Thoughts for Food

With the atmosphere of giving thick in the air this time of year, it only seems fitting that I should turn my attentions to marketing. Marketing? Yes, but a particular case of marketing and its bedfellow, marketing research.

Citizens in Toronto, where I live, have unique challenges both professionally and socially. Now, I’m not bucking for sympathy here, but it is a simple fact that the social safety net in a city the size of Toronto is put under proportionally more strain than in smaller centres, particularly small towns. Quite simply, there are more people who lack any family safety net and could go hungry and die if others don’t do something about it. So what does any of this have to do with marketing? Quite a bit actually, but this year one particular lesson was learned the hard way.

Every year for a number of years now, a Toronto organization known as the Daily Bread Food Bank has held a drive for food that it distributes free to those who cannot afford to pay for it themselves. They take donations year round, but when the fall season hits, they put a huge push on to get stocked up for the winter.

To much of the citizenry of Toronto, the launch of the drive manifests itself in the arrival of a brown paper bag with their daily newspaper. The idea is that people would put a selection of non-perishables in the bags and drop them off at their local grocery store or fire station.

Now, when you’re talking about sending out hundreds of thousands of paper bags, there has to be a cost involved. I don’t know by whom these were borne, but I imagine that in these tight pecuniary times, it was questioned as to whether it was money well spent. So the people at the charity did what any good group would do: they tried to find out.

More specifically, they held a series of focus groups and asked those attending whether the paper bag made any difference to their tendency to give. The answer they got back was that eliminating the paper bag would not change anything. So, taking this feedback to heart, the paper bag was dropped.

The results could only be termed disastrous. Food donations trickled in. Even the huge bins at grocery stores remained only partly filled. The program was at 50% of its target. For a company selling a product, such a debacle could cost a fortune. For a charitable organization such as a food bank, it can cost lives.

The damage control was immediate and, not surprisingly, involved 90,000 paper grocery bags and lots of volunteers. At my grocery store, the volunteer was a very attractive, outgoing woman who happened also to be in a wheelchair.

The strategy worked like a charm, because the donations were literally overflowing. In one week, the charity went from disaster to being even year to year, though still a bit shy of its goal of about 400,000 kg of food. This is a good thing, but what has been learned?

The paper bags will be back next year, but what happened with the focus group? I don’t believe anyone lied in those groups, but it does beg the question what use they are if they can be so wrong. Perhaps they were just asked the wrong question. Maybe people’s intentions weren’t changed, but the mechanism for acting on them was–without the paper bag, how do you make a donation?

Research is extremely valuable, but it is also wise to check the data against your own experience. People say they want all the goodies on their new car, but then don’t buy one because it’s too expensive. Garages say they will pay anything for a good technician, then claim they can’t find one who’ll work for what they’re willing to pay. A garage owner will push for price, then switch his business when a counterperson moves. Consumers say they want premium products, but many just buy the cheapest they can find.

Nobody is lying; they just don’t know their own mind. Knowing intentions is great; focusing on actions is better. It’s food for thought, anyway.

P.S. Have a very happy and safe holiday season.

Feedback: aross@jobbernews.com