Marketing Profs

Marketers make promises to customers to generate demand. Delivering on those promises becomes a moment of truth in a customer relationship and can have a positive or negative impact on the perception of your brand.

If you deliver an order late, if you can't meet a rush order request or a channel partner fails to properly educate your customer, your brand invariably suffers. In an era of ever-increasing customer demands and impatience, it is your supply chain that often represents a critical opportunity for you to build or destroy your brand.

As Jan Twombly, a principal at The Rhythm of Business, states: “Supply operations are forever directly related to demand; and managers can't treat them as separate.”

However, few marketing and brand executives truly understand their company's supply chain. It is often regarded as either a nuisance or an irrelevance. That is, until something goes wrong or a promise cannot be met. Suddenly, your supply chain's shortcomings become the center of attention.

Should we blame the people who make the promise or the people who cannot fulfill it? It is critical for marketing and supply chain executives to jointly recognize where the supply chain can be leveraged to enhance a brand and where it cannot.

Supply Chain as Foundation for Building Brand Equity

Consider the different experiences of Kmart and Cisco Systems. Kmart's supply chain became a serious brand liability, while Cisco turned its capabilities into a core element of its brand image.

A central aspect of Kmart's marketing strategy was to issue circulars promoting sale items. The mailers drove store traffic and invariably increased sales of other items. However, the marketing efforts were not tied into supply chain operations.

As a result, there were frequent shortages of promoted items. Customers came in to buy the sale item, were frustrated that it wasn't there, and left the store. After several similar experiences, customers began ignoring the circulars altogether. Lack of coordination between marketing and the supply chain generated a brand nightmare.