Waking the Giant E-Book

Peter Steidl

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

Seitenzahl: 248

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Brand maturity is not inevitable. Waking the Giant challenges current thinking and practice when it comes to achieving growth with mature brands. This book convincingly demonstrates that the challenge of revitalising a mature brand is just as exciting -- and requires just as much ingenuity and innovation -- as launching a new brand. While major mature brands still dominate many categories, margins and growth opportunities are often less than exciting. The critical question is: milk the brand, or revitalise? And, just as important: is your organisation fully committed to, and able to deliver on, your chosen strategy? Inside you'll discover: * the merits of revitalisation and milking strategies, and how to choose between them * how to renew positive differentiation for a mature brand * how to implement a revitalisation strategy and eliminate outdated work practices that could ruin your plan * how to align your revitalisation strategy with the consumers' and industry sector's evolutionary trends.

Leseprobe

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I: Making the Commitment

Chapter 1: Before we Start, is it Really Worth the Effort?

Occupier Brands

In Favour of a Milking Strategy

In Favour of a Revitalisation Strategy

Revitalise or Milk?

The Monopoly Brand

Key Points

Chapter 2: Abolish Work Practices that Cause Maturity

Mixing Tactics and Strategies

Benchmarking: Copying What Others are Doing

Non-Proprietary Technologies Driving Innovation

Meaningless, Incremental Innovation

Delivering What the Market is Asking for

What is Marketing’s Future?

Key Points

Chapter 3: Adopt New Work Practices

The Importance of Work Practices

From Determinism to Flexibility

Building the Ingenuity of the Organisation

From Traditional Market Research to Leading-Edge Methodologies

Chapter 4: Move From Expert to Intuitive Strategy

The Problem: The Future Looks Less Like the Past

Expert and Intuitive Battle Strategies

Expert or Intuitive Strategy to Revitalise Your Brand?

How Can We Strengthen our Intuitive Decision Making?

Key Points

Part II: Revitalisation Strategies

Chapter 5: Deliver Delights

Key Points

Chapter 6: Throw your Master Brand into Battle

Primary Brand

Master Brand

Key Points

Chapter 7: Brand Vision Archetypes1

Who the Brand Wants to be Known as

Finding the Right Brand Vision Archetype for the Mature Brand

Key Points

Chapter 8: Use Symbolism

Making the Tangible Intangible

Making the Intangible Tangible

Key Points

Chapter 9: Move From Exposure to Engagement

What’s New?

The Need to Change Work Practices

The Importance of Strategy

Key Points

Chapter 10: Don’t Engage in Channel-Neutral Planning

Key Points

Chapter 11: Change the Rules of Competition

Change is all Around Us

Why are the Desired Benefits Changing?

Can We Proactively Change Criteria?

Key Points

Part III: Selecting the Strategy that’s Right for you

Chapter 12: Is your Brand Revitalisation Strategy Aligned with the Industry’s Evolutionary Path?

Industry Evolution

Conclusions

Key Points

Chapter 13: Is your Brand Revitalisation Strategy Aligned with the Consumer’s Evolution?

Consumers’ Ability to Deal With Complexity

The Flynn Effect: We are Getting Smarter

The Evolution of Consumers’ Values

Trade-off Decisions

What is a Great Experience?

Key Points

Chapter 14: Is your Brand Revitalisation Strategy Changing the Brand Construct in the Consumer’s Mind?

How the Mind Works

Brands are Memories

What is Remembered?

How we Remember

The Asymmetrical World we Live in

Revitalising Mature Brands

Priming

Key Points

Epilogue: Just do it!

Recommended Reading

Index

First published 2009 by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd 42 McDougall Street, Milton Qld 4064

Office also in Melbourne

Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro 11.5/14.5pt

© Peter Steidl 2009

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Author: Steidl, Peter.

Title: Waking the giant : revitalising the mature brand / Peter Steidl.

ISBN: 9781742169521 (pbk.)

Notes: Includes index.

Subjects: Branding (Marketing) Branding (Marketing) — Management.

Dewey Number: 658.827

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.

Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based upon the information in this publication.

Acknowledgements

Some five years ago I co-authored a self-published book on the revitalisation of mature brands with Kim Boehm, a long-standing friend and colleague, then Managing Director at Young & Rubicam Melbourne. It was great writing with Kim, but he has since taken up the position of Managing Director at Clemenger BBDO Adelaide and I found myself facing the challenge of mature brands alone this time.

Much has happened since our earlier collaboration. In particular, there are three aspects I have given special attention to in this book. First, I note that it is not uncommon for executives to mix elements of a revitalisation strategy with a milking strategy. This is not likely to work. It is therefore important to go through a proper evaluation of the merits of these alternative strategies and to then make a decision either to milk or to revitalise.

Second, there is extensive research that shows that strategy development is often not the key issue. Rather, the problem is implementation. More often than not, mature brands are owned by mature companies — companies that use outdated processes and tools, being able to absorb inefficiencies and second-rate strategies because of their size and market power. It makes sense to identify and eliminate work practices that foster a brand’s maturity before focusing on strategy development. There is little point in implementing a revitalisation strategy while, at the same time, the company continues to work with outdated processes and tools that accelerate maturity.

Third, I felt that strategy selection deserves special attention. It is, actually, not that difficult to identify a range of revitalisation options. It is much more difficult to select the strategy or bundle of strategies that will deliver the best return.

The result is, I hope, a reasonably comprehensive and useful perspective on the revitalisation of mature brands.

While my name is on the cover, there are a number of parties who have contributed in significant ways. As mentioned, Kim Boehm has been my partner-in-arms at my earlier attempt to address the revitalisation of mature brands; Vija Blumbergs has tirelessly reviewed early drafts and provided advice on structure and focus; my colleague Valerie Lim prepared relevant case studies.

Geoff Wild, Chairman of WPP Group (Australia); Kathy Keele, CEO, Australia Council; Kathy Barber, General Manager — Consumer & Market Insights, Foster’s Group Ltd; and Glenn Myatt, Group Marketing Manager, Underwear & Hosiery Group, Pacific Brands, reviewed a draft manuscript and provided feedback and encouragement.

Raja Kanniappan, Group M’s CFO Asia–Pacific and Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Strategy.Applied series supported my effort absolutely; John Petropoulos and Mark McCraith, both senior Mindshare executives, allowed me to dedicate time to write this book. Importantly, I want to thank my publisher, Katherine Drew, who championed the project within John Wiley & Sons, and the Wiley team that has contributed significantly to the book you now hold in your hands.

Finally, I want to acknowledge my indebtedness to the many experts, marketing practitioners, academics and consultants who have undertaken groundbreaking work that has allowed me to learn more about the revitalisation of mature brands. My gratitude goes to them and to my clients who have allowed me to contribute to their own revitalisation efforts, creating learning opportunities for me.

This is the second book in the Mindshare Strategy.Applied series, published by John Wiley & Sons. Management is about managing change and, given the rapidly changing environment, many executives find that short-term quarterly results and day-to-day challenges absorb so much of their day that it is difficult to set time aside to think about broader strategic issues. The Mindshare series aims at providing management with easy-to-read, focused input addressing some of the major challenges they face. This book is an attempt to deliver on this promise. I hope I have succeeded and thank all those who have helped me on the way.

Dr Peter Steidl

April 2009

Introduction

We are in the middle of a recession. One might well ask: why write a book on the revitalisation of mature brands at a time when the focus in most companies is on adapting to the recessionary environment rather than implementing grand, long-term strategies?

There are a couple of reasons for this.

In my recent book on recession strategies, Survive, Exploit, Disrupt: action guidelines for marketing in a recession (John Wiley & Sons, 2009), I pointed out that times of significant change make it easier for corporations to disrupt the way they are doing business. In many organisations, a recession disrupts conventional marketing practice as the company responds to revenue and margin pressures by cutting costs, simplifying processes, and discontinuing marginal product lines or high-cost innovation programs.

These adaptations and changes are typically erratic, as they are reactive rather than proactive. This is not a criticism. It is near impossible to predict how the market and competitive environment will change during a recession, so companies have to continually adjust their strategies, structures and processes in response to often unexpected and dramatic changes in the operating environment.