Why Fear Based Advertising Wins
Brands and businesses are talking more than ever about the environment. The percentage of ads tested by Kantar LINK with some sort of social or environmental message (SEM) held steady at 2 percent or less from 2010 to 2019. From 2020 to 2022, it tripled to 6 percent, and is at 5 percent year-to-date. That…
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How Occasion Segmentation Powers Growth
Market segmentation is fundamental to marketing. Segmentation is evergreen when it comes to building and managing brands. J.M. Smucker, purveyor of jams, jellies, Jif peanut butter, Folgers coffee, Uncrustables, Carnation evaporated milk and pet food items including Milk Bone dog biscuits and Meow Mix, has just purchase Hostess brand snack foods. Hostess makes Twinkies, Ding…
Managing And Growing Product Portfolios
Most firms, and the managers who operate them, seek to grow. Indeed, a review of most CEO letters associated with annual reports, finds growth to be one of the two most frequently identified objectives (the other is cash flow). Growth, or at least well-managed, profitable growth, is important for many reasons. It makes the firm…
The Rise Of Budget Luxury Brands
Recently, Ian Schrager, entrepreneur, hotelier and co-founder of famed Studio 54, decided to create hotels that are luxury but without the services and amenities. Mr. Schrager’s hotel vision is luxurious experiences that do not depend on multiple on-site staffers and niceties. His vision is a segment he calls Economy Luxury. According to Mr. Schrager, the…
Building Brands For Now From Then
In 1994, when Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras wrote Built to Last, they were referring to Visionary Habits of Successful Companies. Their highly influential book focused on the results of a six-year research project into what makes enduringly great companies. Their stated goals were: “to identify underlying characteristics that are common to highly visionary companies” and…
Building A Successful Event Brand
Do people line up for LEGO events for blocks? Would a ‘World Origami Championship’ be aired on Paperview? I’ll speak to that below, and as a spectator and ‘puntestant’ (my stage name is Kenny Dewitt – ‘Can-He-Do-It’) I can tell you Punderdome is amazing and a shining example of a successful event brand. Since 2011…
Build Brand Loyalty Not Deal Loyalty
This is a brand-business truth. To be considered fair value and not be perceived as cheap, brands must avoid excessive marketing communications that emphasize price as the reason to buy. Excessive emphasis on price builds deal loyalty. Building deal loyalty does not build brand loyalty. Deal loyalty is not real loyalty. True brand loyalty cannot…
The Growing Power Of Small Brands
Small brands are back in the hunt. Kantar Worldpanel’s tracking of brands around the world that are growing finds a big jump year-over-year in the percentage of growing brands accounted for by small brands. If big brands were growing in equivalent relative numbers, we wouldn’t see a shift in percentages, so this tells us that,…
The Winning Strategy Of Unbounded Brands
Understanding the difference between “bounded” brands and “unbounded” brands is how toddler companies become unicorns. Most companies provide their Users with solutions to their problems and slog away at becoming better, faster, cheaper, stronger, more powerful, more engaging, easier to use, better fitting, frictionless. These companies compete with other enterprises within their vertical: whether it’s…
How Informed Creativity Propels Brand Leaders
Brands face the challenges of optimizing contradictory customer needs. This is because customers do not want to compromise one benefit for another. Leaders face the same challenges. Leaders must figure out ways to maximize seemingly uncompromising views, such as focusing on profitability and sustainability. Or focusing on core customers’ views while satisfying other customers’ views….