Iconic brands lose their luster

Sadly, yes if you hold those stocks. KHC (Kraft Heinz) is one I have, down to $30. a share or so from
double that. Huge drop. How will it rise again?


Trivia: Heinz never had 57 varieties. The number was chosen because
of the streets in Pittsburgh, I read.

 

They need to find a "crisis" (overused word) that they can fight, like Beyond Meat is in the fight against climate change and animal abuse.

 

Yes they are losing their luster. BUT......I believe that the primary reason is incompetent management. I have watched the Millennial movement over the past ten years or so. The values and ideals that drive the younger suburban moms and Millennials have been totally obvious over that time for all to see. These companies just ignored it all and apparently thought they could just rely on their market share that was created in the 1950's, 1960's and and 1970's. They took their customers for granted. They failed to react to the changes occurring in the younger generations and are paying the price. There is ABSOLUTELY no reason they could not have positioned their products with proper advertising and spokespeople to appeal to the younger generations. Management, the marketing people, PR people, and advertising agencies screwed up and are now playing catch up big time. They allowed unknown and unproven companies and products to steal their market share and never even realized it was happening.

Think of the Campbell product line and it is very easy to come up with product tweaks and advertising lines that emphasize freshness, organic, healthy, children, etc, etc, and all the other millennial platitudes. It would have been very easy for them to capture the younger market if they had not ignored what was happening around them for years. Same with Kraft-Heinz.

Now they will either catch up or will continue to fade. That is how business works.......survival or irrelevance. You have to NEVER lose the WILL TO FIGHT and just coast along on your old reputation. Their dominance over the years became HOLLOW and now has been exposed. They will either fight their way back or will slowly get killed off.......the law of the jungle.

 

I never read that into ADA's post.

I read post #3 as the idea of going long on a trend or movement.

That's how I look at Tesla. Even if you don't believe the climate is changing, if enough people do, there will be legislation and purchasing trends that heavily favour Tesla as the sea, species diversity decreses, and there is a scourge of insects populating more northern latitudes.

In these cases, there is typically an over-reaction. These over-reactions are a tremendous force for a thinker to harness. In this way, I see ADA as being in a position to harness the beyond meat trend, even if he or she is eating a side of beef every day. That, gentlemen, is how an investor does it. Specifically: divorce your feelings and personal ideas from your investment decisions to create the most objective macro view possible.

 

Tom, I don't understand investors but one thing I've learned is that ADA has a knack for understatement and dry humor that plays right into StockJock-e's, the jokester's, hands. You'd never want to play cards against that team.

 

Thanks for the insight. I'm not good with sarcasm or subtle humor.

I wish everyone a wonderful weekend.

 

You're missing the big one: convenience.
How can I eat Campbell's soup at work? I don't have a can opener there.
Don't know why they don't have the easy open cans.

 

EXACTLY.......anotherdevilsadvocate. It is amazing to me that these OLD dominate companies have not led the way with the modern consumer when it comes to advertising, packaging, as you say convenience, etc, etc, etc. You would think they would be conducting consumer research and focus groups, etc, etc, on EVERYTHING, all the time.

 

Blackberry phones come to mind.
They started the smart phone, and never improved it. Lost their asses to newer innovation.