Right, let's talk about Gaucho – Tunisia's beloved gaufrette enrobé that's managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with a series of marketing blunders that would make even the most incompetent brand manager weep into their KPI dashboard.
For years, Gaucho had it all figured out. A simple, powerful positioning statement: "Gaucho yighlib il jou3" (Gaucho defeats hunger). Brilliant. Direct. Functional. The kind of no-nonsense promise that builds brands and wins wallets. They even fought tooth and nail to maintain their 100 millimes price point, showing admirable commitment to accessibility – proper marketing, that.
But then? Well, then the marketing department seemingly lost their collective minds.
The Jobs-to-be-Done Disaster
Let me introduce you to a little framework called Jobs-to-be-Done, which apparently nobody at Gaucho's marketing department has heard of. The theory is simple: people don't buy products, they hire them to do jobs. Gaucho's job? Defeat hunger. Simple as that.
But here's where it gets tragic. While slowly bumping prices from 100 to 300 millimes (perfectly reasonable, by the way – inflation is real, people), they simultaneously shrunk the product to about two-thirds of its original size.
Do you see the problem? Of course you do, because you're not running Gaucho's marketing department.
They've created a positioning-product disconnect that would make a first-year marketing student blush. You can't promise to "defeat hunger" with a product that's getting smaller by the quarter. It's like McDonald's promising to "feed your family" while serving Happy Meal portions to adults.
The product can no longer deliver on the brand promise. Game over.
The Consistency Crime
Now, if shrinking the product while maintaining the hunger-defeating promise wasn't bad enough, they've committed what I consider marketing's cardinal sin: they've abandoned their core message.
Les Binet and Peter Field – proper marketing scientists, unlike the charlatans peddling growth hacking nonsense – have shown us repeatedly that consistency is king. Memory encoding, mental availability, brand salience – it all depends on hammering the same message, year after year, decade after decade.
Look at Kit Kat: "Have a break, have a Kit Kat." Decades of the same message. Boring? Perhaps. Effective? Absolutely.
But what does Gaucho do? They go quiet on their core promise. Stop mentioning "yighlib il jou3" in their advertising. Absolute madness.
The Flavor Distraction
Faced with declining sales (shocking, I know), Gaucho's response was to launch chewing-gum and brownies flavors. Now, I'm not entirely opposed to line extensions – they can work when done properly. These variants target kids and inject novelty into the brand. Fair enough.
But here's the thing: new flavors don't solve fundamental positioning problems. They're tactical band-aids on strategic wounds. You can't innovation your way out of a broken brand promise.
The Emotional Void
The final nail in Gaucho's marketing coffin? They've abandoned emotional advertising entirely.
Binet and Field again – emotional advertising drives long-term brand growth. It creates positive sentiment, builds mental availability, and generates the kind of brand love that sustains businesses through tough times.
But emotional advertising requires consistency, patience, and a deep understanding of your brand's role in people's lives. Qualities that seem to be in short supply at Gaucho HQ.
The Way Forward
So what should Gaucho do? It's blindingly obvious:
First, fix the size-promise disconnect. Either make the product bigger or change the positioning. You can't have both a shrinking product and a hunger-defeating promise.
Second, return to consistent messaging. Bring back "yighlib il jou3" and hammer it home in every piece of communication. Build mental availability through repetition.
Third, invest in emotional advertising. Remind people why they fell in love with Gaucho in the first place. Create positive sentiment that transcends rational purchase decisions.
Fourth, use the flavor extensions strategically. Position them as fun variants while keeping the core product as the hunger-defeating hero.
The Lesson
Gaucho's decline isn't about pricing or competition – it's about fundamental marketing failure. They've broken the cardinal rules of brand building: consistency, emotional connection, and delivering on promises.
The tragedy is that they had everything right for years. A strong positioning, consistent messaging, and a product that delivered on its promise.
This is what happens when you let the finance department drive brand strategy and confuse marketing with advertising. Gaucho didn't need new flavors – they needed to remember what made them successful in the first place.
Sometimes the best marketing strategy is simply not screwing up what's already workingmise. Then they threw it all away in pursuit
of... what exactly? Cost savings? Innovation for innovation's .
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