Connolly Dishes Un-Common Sense

To run a brand takes common sense, said Bob Connolly, former executive vice president of marketing and consumer communications for Wal-Mart. "The problem that you have, I have, that McDonald's has, is that when you're embedded in the business on a day-to-day basis, you lose common sense," said Connolly, speaking before a crowd May 18 at the Institute's In-Store Marketing Summit. In his no-nonsense speech, entitled "Understanding the Consumer-Retailer Relationship," Connolly riffed on brands and retailers that ignored common sense. If not corrected, the mistakes made can ultimately damage a brand's equity and push consumers away."Your brand equity is your life," Connolly said. Companies must do everything they can to extend, protect and in some cases simplify their brand."Brands give you the right to change people's minds -- that is, if the brand has equity," he said. "If it doesn't, then many retailers won't be selling it. The trust in that brand and the credentials in that brand are so important." A brand's equity is its ultimate connection to the consumer, according to Connolly. For Wal-Mart, caring for its own brand equity and identity comes before the hundreds of brands within its stores. "The Wal-Mart brand is more important because the equity in Wal-Mart is wider than any single brand. 70% of our advertising is on our brand."Contemplating common sense, Connolly noted a humorous example of a store plaza in Bentonville, AR, with 16 store fronts that included a salon, a bank, and other businesses -- all struggling to survive. Each store has about four employees, for a total of 64 people, but the parking lot only has 68 spaces. "It's common sense."Connolly didn't leave Wal-Mart unscathed. He flashed an image of a rack of stacked denim jeans. Standing next to it was a woman who would need about four stools to reach the top. "You gotta think like a customer," he said. "There's no way she could shop the top two rows."Stressing the need to protect a brand, Connolly spoke about Toyota's recent recall of more than 750,000 trucks and SUVs due to problems with the suspension. "Toyota is, in my opinion, at the cusp of a major issue," he said. "If they don't fix it, trust me, in 10 years they will be a totally different company. Your brand is very important."Connolly said Toyota should act fast and overcompensate when fixing the problem to protect its name. "I think they should protect that brand, and go way overboard...Their brand is quality. It's not speed or luxury or performance -- it's quality."For Wal-Mart's brand, the in-store experience is monumental. The retail leader gets about 120 million transactions a week, he said. "There's nothing on TV, including that hot program Idol, that comes close to getting 120 million viewers."With that kind of traffic in mind, Connolly said it's imperative not to throw more complexity at the American consumer. The shopping experience needs to be simpler and less jarring. Connolly cited Wal-Mart's in-store radio, in-store television, employees with irritating voices yelling for price checks over the loudspeaker, and finally the promotions and P-O-P. "The complexity that retailers put on the shopper has become enormous," he said. "It concerns me."Connolly said it will come down to the retailer and the suppliers to simplify the store. "Do you really care whether your catsup bottle is shaped this way, or that way? Do you really need a cereal box to be 22 ounces and 24 ounces? We have to work through that stuff."Connolly cited his former employer Montgomery Ward in another example of how a brand can go wrong. He said the company spent loads of money trying to convince shoppers to come into the store. "We spent $650 million on advertising. That's a lot of money, about what we spend at Wal-Mart, but we didn't have a brand equity," he said. "Brand equity is what the customer expects it to be. It's not what you want them to think it is."

Connolly Dishes Un-Common Sense

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