'Killing the Zombies'

Recently, I've been reading about Coca-Cola's strategy for the coming year. I started thinking that, however large or small the organisation, there are many similar challenges in making decisions about our product range.

It began with an article written by Rachel Arthur for 'Beverage Daily' https://www.beveragedaily.com/Article/2021/02/11/Coca-Cola-on-2021-innovation-pipeline-and-pandemic-recovery-plan, which reported on CEO James Quincey's presentation in February at a Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference. 

I read with interest that Coca-Cola planned to reduce its brand portfolio by 50%. I'll admit that many of the products mentioned in this article are relatively unknown to me, making it easy to assume that these were just unsuccessful brands. Still, I thought about how much money was committed to establishing these brands in the first place and that they must have achieved some success, or they would indeed have discontinued the lines years ago.

So how does this related to the restaurant sector? How often is a dish retained that doesn't justify being on the menu just because we thought that it was a good idea at the time or that a competitor was enjoying success with a dish, so we created our version, which turned out to be a poor imitation?

Should we not adopt the same ruthless approach and be prepared to cut our range if a dish doesn't achieve a prescribed number of unit sales?

Further coverage of the same presentation, by Elizabeth Crawford https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2021/02/23/Coca-Cola-Co.-shifts-innovation-in-2021-to-favor-big-bets-while-saving-space-for-experimentation#, focused on James' statement that "Innovation must be more than just flavour extensions."  The subject of 'Innovation' made me think about the number of times I've worked on campaigns for a 'menu refresh' where the only difference to the previous menu was the inclusion of one or two 'new' dishes, a change to the salad ingredients and the addition a new sauce option to the grills.

We're often surprised by new brands' success, not least because their menus offer dishes that we never imagined would be successful. Still, we can't complain about the erosion of our market share unless we're prepared to innovate as well as kill our own zombies.