Who Would Have Thought Selling Bacon Would Be This Hard
I Blame the Marketers Because Bacon's Not the Problem
You’d think positioning would be easy if your product tasted like bacon.
But according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, consumption of pork is declining and no one’s sure what to do about it.
Part of the problem might have been thirty years of positioning pork as:
“The Other White Meat”
In other words, pork is more like chicken (white) than beef (red).
Ok, great.
So pork is cheaper, blander, and easier to cook than beef and you should buy it when you’re tired of eating chicken? Is that the idea?
Yeah, sorta.
And the campaign sorta worked. I mean, after all, pork is more white than red. The slogan appealed to an attribute of the product which is as clear as red and white.
But beyond that surface-level authenticity, the positioning didn’t have much sizzle. It didn’t give you a unique reason to include more pork in your diet other than just…well…it’s the other white meat if you’re dying for a change.
This highlights a key issue to consider when positioning anything - whether protein, products, people, or venture deals. You must position on an attribute people agree on, but you must also be very careful choosing which attribute or else you may find yourself down a dead end street.
The problem with “The other white meat” is both that it pegs the maximum size of the pork market to a subset of that of chicken and that it is non-descript - the one attribute it highlights doesn’t provide much incentive to keep reaching for pork.
A Different Way to Cut It
But it’s easy to criticize. What would have been better positioning for pork?
Let’s start with the most blatantly obvious fact in the universe: bacon is delicious.
Some people would dispute this claim, but those people are wrong…and shouldn’t be trusted.
Bacon is also mostly eaten for breakfast... Oh! Along with sausage! Now we’re getting somewhere. And no, turkey sausage doesn’t count, and don’t even get me started on turkey bacon.
Bacon and sausage go with eggs and pancakes like peas go with carrots. It’s a match made in hog heaven.
So pork already has a corner on the breakfast end of our meat diet. When was the last time you had chicken wings with your oatmeal? Maybe you eat steak and eggs at the truck stop every now and then, but not every day or every week.
This might be true and still not help the pork industry much. Maybe the breakfast market is already saturated. Perhaps there are ways to convince people to trade out more of that granola and yogurt for something that’s a bit more finger-licking good, but it might be that pork has tapped out the breakfast market and needs a new opponent. Maybe you can’t get enough paleo crossfitters to make breakfast a growth market.
Consider, though, people’s mental associations with bacon, sausage, and breakfast in general. For many people, a big breakfast is their favorite thing ever. Maybe they don’t get to eat bacon and eggs every morning, but on Saturdays when they have time, how great is it to throw a slab on the frying pan and anticipate the savory, crispy, juicy, semi-spicy-sweet goodness of a couple (or six) strips of bacon and few links of sausage?
Those are powerful associations. Way more potent than whatever emotions are connected to “white” or “other” in the eater’s mind.
So why can’t the pork industry try something like this:
Here’s the slogan to introduce it…
Pork: Supper can be Savory Too
And here’s the idea…
Pork is the most savory meat and it’s not just for breakfast. If you want to add a flavorful flare to your lunches or dinners, add pork as a garnish [everything wrapped in bacon tastes amazing, or maybe bits of ham in the soup] or as the main course [pork belly, short ribs, pork chops] to transform your meal from dull to delectable.
Importantly, this market position is not directly competing with chicken or beef. You’re not saying “Pork: It’s what’s for dinner” because no one’s going to buy that. But since everyone already believes pork is the centerpiece of the most savory meal of the day, it makes sense to transport some of that goodness to meals later in the day, even if it just means sprinkling real bacon bits on your salad or mixing ground pork with the beef for your spaghetti sauce.
It also has no particular ceiling. I guess it’s possible to go too far in your use of bacon, like if you were to…um…yeah, I can’t think of an example either.
Wrapping up
Positioning is hard in the best of circumstances - even if everyone loves your product. It’s even harder if your solution is not universally adored, but in either case, it’s possible to mess things up. The principles for successful positioning, however, are the same:
You must find an attribute of your product that people already agree with (pork is for breakfast).
But one that doesn’t lead you down some “other white meat” back alley.
And then leverage what your customers already believe in making the case for the next logical step (savory should be invited for supper).
That’s all for now. All this talk of pork has got me hungry, and I’ve got to go clean the drool off my shirt.