Published: Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 12:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, January 13, 2013 at 2:02 a.m.
Chris Groom, 40, who took over on Jan. 2 as vice president of sales and marketing at Florida's Natural Growers in Lake Wales, the nation's third largest seller of orange juice. He succeeds Walt Lincer, who retired as the chief marketing officer after 32 years at the citrus growers' cooperative.
Groom's path to Florida's Natural led from his 1994 bachelor's degree in economics and Hispanic studies at Northwestern University in his hometown, Chicago, through marketing positions in those four diverse industries. He also earned a master's degree in international business in 1998 from the University of South Carolina.
Groom joined the Lake Wales company as a marketing executive on April 1, 2011, after seven years with Sargento, the cheese products company based in Plymouth, Wis. Previously, he worked in marketing at Ferrara Candy Co., owner of the Brach's brand; the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. of Winston-Salem, N.C.; and New York-based CitiBank.
The Aurora, Ill., native entered the business world after teaching Spanish and coaching baseball and basketball for two years at a high school in the neighboring community of Oak Park.
Groom said he wasn't looking to leave Sargento when an executive search firm contacted him about the Florida's Natural job. But then he and his family had vacationed several times in Florida, and the warmer climate attracted them. So too did Florida's Natural, which as a cooperative owned by Florida citrus growers seemed close to working for the family-owned Sargento.
"I was a big fan of the (Florida's Natural) brand. I definitely thought it was a strong brand," Groom said. "I had a good feeling based on the similarity of the companies and my experience. I liked working for a family-owned company."
Career advancement was also a major factor, he said. While he wasn't promised the job as Lincer's successor, he knew he could compete once the promotion became possible.
"The business momentum was and is very good," he said. "They (cooperative officials) weren't looking for a change agent or a turnaround artist, and that fit me well."
His previous marketing positions also worked to his advantage because they involved working closely with the sales staff, giving him experience with retailers and distributors, Groom said. Marketing there and at Florida's Natural also involves selling directly to those companies as well as to consumers.
Steve Caruso, Florida's Natural CEO, agreed those qualities represented some of the key criteria the cooperative had established when it began the executive search.
"It's all about marketing to retailers. That's what gets you close to your customers," Caruso said. "It wasn't like we had to start over (on marketing). We were riding pretty high, and we wanted to someone to take us to the next level."
The cooperative finished the 2011-12 citrus season with some record financial results, including a record 21 percent share of the U.S. market in the not-from-concentrate (NFC) orange juice category, placing it close to No. 2, the Minute Maid brand owned by the Coca-Cola Co. of Atlanta, but farther behind No. 1 brand Tropicana. NFC is a chilled, ready-to-pour product not reconstituted from frozen concentrated OJ.
Florida's Natural had received hundreds of resumes for the position, Caruso said, and Groom was among the 20 people officials took a close look at. Groom stood out because of his particular marketing experience and his skills as a communicator, which includes working with people.
Two local marketing experts agreed the Florida's Natural program certainly does not require a major overhaul.
"In order to bust out to compete with Minute Maid and Tropicana, they have to have a differentiation strategy. In the long run that will be most successful because it allows you to charge more," said Larry Ross, a marketing professor at Florida Southern College. "In general, they do a good job at it."
Differentiation is one of two basic marketing available, Ross said, and it's used successfully by companies such as Mercedes Benz to create a brand reputation as a premium product that's worth the higher price. The other basic strategy is to compete on price, such as McDonald's and Wal-Mart.
The differentiations strategy can be particularly effective with "millennials," the generation born from the late 1970s to about 2000, he said.
Millennials, estimated at 73 million people, represent the second-biggest consumer demographic in the U.S. behind the baby boomers, Ross added, and they are entering their prime years for consumption. Among the characteristics driving millennials' consumption are environmental concerns and fresh, locally produced food.
The current Florida's Natural TV spot has several features that would appeal to millennials, he said.
Using computer-generated images, like video games, the 30-second spot starts with a gloved hand, representing a grove worker, holding at first a tiny plant that changes to a flower pollinated by a bee, then a growing orange that becomes a carton of Florida's Natural OJ. It ends with the gloved hand passing to carton to a woman's hand, the consumer.
The narrations includes words such as "uniquely fresh and delicious," "Florida's Natural oranges are never imported" and makes several references to the OJ's Florida origins, an appeal to local food.
Ross said he particularly liked the spot because it doesn't pander, which would turn off millennials, yet subtly hits the right themes in words and images.
"This Florida's Natural campaign featuring back-to-the-earth and ?It's a fresh product,' plays into the millennials beautifully," Ross said.
Dipayan Biswas, associate professor of marketing at the University of South Florida who specializes in brand management and sensory perception in marketing, agreed with Ross on the effective use of the environmental and locally grown themes and of computer graphics. Those characteristics have appeal beyond millennials, he added.
"The Florida's Natural ads have cross-segment appeal," Biswas said. "I've always liked their ads. They're always visually appealing."
Groom married his wife, Alvida, a Lithuanian native who works as a freelance photographer, in 2002. They have three children: a son, Tommy, 10, and daughters Sophie, 8, and Anika, 5. They live in Winter Haven.
[ Kevin Bouffard can be reached at kevin.bouffard@theledger.com or at 863-401-6980. Read more on Florida citrus on his Facebook page, Florida Citrus Witness, http://bit.ly/baxWuU. ]
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