Q1: Retailing appliances has many pain points where customers go through a process of information search, face-to-face inquiry, product demo, delivery and after sales. How is Abenson addressing customer irritants and annoyances? At ABENSON, our mission is to bring the ‘Good Life’ to every Filipino Home. In our 45 year history we have seen how differently our customers’ priorities have […]
Q1: When you were still with P&G Philippines and Singapore, you helped Pampers defend against EQ diapers, regaining leadership in 2003. You also found yourself doing the same for Whisper when you turned it around to win against Modess. What were your strategies then? When does a brand decide to defend or not to defend? A brand’s decision to defend […]
In my previous post, I wrote about the MarkProf Foundation Inc. which has been honing deserving graduating student leaders through a life-changing 7-weekend boot camp in Marketing Leadership. Just recently, MarkProf made official its roster of “Top 25 Marketing Management Trainees of the Philippines” through the graduation of its 11th batch last December 6, 2014. Kudos to the MarkProf scholars who successfully passed the rigorous training. On top of the mind-racing challenges, there was one exciting addition this year, a first in the MarkProf history – the Waters Video Challenge. Part of their overall grades would […]
In 2004, Ding Salvador (then newly–retired ASEAN president of Johnson and Johnson’s) and I put up MarkProf Foundation Inc. to help develop future leaders of the Philippines. We saw some biases happening in the corporate world where hiring of important entry-level positions, including management trainees, was usually limited to three schools, namely: Ateneo, De La Salle, and University of the Philippines (not necessarily in […]
Store retailing is a business that can easily be started. But with the rise of competition and many other risks in this industry, a store retailer must revisit and identify each business factor to have a competitive edge. There are two interconnected elements to have a profitable retail business. The first one is related to marketing while the second one […]
There are ‘marketing disasters’ that can be expected at year-end. One of these is what we call “ritualization”, a term that refers to practices that are wrong but are done anyway in the corporate world. Ritualization, as well as how to solve this, is part of the subject covered in the Marketing and Sales Implementation seminar / workshop Mansmith and […]
Q1: McDonald’s started the fastfood trend worldwide with the insight “people don’t dine, they eat and run.” They created many firsts which are now standard in fast food. What are firsts that McDonald’s has launched in the Philippines? Innovation and relevance are important for McDonald’s to stay on top of a fast-paced industry. Here in the Philippines, McDonald’s introduced the […]
Years ago, the franchise manager of a company was trying to convince me to invest in a barber shop franchise. I figured that a barber shop has a high repeat visit frequency so I was interested to know more. When I asked what was unique about the barbershop, I was told that it would be thematic, with the barbers dressed […]
Q1: I met you close to 25 years ago when you were country manager of Pioneer Hybrid Corn in the Philippines. Now you are Asia Pacific Corn Marketing Head for Syngenta, a merger of the agro division of Novartis and Zeneca. As a veteran in this field, can you share the highlights and developments that has changed the way business […]
The year was 1990. I was a rookie director of the Philippine Marketing Association and was in charge of the youth and academe sector. This position connected me with many marketing professors, one of whom was Prof. Emmanuel Fernandez, then Chairman of the Management Department of the Ateneo de Manila University. He heard me give a short talk in marketing and invited […]