The forgotten P

Most B2B marketers spend far too little time thinking about product distribution.

📸 First, flashback to January 2023 when I told you DeadHappy was dead wrong. This week, they shut their doors. Marketing - great or terrible - matters.

👉 Now, read on to learn why:

① Place is often given little more than a cursory mention in B2B strategies.

② In B2B, the thinking about ‘place’ is predominantly about partners.

③ Finance continues to mistreat women and is losing talent as a result.

④ The future of asset management will be tokenised.

⑤ Merely catching up isn’t product differentiation.

⑥ Poor managers have fewer and fewer places to hide.

⑦ Senior leaders continue to be guided by the Stoics.

What's new

Coffee snobs recoiled this week at the news that Nespresso was to challenge Pret and Starbucks with a cafe near Liverpool Street station.

In short:

“Nespresso has opened its first cafe near Liverpool Street station, joining the likes of Pret A Manger, Starbucks and Costa in the coffee-to-go market.
The coffee capsule brand opened its first ‘Nespresso Bar’ [Thursday] on Old Broad Street near the busy London transport hub.”
“Coffee is a £19bn industry in the UK, and the on-the-go market is highly competitive. Nespresso said some 80 per cent of coffee drinkers visit a coffee shop at least once a week in the UK and over 12.8 billion cups of coffee were consumed outside the home last year. A hot latte at its new Liverpool Street will cost around £4.15, a similar price to Pret and Starbucks.”
“Anna Lundstrom, chief executive at Nespresso UK and ROI, said: ‘The Nespresso Bar represents an exciting opportunity to reach new customers in a new way; with an elevated customer experience combined with the joy of coffee discovery’.”

Why it matters

① Every business school student has the marketing mix’s four Ps drilled into them early: product, price, promotion, place. But, if we’re honest, after graduation that last P is often forgotten or given little more than a cursory mention in our B2B strategies. Nespresso’s move matters because it demonstrates how rethinking ‘place’ (or, more accurately, distribution channel) can reap rewards, even for the most commoditised of products.

One thinks of Nespresso as an ‘at home’ product. Indeed, that was its very selling point when it first came to market: its product innovation delivered ‘barista quality’ coffee in the comfort of your kitchen, at a fraction of the price of a coffee shop, and without the hassle of grinding then cleaning up coffee beans. What is the brand now doing selling coffee in the very way its initial positioning argued so compellingly against?

The answer is growth. Having saturated the ‘at home’ market its positioning could be stretched without risk and Nestle saw an opportunity to take a page out of Chris Zook’s ‘Beyond the Core’ to generate new revenue. This strategy has the added benefit of raising brand awareness, as customers and passers by are reminded to order Nespresso capsules for use at home - the mirror opposite of Starbucks, which has long been selling its branded capsules in supermarkets.

What to do about it

Take action

② How can this be applied to your business? The consideration of how your brand and product should reach its customers applies to us all. Whether you’re offering financial services or technology, in the B2B world, the thinking about ‘place’ is predominantly about whether you sell direct or via partners.

So, in this short week before the Easter break, why not take stock of your partner strategy? Some considerations:

The right partners: Do you understand what makes a good partner for your business? Size, approach, culture all have a bearing on how the relationship will work.
A clear programme: For each of the different types of partners you want to attract, have you developed a clear structure? Is it easy for them to understand who to work with you?
Incentives: Partners need benefits and incentive plans; are yours compelling?
Sales enablement: Partners won’t be able to sell your product without help. Have you produced the right collateral for them?
Evaluation: Partners represent your brand and your endorsement of them creates repuational risk. Are you regularly assessing their suitability and researching their reputation amongst your customers?

And while we’re thinking about Ps, it’s worth considering the extra ones - people, process, and physical evidence - but maybe that’s a post for another Sunday…

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Top stories

The other articles that are worthy of your time.

FINANCE

How Stephanie Cohen went from ‘all in on Goldman Sachs’ to goodbye

③ Finance continues to mistreat women and is losing talent as a result.

Source: The Financial Times, 22 March 2024

“When Stephanie Cohen joined Goldman Sachs right out of college 25 years ago, even her fellow analysts could tell the fast-talking Chicago native was going to go far. Fizzing with energy, she was ‘scarily smart’ and thrived on the long hours investment banking required.”
“That record made Cohen’s announcement this week that she was leaving for IT service provider Cloudflare particularly depressing for many Goldman women. The departure of someone routinely described as ‘all in on Goldman’ has exacerbated concerns among bankers and recent alumni that the bank’s efforts to diversify are stalling out at the top. One very senior banker noted that rival JPMorgan Chase has two female executives just below longtime leader Jamie Dimon, saying: ‘It’s possible that there will be a female CEO at JPMorgan, before there is another woman running a division at Goldman. And that’s depressing’.”
“Cohen’s departure makes her the second woman on Goldman’s management committee to announce plans to leave in recent weeks. Beth Hammack, the other female member in a revenue producing role, is departing after she missed out on the chief financial officer job. There are six other women and 17 men listed as committee members. Other recent women who have left include Margaret Anadu, now with Vistria Group; Heather Miner, now with Advent International; Katie Koch, now chief executive of TCW; and Dina Powell McCormick, now at BDT & MSD Partners. Last year, Goldman also paid $215mn to settle a long-running lawsuit alleging that parts of the bank had underpaid and failed to promote lower-level women for years.”

TECHNOLOGY

BlackRock claims tokenisation first

④ The future of asset management will be tokenised and public.

“The world's largest asset manager, has taken its first step into the world of tokenisation. BlackRock has launched its first tokenised fund on a public blockchain.”
“The BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity fund will be issued on the Ethereum blockchain.”
“Registered in the Cayman Islands, the fund has a minimum investment level of $100,000.”

MEDIA & MARKETING

Lessons from HSBC Zing's launch

⑤ Merely catching up isn’t product differentiation.

Source: The Fintech Marketing Hub, 22 March 2024

“The lack of a distinct target audience, coupled with generic messaging, creates the impression that Zing isn't aiming to expand the market but rather compete within the existing space. This scenario could potentially lead to a ‘shrinking pie’ for established players.”
“Simply focusing on product functionality is not enough. Zing messaging falls short of offering a unique value proposition compared to its competitors. To truly stand out, the brand needs to collaborate with marketing and identify a clear ‘why’: a functional and aspirational idea that resonates with the target audience and drives them towards tangible, actionable outcomes.”
“Wise's response to the competition's launch showcased a strategic PR move. By welcoming Zing and embracing the media hype, they cleverly leveraged the opportunity to reinforce their brand personality, create engaging content, and showcase their products.”

WILDCARD

Why young workers are refusing to leave their job quietly

⑥ Poor managers have fewer and fewer places to hide.

Source: The Financial Times, 18 March 2024

“Gen Z workers in particular are posting videos of online calls in which they resign or are made redundant on social media sites such as TikTok as they wage a campaign of workplace transparency. Tech workers and schoolteachers are the source of many of the videos but they have also been posted by blue-collar workers. The vast majority of the people behind them have been women.”
“One motivation for these company leavers is to boost their own social media presence — some of the videos have been viewed millions of times — but the trend is also a way to expose, and change, what the employees view as poor working conditions or bad treatment by bosses.”
“The effects of the videos are already being felt in tech companies and the HR sector. Executives, employment lawyers and outplacement firms — which sometimes carry out redundancies for companies — do not want to become the butt of a viral TikTok. The trend has forced some employers to up their game when it comes to staff communication and the way they carry out job losses.”

The Artificial Intelligence Spotlight 🔦

Magic Eraser: Remove unwanted objects, people, text in seconds.

Castmagic: Turn conversations into content.

Opus Clip: A generative AI video tool that repurposes long videos into shorts in one click.

Off cuts

The stories that almost made this week’s newsletter.

The last word

⑦ Hannah Lewis, UK Country Manager, AmEx on the best business advice:

Hannah Lewis, American Express. Source: Evening Standard

“You should control what you can control and don’t get distracted or disheartened by what you can’t.”

Don’t settle for marketing.

Strive for InMarketing: innovate, interact, influence.

Wishing you a productive week,

P.S. I popped in to my local pub for lunch yesterday only to discover it’s gone digital: QR code on the table, orders taken by app, payment via digital wallet. If you’re off to the pub for lunch today, may yours be less tacky and dehumanising.