John Riley has led Sales and Marketing groups successfully in Fortune 25 and small companies in the Foodservice, Supermarket Deli, Consumer Packaged Goods, and Industrial products channels. He can be reached at 262-369-9187.

Back in college in Economics 101 we were taught that the product life cycle curve looked like a traditional bell curve. Products moved through four major phases of their life cycle. These four phases included introduction, development, maturity, and decline. Many of us naively believed that this life cycle was an absolute that applied to all products. I have come to believe that the shape of the life cycle curve in Foodservice is fundamentally different than the shape of the curve as it was taught to us in Economics 101.

Launch media explains the rapid run up of volume during the introductory and development phases of the life cycle curve as taught in macro economics. This accurately represents the introduction of a mass media driven consumer product. We buy media and drop coupons to deliver our message to prospective consumers with the objective of informing the greatest number of potential buyers of the advantages they will realize with the purchase of our product. We seek to maximize GRP’s, (gross rating points), and Reach (new consumers reached) in order to get our message into the marketplace as quickly as possible. This stimulation of demand, if done well, drives consumers to the retail seller (supermarket, department store, etc.) seeking to buy the product advertised.

This differs from the situation presented by most traditional product launches in foodservice in two major ways:

1. Media – there is no mass media vehicle that reaches foodservice operators in a way that can stimulate trial as effectively as consumer media.

2. Slotting – it is possible and normal to buy shelf space at retail through slotting allowances. Thankfully, this practice has not made the jump to foodservice. The result creates a “which comes first” problem. The distributor does not want to slot an item until there is sufficient volume to justify the space. Without distribution sales is forced to sell a product that is not readily available through normal purchasing channels.

Consequently, the introductory phase takes place one customer at a time. Instead of mass communication effectively reaching the target audience over the course of two weeks, we have a long process that reaches our target audience over the course of a year or more. These extended launch and development phases change the shape of the foodservice product life cycle curve, producing a long run up as we sample and sell the product into the marketplace.

The payoff for accelerating the launch and development phases is significant. If we can change the shape of the launch and development phases we would see higher maturity phase volumes and profits materializing more quickly.

We have tried direct mail, phone solicitation, and internet contact with mixed results. I have not yet identified the secret to fast, effective, mass communication with foodservice operators, but I continue to experiment with combinations of communication techniques applied to internally generated and publicly available operator data bases. I am convinced that this problem can be solved, and when it is, the payoff will be great.