What You Refuse to Sell Says a Lot About Your Brand
At a time when Amazon and many of its retail competitors rush to sell anything under the sun, it’s fascinating for CVS to earn headlines…
At a time when Amazon and many of its retail competitors rush to sell anything under the sun, it’s fascinating for CVS to earn headlines for what it refuses to sell. And it just might be a better way to build a brand.
The CVS brand is mainly known as one of the largest pharmacy retailers in the U.S. For most of us there is a CVS store within a 5-mile radius of our home or work (we share a wall with one at our Ahalogy office). The problem is that there are probably a dozen other places that sell the same products and fill the same prescriptions within that same radius — not to mention the hundreds that would be happy to send these same products to your home via online orders.
Facing pressure to stand out, CVS chose to differentiate itself around health — an area where it certainly has a right-to-win. But instead of simply coming up with a new TV campaign, the company decided to make a stand and became the first national pharmacy retailer to remove cigarettes and other tobacco products from its stores. It was shocking in its brilliance, and earned national PR coverage for months afterwards. While it lost $2 billion in tobacco sales, the company’s stock soared nearly 20% in the following quarter. Perhaps most importantly, a study showed that total cigarette sales dropped 1% in markets where CVS operates.
Since then, CVS has continued to make news by doing what’s right for the health of its customers. In 2017 the company stopped selling sunscreen with less than 15 spf, moved most candy away from the storefronts, and eliminated foods that contain artificial trans-fat.
Last week, CVS announced that it would hold beauty brands to a higher standard by creating a “Beauty Mark” for advertising and product imagery that has NOT been significantly altered. Brands in the category will be held to a similar standard. This is an acknowledgement that mental health is part of its mission, too, and could be the start of an important trend in the market.
Choosing When Not to Sell Matters
Chick-fil-A has been closed on Sundays since 1946 because of its founder’s desire for customers and employees to spend a day of rest and worship. It is a very real decision to limit sales in an incredibly tough quick-serve restaurant business, and you can’t drive by without noticing the “Closed Sundays” sign.
But the decision hasn’t stopped the chains massive growth, and its ability to out-sell KFC by 4x on a store-by-store basis. You might disagree with its owners’ politics, but it certain is another decision that has a point-of-view behind it.
REI similarly saw an opportunity when its competitors tripped over each other to open earlier and earlier around Thanksgiving. The year that major retailers like Target and Walmart announced they would be open on Thanksgiving itself, REI did the opposite by closing for Black Friday, its largest sales day of the year, and encouraging its customers to #OptOutside. It was a decision that crystalized a national debate and clearly spoke to those the brand serves.
A Lesson from Influencer Marketing
Last year as our company continued to grow in Influencer Marketing, we increasingly faced issues in which customers asked us to match a model that our competitors use. Nearly everyone in our industry relies on inflated and largely false “reach” measures that are based on social follower counts of influencers. We avoided that approach from the beginning, which meant our guaranteed impression numbers were lower on average. Clients who preferred our company felt pressure from their clients and superiors to match others’ inflated numbers and some asked us to cut corners.
It didn’t take our team long to refuse to go along with the crowd. We have always believed in being honest with our clients, and we felt that the pressure to base influencers’ value on follower count has been led to a situation similar to doping in the Olympics.
We went in the other direction and decided to double down with innovation. We launched the first, and still only, third-party verification solution in Influencer Marketing and baked this into every campaign we run at no extra charge.
We still hear stories about competitors who are faking their numbers. A sales person from a competitor recently told me that she was quitting her job, “Because I’m tired of lying to my clients.” Another competitor publicly claims that a small influencer campaign drove 891 million impressions — that’s nearly 3 impressions for every man, woman and child in the U.S.! We just keep our heads up and smile while brands and agencies shift business our way.
It’s Really About a Bigger Benefit
Company strategy is obviously behind the decisions on what not to sell, and the examples above are all supported by stronger revenues and brand equity. However there may be a bigger benefit: Decisions like these help create and strengthen your company culture. This is incredibly important in an era where rising Millennials (and the rest of us, really) desire to work for a company that has meaning.
And as Southwest Airlines founder, Herb Kelleher said: “Culture is what people do when no one is looking.” Companies that make big, tough decisions despite market pressure can inspire thousands of their employees. I expect that employees at CVS, REI, Chick-fil-A, and our team at Ahalogy make millions of smarter, better decisions every day because of broader examples of doing the right thing.