Grow the Core E-Book

David Taylor

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 256

Beschreibung

Grow the Core stands conventional wisdom about business growth on its head and provides a proven formula for growing your business in recessionary times. These days, it's a common belief among business leaders across industry sectors that the best way to grow their businesses is to expand into new markets. In reality, virtually all top-performing companies achieve superior results through a leading position in their core business. Unfortunately, there's very little in the way of practical advice on how to do this. Grow the Core shows you how tofocus on your core business for brand success, with a program of eight workouts road-tested by the author's consultancy, the brandgym. The book provides inspiration, practical advice and proven tools for building and strengthening your core business. It is packed with case studies from brandgym clients, including Mars, Friesland Campina, SAB Miller and Danone. The book features exclusive brandgym research, in addition to front-line experience on over one hundred brand coaching projects.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Thanks

Introduction

Part I: Why Grow the Core?

Chapter 1: Defining the core

What is the core?

Anchoring the core

 Key takeouts

Checklist 1. Defining the core

Chapter 2: Stretching the brand, forgetting the core

Getting it right … brand stretch can work – Apple

Getting it wrong … brand ego tripping – Virgin

Snow White and the 17 dwarves

Neglecting the core – Bausch & Lomb

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 2. Neglecting the core

Chapter 3: The case for the core

Two ways to make a million – Heinz soup

The case for the core

A new marketing mind-set – Scooty

The challenges of growing the core

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 3. The case for the core

Part II: Grow the Core Principles

Chapter 4: The core growth drivers

Core growth driver 1: Penetration

Driving penetration with distinctiveness

Fresh consistency – James Bond

Driving penetration with distribution

Core growth driver 2: Premiumisation

The Grow the Core workouts

The best brand in the world – Nespresso?

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 4. Core growth drivers

Chapter 5: Renovation or re-invention?

Renovate the core – Walkers

Re-position the core – Lucozade

Re-define the core – Bertolli

Re-invent the core – Kodak and TomTom

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 5. Renovation or re-invention?

Part III: Grow the Core Workouts

Chapter 6: Workout 1: Bake the brand into your product

Bake in your brand – The Geek Squad

Using product to grow your core 1: Amplify a product truth – Morrisons and Castle Lite

Using product to grow your core 2: More of what you want – McDonald's

Using product to grow your core 3: Less of what you don't want – Walkers

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 6. Renovation or re-invention?

Chapter 7: Workout 2: Create a distinctive identity

Identity crisis

Being the 1 in 1000

Balancing freshness and consistency – Tropicana

Updating your identity – Nivea

Creating your identity – Charlie Bigham's

Suggesting a benefit – Waitrose Essentials

Re-positioning – Green & Black's

Adding value – Molton Brown

Packvertising – innocent

Family ties – Nescafé and Red Bull

Amplifying brand properties – Felix

Five-minute focus groups

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 7. Create your own identity

Chapter 8: Workout 3: Communicate with cut-through

Communication breakdown

Fresh consistency

Think like a TV producer

Creating a campaign – Sainsbury's

Refreshing what made you famous – Hovis

What about social media?

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 8. Communicate with cut-through

Chapter 9: Workout 4: Go beyond promotion to activation

Grab and go – innocent's Big Knit

Creating an activation property – Carling ‘Be the Coach’

Amplifying the property – Nike

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 9. Go beyond promotion to activity

Chapter 10: Workouts 5 and 6: Drive your distribution

Workout 5: Existing channels

Workout 6: New channels

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 10. Drive distribution

Chapter 11: Workouts 7 and 8: Extend the core

Delivering a double whammy

Workout 7: Pack extension – WD-40

Workout 8: Product extension – Ryvita

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 11. Extend the core workplan

Part IV: The Grow the Core Workplan

Chapter 12: Grow the core – getting started

Stage 1: Insight

Stage 2: Ideas

Stage 3: Exploration

Stage 4: Action

 Key takeouts

 Checklist 12. Grow the Core workplan

References

Also by

By David Taylor and David Nichols

By David Taylor

By David Nichols

Index

© 2013 David Taylor

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Taylor, David, 1964-

Grow the core : how to focus your core business for brand success / David

Taylor.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-48471-5 (hbk)

1. Brand name products–Management. 2. Product management. 3. Strategic planning. 4. Branding (Marketing) I. Title.

HD69.B7T396 2013

658.8′27–dc23

2012042402

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-118-48471-5 (hbk) ISBN 978-1-118-48468-5 (ebk)

ISBN 978-1-118-48469-2 (ebk) ISBN 978-1-118-48470-8 (ebk)

Thanks

First and foremost, thanks to the brand leaders with whom I have been lucky enough to work on Growing the Core. A special mention to the Marketing Directors who have invited me to coach them and their teams on their portfolios of brands: Ian Penhale at SAB Miller, Phil Chapman at Kerry Foods, Carol Welch at Jordans Ryvita, Maria Grigorova at Mars, Steve Brass and Bill Noble at WD-40.

Thanks to the Wiley team for helping create the brandgym series of books that allow us to share our branding tips, tools and tricks with a global audience. In particular, thanks to Claire Plimmer for securing the initial go-ahead to publish Grow the Core and to Iain Campbell for his excellent editing input and advice.

Thanks to my old boss and marketing mentor Mark Sherrington for publishing an earlier, shorter version of Grow the Core in eBook form on his digital publishing platform, Shoulders of Giants.

Thanks to Professor Byron Sharp for his breakthrough book How Brands Grow, which has been a source of inspiration, especially opening my eyes to the importance of distinctiveness and penetration.

A special thanks to my brilliant business partner and buddy David Nichols, who, yet again, gave invaluable feedback to focus and sharpen the key ideas.

Thanks to the other brandgym partners, Anne Charbonneau in Amsterdam, Diego Kerner and Silvina Moronta in Buenos Aries and Prasad Narasimhan in Bangalore for their input and ideas.

Finally, thanks to the people who read the first six books in the brandgym series and took the time to write and tell me that you liked them and found them useful. Your positive feedback kept me going when the going got tough writing this book.

Introduction

A strong core is essential for success. This is true for brands as much as it is for physical fitness. An increasing number of people in your local gym are trying to improve their ‘core strength’ by working out the muscles deep in the abs and back that help keep the body stable and balanced.

In the same way, a strong core is also important for keeping a business healthy and in shape. Indeed, most successful businesses are built on a solid foundation of a core business where they have a leading position. Timberland might sell a range of clothing and accessories, but the original Timberland boot is still crucial from both a business and brand image standpoint. The same goes for Dove and its little white cleansing bar and Hellmann's with its original mayonnaise. Growing the core has many advantages. By selling more of the stuff you already do well, you grow without adding complexity. Instead, you make what is strong even stronger, both in terms of brand equity and economies of scale.

However, despite the advantages of growing the core, companies that successfully do this are in the minority. Research shows that many companies neglect their core business and, in doing so, miss out on opportunities for profitable growth (1). Instead, they over-rely on stretching away from their core with new products or services. Like the favourite elder child, brand stretch gets all the love and attention. Now, brand stretch can drive growth, as shown in my earlier book, Brand Stretch: Why 1 in 2 extensions fail and how to beat the odds. However, companies under-estimate just how hard it is to stretch into a new category and take on an established brand leader in its core market. This is why the brand stretch graveyard is over-flowing with failed launches, such as Levi's suits, Bic perfumes and Cosmopolitan yoghurts. Worse still are the new launches that survive but end up being ‘brand dwarves’; small products or services that add little in extra sales, but increase complexity for retail partners, consumers and the company itself.

All of this risks dilution of core brand equity as the brand has to communicate multiple benefits. It also creates fragmentation of the brand's sales, with these being spread over a larger number of smaller products, often leading to a dilution of profitability. It can also provoke a dangerous decline in the core business, owing to resources being diverted to support the ‘new toys’. Marketing budget is taken away from the core, but just as important is the tendency for the best talent in the team and senior management to be distracted from the core business.

In contrast, growing your core makes what is strong even stronger, both in terms of your brand and business, and it does this without adding any complexity. However, if growing the core is so powerful, why is it underutilised? Well, one reason is that it can just seem less sexy than new product development. Innovation with a capital ‘I’ is what hits the headlines, with companies feeling compelled to create new products and services that take their brands in new directions. The tendency in the past has been for new launches to attract a greater share of the rewards and faster career advancement for those involved.

Another reason growing the core is often forgotten about is because it's actually hard, requiring just as much, if not more, creativity than designing and launching new products. Most marketing people have been trained on how to develop, test and launch a new product. If you need some help, there are 45 000 books about innovation on Amazon, plus countless conferences and seminars to attend. In contrast, there is little or no practical advice about selling more of the stuff you already make. This is clear from the blank looks I get when I ask a typical team to create 10 ways to grow their core, without new products or services. That's where this book comes in.

The first part of this book answers the question ‘Why Grow the Core?’. In the first chapter I address the important task of Defining the core, which companies often find is not straightforward. You will see how to do this based on identifying your brand's ‘source of authority’, often the product that made you famous in the first place, and your ‘source of profit’. Stretching the brand, forgetting the core explores the risks of over-relying on brand stretch for growth, both in terms of the high failure rate and the risk of resources being diverted from your core to fund brand stretching. Part I ends with The case for the core, exploring the advantages of this route to growth, including how it reinforces what made you famous and creates economies of scale.

In Part II, I introduce the Grow the Core Principles. First, you will be introduced to the three growth drivers that can help you grow your core business. The first driver is using distinctive marketing to create ‘fresh consistency’. Consistency comes from creating and amplifying distinctive brand properties that work as a unifying force. Freshness comes from waves of marketing activity that deliver ‘new news’, including communication, product and activation. The second driver is increasing distribution to make the core available in more places, using both existing and new channels. Importantly, these first two types of core growth both help you sell more stuff, ‘SMS’ for short. They require no additional products or services, but rather increase revenue from what you already have. The third and final growth driver is core extension, both through new packaging formats and products. I complete Part II by exploring the difference between renovation and re-invention. This will help you assess the right balance between freshness and consistency for your core, based on the health of your brand and the category in which it operates. At one extreme, there is the need to renovate a healthy brand; at the other end is the most challenging case of all, re-inventing the core to respond to dramatic and potentially deadly changes to the market as a whole.

In Part III, I explore in detail the six Grow the Core Workouts. The first four workouts focus on distinctive marketing using your product, identity, communication and activation. Next is how to use distribution in both current and new channels. I then explore how to extend the core via added value products and formats.

In Part IV, I share A workplan to Grow the Core. This practical guide will help you implement the principles and workouts in your business. You will discover how to get deep Insight about your brand, business and consumer and use this as fuel for generating Ideas to grow the core. The Exploration stage reveals the best ways of bringing these ideas to life and exploring them with consumers. Finally, in the Action stage you will discover a novel approach to priority setting that borrows from the world of venture capital.

As with the previous six books in the brandgym series, Grow the Core is meant to be a practical business-building toolkit. It should live on your desk, rather than sitting on a shelf or by your bedside table. Keep it close by. The emphasis is on tips, tools and tricks that have been road-tested on real-life projects with my consultancy, the brandgym. Every key point is illustrated with at least one brand example to bring it to life. Visit brandgymblog.com to find more detail on the case studies, including examples of TV advertising, and packaging and digital activation.

Part I

Why Grow the Core?