Consumer Packaged Goods: CPGBrokers Should Be Your Fast Moving Goods Broker
Consumer Packaged Goods Broker / Consultant
The Consumer Packaged Goods industry is one of the largest in North America, valued at approximately $2 trillion US dollars. Although recent growth has slowed in this industry, opportunity for growth is again on the rise with companies that provide CPGs still benefiting from large margins and strong balance sheets. Although the Consumer Packaged Goods industry has been slow to invest in new technology, CPG’s are increasingly turning to computerized and web-based applications for stronger customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and marketing automation. A number of technology vendors, including Oracle, SAP, and Siebel Systems offer specialized products for the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry. This investment in technology has created a wealth of opportunity within the consumer packaged goods industry.
Cpgbrokers.com Co; Your Best Consumer Packaged Goods Broker-Consultant-Partner
CPGBrokers.com Co. is a dba of ESBP Brokerage Co., LLC, a second generation family business, our primary focus is to apply up to the moment market data:
- To assist our client-partners create a profitable distribution channel…lower cost of entry, drive trial and repeat business
- To maximize sku distribution, product mix, and shelf positioning via direct selling and thru experienced broker partnerships
- Capitalize on significant supply chain and sustainability expertise to accomplish lean and green go-to-market strategies
- To build strong relationships across food, drug, mass, nutritional, and military channels, that creates strategic growth, profitability, and high return on investments
If you have similar goals and would like a no obligation review of your current wholesale to retailer consumer packaged goods relationship, with recommendations how we will assist you to capitalize on potential missed opportunities… please contact us.
Jim Embry – CEO
We scan the news of the CPG industry to bring you up to date market data and industry trends. Our most recent finds are listed below, join our RSS feed or become a member of the site (right corner) for up to date news, the release of industry white papers, and technology innovations.
Related articles
- 7 questions every social media strategy must be able to answer applying to CPG landscape (cpgbrokers.com)
- Who handles social media at your company? (cpgbrokers.com)
- Tiger Balm Expands Growth Opportunities for Independent Pharmacy Retailers (cpgbrokers.com)
Consumer Packaged Goods Best Marketing on YouTube
Google’s Consumer Packaged Goods Year In Review.
“Think CPG” is Googles think tank regarding the consumer packaged goods industry. Think CPG offers unbelievable data for an industry that is still lagging compared to other major industries in the adaptation of technology. As we marketers in the CPG sector approach year end, take a look at what some of your peers and competitors are doing below. This is a great time to reflect on all of the great brand marketing that we’ve seen, or been a part of in 2011. If you feel you are not maximizing your distribution, contact CPGbrokers.com for a free consultation.
The video below highlights some of the best examples of Consumer Packaged Goods marketing done on YouTube this year.
Let us know your thoughts about some of your favorites.
Consumer Packaged Goods are leading the economy, how do you stack up?
Contact CPGbrokers.com to find out!
Tiger Balm Expands Growth Opportunities for Independent Pharmacy Retailers
Image via Wikipedia
Open the door to new sales opportunities by stocking Tiger Balm® – the fastest-growing brand in the external analgesic category….three years running double digit growth!
According to Neilsen F/D/M, Tiger Balm® continues to top the charts with a 10% growth rate during the 52-week period ending December 26, 2011 compared to just 4% growth for the category as a whole – an 6 point growth spread vs. the category, which continues a growth trend that dates back to 2009.
Tiger Balm’s success was led by the anchor products: Tiger Balm® Ultra Ointment (13% growth). Tiger Balm® Pain Relieving Patch (12% growth), and Tiger Balm® Extra Strength Ointment (8% growth.
Meanwhile, the brand’s newest offering, Tiger Balm® Neck & Shoulder Rub, is bringing a new kind of consumer into the category – people whose aches and pains are caused by work stress, tension, and sitting at a desk for long periods of time.
“When pain sufferers seek Pain Relief Without the Pills® they head to their nearest big retail chain for Tiger Balm®,” said Kenneth Yeung, Founder and President of Prince of Peace Enterprises, Inc., the sole licensed U.S. distributor for all Tiger Balm® products. “As the tremendous growth figures illustrate, Read the rest of this entry »
Toe Juice…Funny Name, Serious Results…A Head to Toe Solution
In 1970, Royce Garner, a high school
chemistry teacher in Boise, Idaho, produced his first batch of Toe Juice®. His endeavor began when his infant son had flaking, dry, cracked feet. The many lotions and creams were ineffective and messy. So Royce did some research, went to his lab, and came out with a revolutionary new product. Not only did it fix and prevent further complications with his son’s feet, but this fast drying liquid also refreshed, soothed, and softened his dry feet.
Made with all natural ingredients called DermaVine®, Toe Juice® also helps with the itching, burning, and annoying irritations often associated with skin problems like psoriasis, eczema, athlete’s foot, and dry patches on the skin. It’s not just for feet; it can be used anywhere for dry or irritated skin. Over the years family friends, family, and acquaintances have benefited from the strength of Royce’s Toe Juice®. Those who benefited from the fast drying liquid often encouraged Royce to take it publi
c. Shortly after the product was brought to market in 2007, Royce received the following feedback from a now loyal Toe Juice® Customer;
“Toe Juice is amazing! My 5 year old daughter has diabetes and got a wart on her big toe. This wart completely took over her toe. We spoke to her pediatrician, who didn’t know what to tell us. He referred us to a podiatrist who referred us to a plastic surgeon. The plastic surgeon said we could use a laser to cut off the wart but it would be a painful healing process that would take some time. Also he said the wart might come back. This option was going to cost between $1,500 to $2,000. We heard about Toe Juice® and decided to give it a try. After just a couple of days the results were amazing. I took pictures and video of the healing process because it was so unbelievable, Within 4 weeks, Toe Juice completely cleared up the wart and others that were starting to spread. This was a miracle for our family”.
Kevin C. – Grateful Father
Since Royce has taken Toe Juice® customers have found the product so overwhelmingly useful, they have shared their experience with the product. Many customer testimonials have been posted on the company’s website at www.toejuice.com. Available nationally in Canada and throughout much of the US, as well as through many web based retailers, Toe Juice is a product no medicine cabinet should be without.
Feel free to contact Jim@cpgbrokers.com for any questions about the Toe Juice® company. Hog Wash® is another product made with DermaVine®. It is a hand sanitizer with remarkable healing properties as well.
This was posted by Jim Embry at www.cpgbrokers.com.
Do consumers turn to social media to make tech-accessory buying decisions in CPG world?
Is social media driving tech accessories purchases?
The answer, at this point seems to be “yes and no,’” according to Chris Ely, manager, Industry Analysis Market Research for the Consumer Electronics (CE) Association, who outlined the results of a new study during the “Tech Accessories in the New Social Paradigm” session on Tuesday at the 2012 International CES in Las Vegas.
CEA conducted a qualitative study of 1,000 U.S. adults who identified themselves as social media users and, on average, spend 32 hours a week on the Internet, of which 8.8 hours are spent on social media sites. The goal of the study was to understand consumers’ attitudes toward social media in general and how they leverage the platform to buy consumer electronics accessories, which is on pace as a category to reach a value of over $ 9.2 billion this year. Not surprisingly, Facebook by far remains the most frequently used social media platform with nearly 8 in 10 ranking it tops for use.
Image via Wikipedias
People are also using social media, albeit to a lesser degree, to find deals.
This, according to Ely, is where businesses have an opportunity to resonate with the consumer. “Promotions and discounts drive people to get involved in social media,” he said. “The fact that people are looking for more deals, can help drive retailer sales,” he said. Ely noted that 55% of consumers are more likely to friend or like a company’s page if there are special promotions offered. Contests also prompt 42% of people to like a page.
And yet, when it comes to accessories, Ely cautioned that most consumers still prefer to make purchases in brick and mortar stores. Social media at this point is often leveraged more for CE device purchases. “I do think social media for accessories is more of a secondary tool,” he said. If people do turn to social media for CE purchase decisions, most are searching by product and brand information about CE devices. Information found on social media sites about store purchase location is one area of interest to accessory buyers, however.
Although CE accessory purchasers are not turning en masse to social media to make buying decisions at this point, the conversations consumers are generating online about their CE accessory purchases are overwhelming positive, with 4 out of 5 comments made online about a CE accessory purchase being a positive one, CEA found. With this in mind, businesses may just need to figure out how to effectively join the conversation.
Related articles
- Infographic: The Social Media Lifecycle (socialmediaexplorer.com)
Success In Marketing- Content Trumps Bells & Whistles
Successful Consumer Packed Goods Marketers Must Remember: Content Beats Flashy Shiny Stuff
A great story from Doug Garnett’s Blog
Here’s an important tech axiom: Software Developers have far more interest in applying application bells and whistles than people have in using them.
I learned this success lesson on my first project out of college.
In that project I designed a network of Apple 2′s to display wire wrap harness instructions for avionics assembly at General Dynamics. (To be clear…while today I’m in advertising, back then I was a software engineer with a degree in mathematics. Gotta love how life deals our hands.)
Successful People all around me were saying that;
“Apple offers color so this project needs to use it”. And, when I noted Apple’s spec that we lost half our resolution instantly, they responded with soft-logic theories that the increased information from color would make up for that loss.
But the spec wasn’t entirely honest. Once I decoded the Apple II display it turned out the spec was only accurate if we restricted ourselves to 3 colors (2 + black). But if we used 8, we would drop our horizontal resolution by 8 and vertical resolution by 4 to 16 times. (This rookie analysis apparently impressed my boss and we worked in green & black.) More importantly, it was the right choice for the human equation we were working with. Wire harnesses for a cruise missile were assembled by people and required accurate connections for large bundles of wires. It goes without saying that making an interface that didn’t respect the workers just to apply the sexiness of color would have hurt product & reliability for…um… well…missiles tipped with powerful explosives (sometimes even nuclear). Read the rest of this entry »
Should Consumer Packaged Goods Track Social Media ROI
Tracking Social Media ROI
This poll analysis was written by Jeremy Victor, editor-in-chief of B2Bbloggers.com. For more of his writing, visit B2Bbloggers.com and follow him on Twitter and Google+.
SmartBrief on Social Media — tracks feedback from leading marketers about social media practices and issues. This week, we asked:
Should Management Demonstrate A Return On Investment For Social Media Efforts?
- Yes: 61.24%
- No: 29.46%
- Not using social media for work: 9.30%
The response to this poll is music to my ears. You should feel pressure. We live in tough economic times, and with that comes the shared responsibility of ensuring long-term survivability of our companies. If you are not being asked to measure and track the effectiveness of social media investment, you should be doing it on your own. Every dollar matters, and ROI as a measurement is vital for directing future activities and decisions.
I’m not quite sure how anyone can justify not tracking ROI. And even worse, some are claiming that executives who do ask for it are hypocrites, as David Meerman Scott did this week in a blog post titled
“Social Media ROI Hypocrisy.” An excerpt:
It’s ridiculous that executives require marketers to calculate ROI (Return on Investment) on one form of real-time communications: Social media like Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. Yet they happily pay for other real-time communications devices for employees like [BlackBerrys], iPhones, and iPads without a proven ROI.
Wait, what? Did he just compare devices used for a 20-year-old, established, universally adopted form of communication — e-mail — with a technology and communication medium that’s about 3 years old (from a business perspective)? That would be like asking, “Why aren’t you tracking the ROI of stamps?” when e-mail first hit the business world. It’s all communication, right? Wrong.
Any new investment is going to come under much higher scrutiny and skepticism than something long established. These executives are not hypocrites. They are smart business leaders. They are simply asking that when an investment in social is made, “Track its value to our company; understand its impact on our customers, stakeholders and bottom line.” You need effective measurements to know what is working, what isn’t and what’s necessary to justify further investment.
While I might agree that some executives are ignorant and use ROI as an excuse for not investing in social, I strongly believe a company’s management is doing the absolute right thing in asking for social media ROI.
What do you think?
Consumers On Tablet Devices: having fun, shopping and engaging with ads
Tablets are for fun, while laptops are for work, both play a role in consumer packaged goods.
Tablets have quickly emerged as a distinct
third digital screen in consumers lives that fill the gap between desktops and smartphones. But there are still many open questions about exactly how consumers are using them. We explored tablet search trends earlier this year, but wanted to dig deeper and answer key questions such as: What are the contrasts between tablet use, laptop use, and smartphone use and how are consumers engaging across these devices? What are the most common activities (playing games, searching, reading, etc.) that tablets are used for? What ads are most relevant and useful based on how people are using the devices? Read the rest of this entry »
A Baker’s Dozen Truths About Brands and Brand Advertising CPG Landscape
Brand has become the marketing religion of our time and takes on outsized importance in every decision. And that leads to a bunch of lists – each claiming to reveal “the” absolutes of brand building.
The following makes no claim about summarizing absolutes. But the more lists I see, the more I love the far more humble and practical sense of brands found among this bakers dozen. And, the more I think they reveal important things that enthusiastic brand enthusiasts seem to have forgotten:
1. Brands build through YEARS of consistent efforts.
Image via Wikipedia
2. No, really. Brands build far slower than anyone wants to think.
3. Building a brand requires not only years, but consistent execution throughout that time.
4. Convincing consumers of a product’s unique value creates brand far more quickly than does lifestyle communication.
5. There are many ways your business can leverage advertising to drive profitability other than “Brand Building”.
6. There are many flavors and types of advertising – all will build brand. That means so-called “brand advertising” may be exactly the wrong way to build your brand.
7. Most brand theorists seem to love exotic and abstract Read the rest of this entry »
Non-Brand Terms in CPG Industry Drive More New Visitors to Your Site
A great guest piece from Dan Schock, Google Retail Team Director
Search as a means of driving sales has evolved in the past few years. As recently as three years ago, most retailers and brands still viewed their “Internet” plan as a means of driving e-commerce. The Internet was a distribution and sales channel measured by its ability to drive online revenues.
Then, as the Internet evolved into a broader media platform where consumers researched, watched videos and compared products/prices, and then often made their purchases in a physical store, many advanced companies began to include offline sales as an additional factor in measuring their overall Search ROI.
In 2011, the most forward-thinking retailers and brands have started looking at a new measurement to calculate the success of their online campaigns: new customer acquisition and the lifetime value of those new customers.
Think about your own search strategy: most likely you bid on as many of your brand terms as possible. And you should: here are customers that know you, who are raising their hands (via “queries”) and asking for information, then converting at a high ROI.
But what about “non-brand” terms: queries higher up the purchase funnel like “makeup”, “detergent” or “paper towels”? These shoppers are still browsing and researching but they’re not converting at the same rate as those searching for your brand terms, so you may either not be buying non-brand terms them or buying very few. Why? – Most likely because you’re hooked on those brand ROIs. Why pay a higher CPC for a lower conversion rate?
I’ll tell you why: because those non-brand terms drive a higher percentage of new customers to your site – and when you consider the lifetime value of those customers they will pay off! Here are people looking for products and services you offer, but did not think to type your brand into the search box. You are not (yet) part of their top consideration set. And look at the advertisers Read the rest of this entry »
