Showing posts with label Brand Relaunch/Renovation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brand Relaunch/Renovation. Show all posts

23.10.20

Never Standing Still | Hong Kong Ballet




Agency: Design Army

Client: Hong Kong Ballet

Country: Hong Kong

In 2018 a new artistic director took the helm at Hong Kong Ballet, facing dwindling membership, a city in turmoil, and perceptions that ballet was for the elite. After successfully rebranding in 2018, the goal for the Ballet’s 40th anniversary was to establish it as a national institution and reach new audiences.

The strategy was to blend traditional and pop culture to celebrate the Ballet’s heritage and innovative spirit. Design Army’s work helped increase subscriptions by 33%, and elevated Hong Kong Ballet’s position as a cultural institution nationally and one of the most vital ballets in the world.


AirPods – Bounce | Apple



Agency: Apple / TBWA\Media Arts Lab / Apple / TBWA\Media Arts Lab\Apple / Framestore

Client: Apple

Country: United States




Bounce captures what it feels like to experience the extra burst of freedom provided by the even-more-wireless new AirPods. In the film, the whole environment of a city becomes a trampoline, turning a young man’s everyday commute into a wonderful musical experience.



5.12.19

5G Today







Client: ZainKSA
Agency Network: Leo Burnett MEA (Middle East & Africa)
Published/Aired: U/K
Posted: Dec 3, 2019

30.9.14

TNT rebrands.



TNT Express is a division of TNT. The TNT Express company was formed when the TNT Group separated in 2011, creating two separate companies Post NL and TNT Express.
TNT Express kept the TNT name as part of the deal and TNT Post, (a Post NL company) agreed to rebrand by the end of 2014.
Design Bridge has rebranded delivery company TNT, positioning it as The People Network and creating a circular device which represents “perpetual motion”.

Design Bridge says it was asked to define a new strapline that would convey TNT’s new strategy and culture, and to design a new logo and brand expressions, which would “reflect TNT’s vision”.
A new strapline, “The People Network”, reflects the company’s aim to connect people and businesses in a “truly personal, rather than purely professional manner”, according to Design Bridge.
The consultancy hopes the new strapline will help “galvanise the ‘challenger’ spirit of those working internally at TNT”, as well as TNT customers.
TNT chief executive Tex Gunning, says: “Customers are not barcodes and we are not robots. We all relate to what drives our customers: business growth with a personal touch. Taking time to understand what customers really need distinguishes us from others. We are The People Network.”

The new identity is held within a cropped circle device giving the impression of being part of a journey and of “perpetual motion moving through the world” says Design Bridge.
TNT Post rebranded  earlier this month in a project led by Sutcliffe Reynolds Fitzgerald.

Postal service TNT Post rebrands as Whistl

The TNT Group separated in 2011creating two separate companies, Post NL – Whistl’s (TNT Post’s) parent company – and TNT Express. The deal meant TNT Express retained the TNT brand name and TNT Post agreed to rebrand by the end of 2014.
Sutcliffe Reynolds Fitzgerald managing and creative director John Sutcliffe says the consultancy has worked with TNT for 25 years and won the work on the strength of this.
Sutcliffe says that Whistl wanted its new brand to be “much more human, friendly and consumer facing”.
Whistl is already rolling out an expansion plan increasing its “end-to-end” delivery service, which it says means more postman on the streets making domestic deliveries as the company shifts its focus from a pure business-to-business service. 

Whistl hopes to increase staff levels from 3,000 now to 20,000 by 2019.

“That’s why Whistl needed to be softer and more approachable”, says Sutcliffe – “There are postmen walking up people’s drives.”
Senior designer Simon Grigg says that the name Whistl is musical and evokes “a posty’s whistle”.  The identity is based on the Tondo typeface and the typeface for headlines is a version of Gotham Rounded, which Grigg says works well for screen and print.
Sutcliffe says that the orange brand colour is being kept from the TNT Post brand as Whistl “wanted to keep something from the past” and because “orange fits – it’s bright, warm and human”.
Other brand and campaign elements include a 1.8m whistle built by a prop maker at Pinewood studios for Whistl ads, and the commissioning of David Morris, “the world’s top whistler”, Sutcliffe says. 

5.3.12

The Story of Keep Calm and Carry On


Barter Books created a short film that tells the story behind the iconic ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ poster. From it’s creation to it’s rediscovery to it’s meteoric rise to global icon.




30.4.11

Alternative Apparel| Rebranding


Problem: Alternative, Alternative Apparel, Alternative Earth. This brand has 5 different names and multiple websites. But when you say, Alternative Apparel, people wonder what kind of American Apparel product extension you’re talking about. That’s a problem for premium priced clothing company selling basics.
Insight: Inspiring creativity is the common thread through all of Alternative Apparel’s messaging. All creative people have to deal with the blank page and the first mark. The moment of creation.
Solution: Refocus the brand to their original mission–to create the world’s best T-Shirt. So we recommended that they drop the “Alternative” and just be “Apparel.”
We want to emphasize the brand’s muted soft cotton clothing. Letting their clothes become the blank slate of a wardrobe. So that creatives can dress quietly but create loudly.
Their messaging, clothing, website and in-store will all emphasize the infinite potential of a blankness.

New Proposed Branding:

Proposed Website

New Website Homepage

New Website Shopping Page

Flagship Store Design

New flagship store design
Catalogue
Redesigned Catalogue
Redesigned Catalogue

Old Branding:


Logo Evolution: Original Logo, Updated Logo, Our Proposed Logo


Old Website
AD: Sarah Kraus
CT: Josh Souter
CW: Adam Aceino (wrote, edited and co-shot video)
Brand Manager: Lisa Scotti
Planner: Jennifer Martin
CD: Kelly O’Keefe

31.1.11

Saab is Back


Saab is running a series of print advertisements in the Wall Street Journal, the first instalment in “The Story of Saab,” a multi-media, multi-faceted national advertising campaign, which will include online ads written by Saab fans. The Swedish manufacturer virtually disappeared in the United States market less than a year ago, as its parent company at the time tried to sell it. Led by its entrepreneur CEO, Victor Muller, Saab was purchased by Spyker Cars N.V. nearly a year ago. Saab is now once again regaining its place as an independent and viable automaker in the minds of potential consumers. The campaign will continue with a television commercial, premiered on the Saab Facebook site. Facebook followers will be asked to write ads for the company, one or more of which will be used in future online advertising.
“A Cold Day in Hell is an Average Day in Sweden. Go ahead. Tell is it can’t be done. They said a car company founded by aircraft engineers would never fly. We didn’t have the sense to listen. In 1947 we put a wing on wheels and never looked back. In the ’60s if you wanted to compete in rally racing, they said you needed a larger, high-powered car. We won back to back World Championships with nothing more than a little family car. In the ’70s they said turbo power wouldn’t work in a mainstream production car. We not only tamed the turbo, we changed the industry forever. In the ’80s they said four-seater convertibles were a thing of the past. We built a cult classic. Fast forward to last year, they said out best days were done. But once again ears must not have been working. Because today, Saab is back. We’re an independent company flying higher than ever. Case in point, the all-new Saab 9-5 Sport Sedan. The most advanced Saab ever built. To be followed this spring by the capable 9-4x Sport Crossover. Soon after than, an entirely reinvented lineup. And we have a lot more coming out of Sweden after that. Just don’t expect any of it to follow convention.”
“Nicht German. We mean no disrespect to our Bavarian neighbors. After all, German luxury cars are some of the finest in the world. But here in Sweden, Saabs are designed for a different kind of driver. Take our all-new 9-5 Sport Sedan. Born and bred just north of Germany, it forgoes flash for understatement. Tempers power with efficiency. And favors passion over price. Its look is influenced by Scandinavian design with technology inspired from simple intuition. The all-new 9-5 wears its heritage on its sleeve. Get behind the wheel and you will feel it. This is a proud, intelligent, beautiful Swede.”
“A funny thing happened on the way to our funeral. We were reborn. This is the story of the rebirth of Saab. Nothing makes you appreciate life quite like a near-death experience. Last year, we had one. In January of 2010, Saab was slated to be closed. The cars millions of drivers had loved for over sixty years were to be no more. But then something miraculous happened. Those same passionate drivers who loved our cars began to rally around our company. From Egypt to Thailand, Australia to America. Saab fans around the world organized to show their support. And it worked. Their outpouring of dedication inspired businessman Victor Muller to look deeper. Needless to say, he liked what he saw. Saab had great cars on the road and a full pipeline of new products on the way. We had one-of-kind technology and state-of-the-art facilities. Most importantly, we had fans who would go to the ends of the earth to save us. What could be better than that? Just under a year ago, a deal was struck. Saab was an independent company once again. Thank you to Mr. Muller and Saab fans around the world. When others counted us out, you gave us a new life. There is nothing quite like the feeling of being reborn.”
“Our German competitors may not speak our language, but we certainly gained their full attention. We’re talking about the all-new Saab 9-5 Sport Sedan. It communicates to a specific type of driver. One who favors exhilaration over exhibition. Brains over brawn. Self-worth over net worth. With an interior designed around human intuition and performance boosted by our powerfully efficient Saab turbo, the all-new Saab 9-5 speaks a language you will better understand once you get behind the wheel. It certainly has our competitors talking.”

Credits

“The Story of Saab” was created by McCann Worldgroup Detroit’s Team Saab for the U.S. market. Team Saab also has the responsibility of creating the global launch campaign for the company’s next product, the 9-4X. Team Saab is a unit of McCann Worldgroup dedicated to marketing Saab Cars North America. McCann Worldgroup delivers marketing solutions that transform brands and grow businesses. The company is comprised of a roster of best-in-class agencies, including McCann Erickson Worldwide (the world’s largest advertising agency network); MRM Worldwide (digital marketing/relationship management); Momentum Worldwide (event marketing/promotion); McCann Healthcare Worldwide (professional/dtc communications); WGEXP (global production); UM (media management); Weber Shandwick (public relations) and FutureBrand (consulting/design)

23.5.10

Mc Donald's - Playland


For kids, McDonalds is a fun, exciting place. They wanted to bring that feeling back to adults. So they did something only Macca’s could. They built an adult-sized Playland in the middle of Sydney. It wasn’t your average Monday Morning. Grown-ups engaged with McDonald’s in a way they hadn’t for years. People see “I’m lovin it” in all their ads. This time they felt it.


Agency: DDB Sydney, Australia.

6.4.09

no name::: Who?

by Reneé Alexander
April 6, 2009 issue
Even though it’s been on grocery store shelves for three decades, Loblaw Companies Ltd. is confident its no name brand is nowhere near its expiry date.

The Toronto-based grocery giant recently relaunched the iconic brand and its unmistakeable plain black printing on yellow packaging.
Company officials say the move was made to coincide with no name’s 30th birthday, and refocusing on a no-frills value brand at a time when the economy is in freefall is obviously prudent.
Three hundred products were repackaged during the first six weeks of the year—items such as bathroom tissue, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter, ketchup and canned tomato sauce—and another 2,600, including pet food, paper plates and cereals, will be recast in the old-is-new-again packaging throughout the rest of 2009. (When no name was first born, it had just 16 products.)
“Imagine going down a grocery aisle. There are so many colours. You’ll be able to spot no name almost immediately,” says David Primorac, Loblaw’s senior director of public relations. “We chose products that would be best suited to the economic conditions. We wanted to start with pantry items, everyday items.”
He says no name’s packaging changes every few years, and the company’s marketing department decided the time was right to go retro.
“We wanted to bring back the original color palette. It’s something recognizable and it’s easy for consumers. We’ve created a bit of a buzz around the packaging,” he says.
The brand has always been associated with the color yellow, and all packaging is primarily that color complemented by a simple graphical layout. Over the years, the packaging has become more detailed, utilizing a no name logo and photography of the product.
The company’s campaign includes advertisements starring CEO Galen Weston Jr. touting the money that can be saved by replacing national brands with no name ones in your shopping cart.
“We’re saying, ‘if you need to control your monthly expenses, you can do it on your grocery bill. Look to no name, you’ll find similar quality products that will save you money,’” he says, noting a shopping cart of no name products is about 20 percent cheaper than a cart of corresponding national brands.
“It’s also a call-out to our customers. We’re saying these are great, quality products. Why don’t you revisit what is considered the original economy powerhouse brand?”
Primorac says no name is being targeted to, well, pretty much everybody.
“People are price conscious, it doesn’t matter what their demographic or income level is. They’re paying attention to the financial situation in their own home. People who bought no name when it first came out, we think they’ll buy it again,” he says.
Loblaw is putting its money where its mouth is by offering a money-back guarantee on all no name products if customers aren’t satisfied with their quality.
Loblaw doesn’t release the recent marketshare figures of no name, but it’s generally considered to be between 10 and 20 percent of its sales. To give an indication of no name’s strength, one study showed Pampers used to have 85 percent market share before no name’s brand of diapers were launched. With the private label diapers on the scene, that number plummeted to 18 percent.
Raj Manchanda, a marketing professor at the I.H. Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba, says many consumers will be willing to trade “down” to no name on products where there isn’t a lot of differentiation with national brands, such as pasta sauce, ketchup or dog food.
The funny thing is, many leadings brands and their generic versions are made by the same manufacturer, he says.
“Consumers may firmly believe (a particular) brand of dog food is the best because that’s the perception that has been created through marketing,” he says. “When price becomes so important, you’re willing to say, ‘maybe there isn’t any difference between apple juices.’”
Manchanda says he likes Loblaw’s strategy of adding a little bit of excitement and a retro vibe to the shopping process.
“Even though it’s not the most exciting packaging, it still breaks through the clutter and gets your attention. It reminds people about a value proposition,” he says.
Manchanda says no name carries some significant cachet with consumers because they believe its products sell at the lowest price possible. No name won’t, however, have the same kind of brand proposition with higher-end products, such as perfume, because of the image consumers want to convey.
“We buy perfume because it’s how we express ourselves and feel about ourselves. We’re making a personal statement,” he says.
Surprisingly enough, there may even be some snob appeal to no name products for consumers who want to be perceived as savvy shoppers.
“One of the reasons consumers use coupons isn’t just the savings but because they feel they’re smart and getting better prices than others. There could very well be an element of that (with no name),” Manchanda says.
Renée Alexander is a freelance business and lifestyle writer based in Winnipeg, Canada.

25.3.09

Four Best-Practices for Renovating Your Brand—Before It's Too Late

Published on March 24, 2009

Stories of marketing heroes who transform poorly performing brands never fail to enthrall us: the transformation of Dove into an empowering brand; the shift to healthier eating for McDonald's; the rebound of Hewlett Packard in the PC market.

Those are among some recent successes. But they elicit the question: Why do brand leaders wait until their brands are at the breaking point, and at risk of joining such brands as Radio Shack, 7Up, or the GAP... for which renovation may be too late?

Unheralded marketing heroes renovate their brands while they are strong and growing. They spot changing market dynamics and address them as opportunities before they have time to develop into threats. Their reward is faster profitable growth without the negative headlines.
Here are four best-practices in brand renovation identified in our work with businesses across a range of markets.


1. Develop a holistic understanding of the brand
A holistic, customer-driven understanding of the current brand and a vision of the brand's future are crucial to proactive renovators. Typically, a holistic view includes an understanding of the brand's heritage, personality, iconography, functional benefits, emotional benefits, and perceived value in the minds of customers, influencers, and intermediaries.

The key is to understand how each of these groups views the brand in the context of their daily lives and compared with the other things that are on their minds. This view enables proactive renovators to see opportunities to credibly extend the brand and avoid the trap of defining the brand by what the company knows how to make or offer, instead of what customers want to buy.

Crayola has managed to stay relevant despite the digital and graphics technologies that might have threatened its brand's very essence. Its understanding of the brand goes beyond the functional benefits of washable markers or erasable pencils. Crayola's brand leaders understood that colorful fun and creativity best defined its role in the lives of teachers, parents, and children; accordingly, it evolved from an art-products company to a visual-expression company. It moved from being a partner with retailers to a partner with educators, parents, and children.

Crayola recognized the danger of being perceived as traditional and has continuously updated the look and the feel of the brand in a way that stays true to its roots but is fun and creative.
Finally, its leaders have used their understanding to guide them in developing programs for the Internet, a children's magazine, interactive toys, and advanced color technologies, breaking the constraints of selling only what can be made in a crayon and marker factory.
2. Look for segment swings
By the time most brand managers spot important trends, they are already threats. That's not surprising, since it's difficult to identify the early impact of trends among the general population of brand users.

Proactive renovators spot trends early by tracking segments of the population where the impact of change is more apparent, segmenting customers in different ways to fit their businesses.
Among the common segmentation principles:

  • First, they ask questions about lifestyles and general attitudes in order to gain a broader context for the role of their products and categories.
  • Second, they are particularly sensitive to trends with the potential to cross segments—from urban to suburban shoppers, or from youth into mainstream culture, for example.
  • Third, they proactively test alternative ways to connect their brands to important trends in order to identify opportunities to play a greater role in the lives of their customers
Kohler is one company that is famously attuned to emerging changes in segments of the population, turning them into big business opportunities. In the process, it has been transformed into the US leader in bath and kitchen design solutions.

More than 30 years ago, Kohler spotted an emerging willingness of urban customers to spend more for high-end home designs. Herb Kohler began to advertise the Bold Look of Kohler with a differentiating focus on design that rode the wave of home investment and kitchen renovations throughout the '80s and '90s. In the early '90s, it spotted another emerging trend: the bathroom as a refuge and oasis in large suburban households. It took advantage with a line of whirlpools, Jacuzzis, and tubs, extending its reach into showers and bathroom accessories.

Most recently, Kohler has increased its emphasis on green technologies with toilets, showers, and control systems aimed at a broad audience.
3. Distinguish the underlying issues
Not every brand issue is a competitive one, but we frequently encounter brand leaders so focused on gaining advantage against a narrow set of competitors that they fail to address indirect competition or tackle customers who are questioning whether it's worthwhile to buy the category at all.

Proactive renovators are much more likely to distinguish among different types of threats and respond accordingly. Brand guru (and Prophet vice-chairman) David Aaker groups these threats as commoditization, brand lethargy, and changing customer dynamics:

  • Declining brand differentiation underlies commoditization, which is characterized by increasing price competition, entry of low-cost competitors, and narrower margins.
  • Brand lethargy is often a problem for category leaders who fall into the trap of repeating past success factors rather than updating the brand and keeping it fresh and alive.
  • Brand relevance underlies customer dynamics issues. Changing technologies, lifestyle patterns, or attitudes typically cause a brand or a category to become less relevant to peoples' lives.
For decades, Coach focused on differentiating itself by handcrafting extremely durable and practical items with classic American designs in American factories. Between 2000 and 2007, it was able to accelerate brand growth from $500 million to $2.5 billion by creatively tackling leather goods' loss of relevance and lack of energy.
The company shed its handcrafted, American-made points of differentiation to leverage its core essence of classic, premium American design within the world of women's fashion accessories. It became more relevant and energetic by introducing color and fresh materials to its designs, transforming its assortment to provide a wide range of accessories and reinventing the Coach shopping experience.
Coach is the ultimate example of a proactive renovator that transformed itself into a category leader.

4. Apply the right strategies
Too many marketers think every brand issue can be solved with a new advertising and promotion campaign.

Of course, brand communication is an important component to building differentiation, energizing a brand, or building relevance. But, proactive renovators ensure that brand communications reflect fundamentally different strategies to cope with differentiation, brand energy, or relevance. One size will not fit all:
  • Successful differentiation in commoditized categories almost always requires finding ways to provide more emotional reasons to prefer the brand. Emotional leverage enhances consumer credibility and trust in innovations that drive big margin gains and allows the brand to eke out small, but often crucial, margin advantages in older products. Emotional bonds provide a platform to charge more despite the competition. Staples's focus on ease (think "Easy Button") and expertise in small-business and home-office efficiency differentiates it from other superstores and lends permission to provide such value-added services as office delivery and computer repair to enhance loyalty and margins.
  • Reinvigorating brand energy typically requires revamping the brand's imagery. A brand image in keeping with its promise makes it more noticeable, easier to understand, and more desirable. Marketers often think that refreshing the logo and trademark imagery is sufficient; that's rarely the case. User, usage, product, and associative imagery all must be explored to truly reinvigorate a brand. Sprite is one brand that regained energy by changing its user imagery to focus on young iconoclasts and its associative imagery to focus on the NBA.
  • Relevance issues demand a re-examination of the customer experience. When consumers change the ways they shop, live, or use technology, the experience must adapt. Sometimes the adaptations include new offerings such as the salads and wraps that McDonald's has added to its menu to appeal to health-conscious women. Some adaptations encompass a comprehensive redesign of the entire experience, like Coach's store and product redesign to meet women's fashion accessory buying expectations.
* * *
These four best-practices expose one central truth: Customers must drive brand decisions.
To succeed, brand leaders must understand the brand through customers' eyes, track how different customer segments are changing, identify the different issues customers have in their lives, and link the brand to customer needs.

14.3.09

How to cope with aging brands

Joseph Gelman
Prophet

The story of brands getting old is a story of relevance. Individual brands, or even whole categories, that were once important for a particular consumer segment, become irrelevant as society evolves and tastes change.
In the past, one of the most common situations in which “brands aged badly” revolved around strong associations with national pride. Many brands, such as US automakers Ford and GM, once successfully owned this space. Over time, however, the kind of brand attributes that they were associated with lost their importance as purchase drivers. This was due to a diverse set of realities. More relevant attributes emerged such as the rise of the Japanese manufacturer Toyota’s reputation for quality in the US, the lack of relevance in national pride to new generations of consumers and even the emergence of a “global” mindset in which consumers were willing to try new things from other markets. The rise of new generations of consumers with new ideas and evolving needs and wants, meant that although these “legacy - national pride associated” brands retained their distinguishing characteristics from their competitors, their attributes were no longer relevant. This situation has been faced by a lot of European brands in categories such as retail, air travel, telecommunications and many others in which strong brands differentiated themselves by emphasizing their origin and roots: brands like France Telecom, British Airways or Marks & Spencer. A current example of this situation is observed at Waitrose, the upscale UK grocery retailer. With the credit crunch, mainstream consumer segments are moving away from premium price products as they recognize that acceptable quality exists elsewhere. The ethical and “British grown” part of the equity of Waitrose is not relevant enough to consumers, who are switching to cheaper and even to “foreign” brands such as the European hard discount retailers, Aldi and Lidl, that are performing quite strongly in the UK market. Brands such as Waitrose now face a tough question: Should I completely lose my current brand equity association so I can become relevant to new consumers? The answer to this question is usually “no”. Brands need to evolve their legacy to make sure the things that differentiate them from their competitors are complemented by more relevant purchase drivers. They need to upgrade the different touch points of the business, create new product brands, eliminate others and launch new product lines.
Recent corporate history is littered with examples of brands needing to adjust their brand image to cope with new scenarios and a new generation of consumers. When telecommunications companies evolved from public-sector businesses to multi-service providers, first expanding into mobile telephony, they created new brands. These were not completely independent from the “traditional fixed line operator” branding but incorporated new attributes that were relevant to this new line of business. Again, the beneficial aspects of the legacy of the ‘aging’ brand which provided scale, reliability and trust were complemented by the personality of the “new mobile brand”. This meant that old fixed telephony brands were able to compete with strong “young” attacker brands. One of the most successful examples of this was the launch and consolidation of Telefónica’s Movistar brand in Spain and Latin America. The Telefónica brand had a strong trust in its core Spain and Latin American markets, and it leveraged on its equity as the “big, traditional and Spanish” national incumbent. The “Spanish” side of this equation lost relevance in Spain and even became negative in Latin America, where the company wanted to move away from a perception of “here comes the Spanish colonialism again”.
Also, the emergence of mobile communications required it to have a more emotional relationship with consumers. In this context, Telefónica evolved its legacy brand to dial up the aspects of its equity that were relevant to residential and corporate consumers, such as quality, innovation, and any other magnitude related attributes that would build trust.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjMwnWNzq4U
An ad for Telefónica's Movistar brand, featuring footballer Lionel Messi, of Barcelona and Argentina

Also, its “Spanish roots” were shifted into emphasizing its corporate “spirit of progress” essence, which highlighted the positive impact that the company had in developing the economy in emerging markets. In parallel, it developed the “younger” Movistar brand. This brand would be supported by the equity of Telefónica but would allow communication with consumers in a language that was more relevant in the mobile business.
But the problem of aging brands is not limited to those with a patriotic tradition, as can be seen from the example of Burger King. Burger King was an “old” brand that consistently underperformed its category. The essence of its message was “We make better burgers, have them your way”, and this became irrelevant to its consumer base worldwide, who felt much closer to the more emotional approach to the fast food consumption experience that McDonalds was communicating. It took Burger King time, and multiple changes to its ownership structure, advertising campaigns, management teams and go-to market strategies before it finally understood that its brand had become irrelevant to 18-35 years old males. After it recognised this, and took appropriate action, the fast food giant never looked back. It reshaped its brand, tapping into its roots and embracing innovation across the four Ps - Product, Price, Promotion and Place.


Burger King’s brand evolved its “better quality burger” approach into a rule-breaking, politically incorrect positioning in which it almost tells the consumer, “Yes, we know it is fast food, we know it is red meat, but this is what you like, you like our big and greasy burgers, and nobody needs to tell you what is and isn’t good for you.” Coupled with bold advertising and innovative social media campaigns, this put Burger King back on the map with more than 13 straight quarters of sales growth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGLHlvb8skQ

Burger King's "I Am Man" spot

In the UK, we have recently observed how complete “product lines” at aging brands have died and then reinvented themselves. This situation is quite different from the previous scenarios outlined above because it assumes that the equity that existed needs to be completely wiped out before a brand is able to become relevant to a different segment of consumers. This is probably the reasoning behind the radical branding shift visible at the retail chain from Virgin Megastores to Zavvi. Management of the CD-retailer-turned-video-game-shop thought that its strong legacy brand, Virgin, was not appropriate for the new directions they wanted for the business. This is quite interesting as it implies that the irreverent/Richard Branson part of the equity of Virgin, that has worked so well in expanding the brand into new territories, was no longer relevant for the new consumer segment that the chain wanted to target. In this context, they completely wiped out all the brand equity and develop a new brand and a new mark. Not all cases are necessary so dramatic. Sometimes brands just need innovation-driven tactical solutions to rejuvenate themselves and become relevant. For example, the alcohol industry noticed that consumers loved to drink from martini glasses, so you had Sex and the City’s cosmopolitan, bringing vodka and triple sec back on to the scene; or how about putting some Baileys on your coffee? From these examples, we can see the different directions that companies with aging brands can take. Telefónica kept its stronger functional attributes and developed a new brand that benefits from it but that can talk to consumers in a more relevant language; Burger King made its brand edgier around its core quality attributes and invested across the four Ps to reshape its image; and Zavvi became a completely different brand with little leverage on its legacy brand (Virgin). To make these decisions, all these companies needed to understand the purchase drivers of their consumers and which parts of their legacy brands, if any, were still relevant and differentiated them from rivals. Brands aging (badly) is a reality in multiple industries. Once the company acknowledges the need for change, which is often difficult given their legacy and strong brand equity, the most important decision is to decide which part of the old equity (if any) can evolve, or whether a completely new brand is need. With the right decisions on these points, most brands can live long and healthy lives.

7 Skills for a Post-Pandemic Marketer

The impact of Covid-19 has had a significant impact across the board with the marketing and advertising industry in 2020, but there is hope...