[ahoyhere]

You say they got angry calls, but you didn't talk about the difference in sales.

How did they brand the change?

Did they reposition the food items in the store?

Did they redesign the packaging?

Did they market the better food in the same way as the crappy old food?

How long did they give it the stuff to see if it would sell?

If you've been previously selling to misers with no taste, and you want to expand (misers with no taste are not loyal but they are loud), you have to not just change the product but the ecosystem.

Of course people bitch. People will bitch your ear off for any change. Every good manager knows this.

The question is: does it sell? And if it doesn't, are you doing all you can do to help it sell?

Just adding more is a local optimization. If you want to change the bigger picture, in a situation like that, you have to upgrade your customers... to people who will pay more. Which means your existing customers are likely, yes, to bitch. But, as you said, the brand was already dying so maybe its current customers aren't the right ones.

You can't switch Alpo with Finest Steak and expect to charge dog owners more money. Doesn't work.

[jnorthrop]

Those are all excellent questions. Unfortunately I don't have all of the answers. I know he test marketed the changes and that it failed -- it never made it to a full national roll-out. The way he tells the story is that he tried improving the quality of the food and promoted it on the package but kept all other variables equal (most notably price) and it was met with disgruntled customers and sales suffered. I guess I can say that this was a prepared meal product -- Ultimately what worked was sticking with the low quality ingredients, including more of them and ditching the veggies. In the end he did turn the brand around with this strategy.