatever.
Well, that's pretty much where we find ourselves today. And while Amazon's home invasion, with opening salvos like Dash and Echo, may not seem like game over, there's a lot more where that came from.
My friend and colleague Professor William Webb, of Weightless SIG and the IET, made a startling observation recently that stays with me. William is a leading engineer, and as far from being a marketer as you could possibly get.
But when he and I were earlier this year discussing the potential impact of the IoT (Weightless is a leading open standard for object communication, by the way) on the home and in particular on the household brand, he innocently dropped something of a brand grenade on me.
And it merits serious reflection.
"I don't know much about marketing as you know, but surely we're looking at a time not too far away, when most of these brands will be trying to sell themselves directly to intelligent home devices?"
Only an engineer would dare to think, let alone say, such a thing. When irresistible and affordable consumer services become the buyers of commodity household goods - buying them surely on the basis os anything BUT brand - we envision an extraordinary return to a world where brand, advertising, and anything more than the most functional and rudimentary marketing, had no role to play.
A time, in fact, before the Game of Thrones that is household brand marketing and retailing had even begun.
Those of us who care about and value brands need to pay much closer attention. Most consumers are not as sentimental as we may be ... and the machines are getting smarter - and talking among themselves more - every day.
I'm afraid that, while advertising still has a key role to play here, so-called "digital transformation" will not answer this challenge. Retailer and consumers have already reached an unassailable point of power in terms of taking and holding advantage from data. And digital marketing, while the science continues to evolve apace, still lacks the sheer creativity - the art - to win a war where persuasion is no longer in play.
Until we can find alternative angles, it seems to me that these vulnerable brand giants urgently need to accelerate their service innovation programmes. The current Connected Homes projects are generally insufficient in both speed and scope to either outthink or outrun broader, deeper, smarter and above all, more integrated home automation technologies.
Service beats product, more or less every time.
Without an abrupt change in gear, we may soon enough see a dramatic drop, outside emerging markets, at least temporarily, in the potency and presence of many of the world's largest brands.
Food, we could say, for thought.
Comments