October 15, 2008 9:13am
Posted in: Company Profile , Low Empathy Companies , Low Empathy Spotlight

Kraft is a beloved brand for kids and parents all over the world — especially kids who practically live on macaroni and cheese. Cheap cialis generic: like a lot of very successful packaged food companies, however, Kraft is also an organization that looks to sensory tests and focus groups as the ultimate arbiter of quality of its own products.Such a focus can lead to problems.It’s the mentality that led Maxwell House to dramatically reduce the quality of its own product during the early 1960s in order to keep prices low for consumers, which led to long-term problems for the American coffee industry.

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1.   Katherine Says:
    December 15th, 2008 at 9:52 am

   When I think of Kraft, I think of unhealthy over-processed individually wrapped slices of cheese. As a kid I loved that stuff, but with today’s health epidemic (child obesity and diabetes) I question Kraft’s commitment to its consumer’s real longterm needs.

2.   Alonzo Canada Says:
    December 15th, 2008 at 10:28 am

   Kraft is one of those companies that continue to befuddle me. While they have made small moves to stay current with the times and people’s aspirations to eat more healthy, they’re’ do so at an alarmingly slow pace. We’ve been witnessing a massive food movement in the US for the better part of ten years, yet Kraft’s portfolio fails to reflect this.

   Kraft, like many companies, relies on ‘data’ rather than ‘intuition’ to make important strategic decisions about how to craft offerings that solve people’s big needs. And like many companies, it’s plagued by bad decision making that looks at reams of market research data in blindly obtuse and dense PowerPoint decks to make these important decisions about what its business should do for customers.

   If Kraft hired brand managers that were passionate about its products, managers that actually ate Kraft’s products rather than just sell them, and encouraged its them to spend more face time with its customers in their homes around the dinner table, they would have moved much more quickly to capitalize on people’s need to eat more healthy food. This would have allowed Kraft to refresh its portfolio of outdated, stodgy food brands to a stable of food brands more current with people’s needs today, thereby allowing it to lead the market instead of lag.