By Leo Valiquette

A trip to the grocery store that inevitably ended up being an extended exercise in reading and comparing nutrition labels got me thinking about the importance of paying close attention to how you are perceived in the marketplace, what you consider to be your competitive differentiators and how they stack up against the offerings of your rivals.

It all began with soya sauce, or rather, the quest to find a sodium-reduced option, soya sauce being one of those things we sometimes like to apply liberally with little regard for the hypertensive consequences.

The first thing I saw on the shelf was VH, a well known brand for all manner of sweety and salty Asian condiments. One tablespoon of its regular soya sauce has a whopping 48 per cent of your daily recommended sodium intake. Beside it was VH’s salt-reduced alternative, still at 32 per cent.

Next was Kikkoman, the mainstay that seems to have the restaurant industry locked down. Its regular brew has 38 per cent, while its reduced-sodium alternative has 24.

And then there was the humble President’s Choice store brand. Its regular brew (there wasn’t a reduced option on the shelf) has a mere 22 per cent. It trumped both of the major brands with its regular offering.

And while the store brand is generally cheaper, when I saw that number on the label, I didn’t even bother to compare prices before dropping the PC soya sauce into the shopping cart. Neither price, nor brand prominence, was relevant to me as a consumer. What mattered was that the PC brand gave me the better option as a matter of course, rather than trying to pander to my health-conscious concerns with an alternative product that still didn’t cut the mustard upon closer inspection.

The moral of the story? At a time when at least some areas of the economy are starting to turn around and and prospective customers have begun to spend again, it is crucial to listen to your marketplace and invest the time and effort necessary to ensure you are giving it what it wants, not just on the surface, but deep under the hood. Because you can rest assured that your customer base will still hold any expenditures up to the harsh light of scrutiny for some time to come.

Your product or service must deliver what it promises on the label, not to your satisfaction, but in accord with the perceptions and expectations of your customers.

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