MYM&M’s® Case Study - Marketing
Price Testing that avoided 70% industry drop during 2008 recession.
Tim was responsible for identifying core customer need states, revenue retention, marketing attribution, and the creation of two new products in 2006 and 2007. In 2008 he stepped back into marketing for three months to drive price testing that identified a pricing platform that outperformed business as usual by 3X.
Core Actions:
Built a database and hired temps to review personalized orders and classify by need-state.
Discovered that pre-launch market research’s need state was less than 1% of actual sales.
Discovered gift-giving and party/event need states would be primary drivers.
Dispelled the myth that there was not a viable B2B target.
Responsible for the decision to pilot two new products: MyTeams (NFL) and Faces.
Piloted and sold Faces for 12 months before officially launched as a product.
Optimized production process to negotiate better pricing with finance department.
Leveraged corporate agreement with NFL to pilot teams’ logos and colors at NFL Draft.
Free PR by creating additional personalized bags for ESPN commentators.
Led sales and distribution changes to retain consumer demand from 70% to 99%.
Reduced on-time failures to reduce cancelled orders by over 95%.
Reduced delivery failures to reduce returns and refunds by over 99%.
Designed, executed, and analyzed multi-variate and multiple round prices tests.
Tested bundles, minimum quantities, price per bag, and cost of shipping to find 300% winner.
Winner launched right before recession. Our primary competition lost 70% sales and dropped out for years.
We were able to maintain sales level o better market contribution despite 2-point margin reduction.
Why This Matters …
This isn’t a theoretical discussion about the value of fighting for customer value, testing, and leading the financial business model conversation. This is the real-life application of why Marketing needs to be at the table leading these conversations.
Finance was pushing for eliminating the money back guarantee instead of the hard work of fixing the failure rate.
Everyone was focused on price per bag instead of loaded basket price at checkout. Track conversion holistically.
Had to optimize operations and reclassify work areas to avoid pricing new products out of consumer demand bands.
Forced leadership to look at full P&L instead of just margin after conversion. Marketing contribution is success criteria.
When Tim talks about having to reframe the narrative and belief system, he knows what he is talking about. These were high leverage conversations that required standing up to “this is how we do this” beliefs that didn’t apply in this unique value proposition. Finding and socializing data is critical. Understanding why people buy your product is foundational.
