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Useful Articles and Resources

The AI Shortcut That’s Quietly Commoditizing Your Product

Same training data. Same patterns. Same instinct to land on the most statistically likely answer, which is just a polished way of saying the most average one. That's not an edge. That's the starting line everyone in your category is standing on now, including the private label manufacturer about to undercut you with something "good enough." Differentiation lives in the value chain walk: the irritated customer, the channel partner getting squeezed, the white space a competitor's roadmap quietly abandoned. AI can summarize a value chain. It cannot walk alone.

Marketing

Why Shiny Channels Won't Save a Hollow Product Experience

The article argues that Canadian marketers, particularly younger professionals entering the industry, are falling into a recurring trap: choosing their communications channels before they have clarity on their message or product experience. Written from the perspective of a senior industry practitioner with three decades in Canadian consumer goods, it makes the case that a sophisticated media mix cannot compensate for a weak value proposition, and that the real strategic work begins with deep consumer understanding, grounded in how people actually use products and navigate retail environments. It then introduces AI as a diagnostic tool for surfacing behavioural patterns and building precise audience segmentation, which in turn makes channel selection a data-driven decision rather than a reactive one. The piece closes by challenging emerging marketing professionals to be the person in the room who redirects channel-first conversations back to consumer insight, and positions the CPIOC Marketing Communications Management programme as the place to build that kind of commercial credibility.

Consumer Products Industry

Sales

Nobody Buys a Shovel Because They Want a Shovel

Nobody buys a shovel because they want a shovel. They buy it because they need a hole and most vendors are still showing up to buyer meetings talking about the blade. There's a fundamental difference between selling a product and delivering an outcome. Between bolting on extras to justify a price point and designing a complete solution from the start. Most BD and sales professionals were trained to do the former and their buyers know it. This article breaks down why the features-and-benefits framework is a relic, why "value-add" is an admission of incompleteness, and what the shift to outcome-based selling actually looks like in practice.

Marketing

Retail

Professional Development

Brand Managers and Promotions

Every time you run a promotion, you win the week and lose the brand a little. That’s the trade most brand managers in Canada’s consumer products industry are being asked to make right now, not because they don’t understand the risk, but because the way their organizations measure success makes it very difficult to choose otherwise.

CONSUMER PRODUCTS
INSTITUTE OF CANADA

Useful Articles and Resources

The AI Shortcut That’s Quietly Commoditizing Your Product

Why Shiny Channels Won't Save a Hollow Product Experience

Nobody Buys a Shovel Because They Want a Shovel

Brand Managers and Promotions

Company

Legal

Social

CONSUMER PRODUCTSINSTITUTE OF CANADA

Useful Articles and Resources

The AI Shortcut That’s Quietly Commoditizing Your Product

Why Shiny Channels Won't Save a Hollow Product Experience

Nobody Buys a Shovel Because They Want a Shovel

Brand Managers and Promotions

Company

Legal

Social

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CONSUMER PRODUCTS
INSTITUTE OF CANADA