Inadequate marketing support is an especially dangerous strategy when combined with price increases. An example of failure to adequately support a brand occurred in the kitchen and bath fixtures market.

Even a cursory examination of the brands that have maintained market leadership for the last 50 or 100 years or so testifies to the advantages of staying consistent. Brands such as Disney, McDonald’s, Mercedes Benz, and others have been remarkably true to their strategies once they achieved a preeminent market leadership position.

Perhaps an even more compelling demonstration of the benefits of consistency is the fortunes of brands that have constantly repositioned or changed ad agencies. Consider how Michelob’s constant repositioning coincided with a steady sales decline.

Michelob

A brand that failed to turn around sales while enduring numerous repositionings is Michelob, an upscale, superpremium beer with a distinctive teardrop bottle designed in part to stand out in smoky bars and restaurants. In the 1970s, Michelob ran ads featuring successful young professionals that confidently proclaimed, “Where You’re Going, It’s Michelob.” Moving away from the strong user imagery of that campaign, the next one focused on leisure situations and trumpeted, “Weekends Were Made for Michelob.” Later, to bolster sagging sales, the ad theme switched to “Put a Little Weekend in Your Week.” In the mid-1980s, the firm launched yet another campaign—featuring laid-back rock music and stylish shots of beautiful people—that proclaimed “The Night Belongs to Michelob.” None of these campaigns could stop a sales slide from a peak of 8.1 million barrels in 1980 to 1.8 million in 1998. Leaving no stone unturned, the next ad campaign, “Some Days Are Better Than Others,” explained to consumers that “A Special Day Requires a Special Beer,” which later became “Some Days Were Made for Michelob.” Pity the poor consumer! After so many different messages, people could hardly be blamed if they wondered exactly when they were supposed to drink the beer. Meanwhile, sales performance continued to suffer. The 2000s saw the brand concentrate on its Michelob Ultra extension, although the company did try to go after younger, import-drinking consumers in 2002 with hip, sexy ads. By the end of the decade, the brand had decided to return to its 100 percent malt roots—one of the defining characteristics of the exploding craft beer category—to chase after quality-conscious consumers, in yet another repositioning.4

Being consistent does not mean, however, that marketers should avoid making any changes in the marketing program. On the contrary, managing brand equity with consistency may require making numerous tactical shifts and changes in order to maintain the strategic thrust and direction of the brand. The most effective tactics for a particular brand at any one time can certainly vary. Prices may move up or down, product features may be added or dropped, ad campaigns may employ different creative strategies and slogans, and different brand extensions may be introduced or withdrawn to create the same desired knowledge structures in consumers’ minds.

Nevertheless, the strategic positioning of many leading brands has been kept remarkably uniform over time by the retention of key elements of the marketing program and the preservation of the brand meaning. In fact, many brands have kept a key creative element in their marketing communication programs over the years and, as a result, have effectively created some “advertising equity.” For example, Jack Daniels bourbon whiskey has stuck with rural scenes of its Tennessee home and the slogan “Charcoal Mellowed Drop by Drop” for literally decades.

As The Science of Branding 13-1 describes, brands sometimes return to their roots to remind existing or lapsed customers or to attract new ones. Such efforts to refresh awareness obviously can make sense. At the same time, marketers should be sure that these old advertising elements or marketing appeals have enduring meaning with older consumers but are also relevant to younger consumers. They should examine the entire marketing program to determine which elements are making a strong contribution to brand equity and must therefore be protected.

For brands whose core associations are primarily product-related performance attributes or benefits, innovation in product design, manufacturing, and merchandising is especially critical to maintaining or enhancing brand equity. Consider how Timex has evolved through the years to maintain its market position.

Timex

Timex has had a fascinating journey through time as it has dealt with a wave of competitors and changes in the marketing environment through the years. The origins of the brand stretch back into the nineteenth century, but its modern history began post–World War II with the launch of its popular line of inexpensive, durable wristwatches. Buoyed by “torture test” product demonstration ads and the clever slogan, “Takes a Licking and Keeps on Ticking,” the brand became the market leader by the end of the 1950s. In subsequent years, after Timex watched brands such as Casio and Swatch gain significant market share by emphasizing digital technology and fashion (respectively) in their watches, it made a number of innovative marketing changes. Within a short period of time, Timex introduced Indiglo glow-in-the dark technology, showcased popular new models such as the Ironman in mass media advertising, and launched new Timex stores to showcase its products. The company also expanded its brand portfolio by buying the Guess and Monet watch brands to distribute through upscale department stores. These innovations in product design and merchandising significantly revived the brand’s fortunes. In recent years, however, the growth of smartphones and other hand-held mobile devices that can tell time have posed yet more challenges. Once again, Timex responded by increasing the functionality of its watches. Beyond telling time, its new watches boast GPS technology and health-rate monitors and other wellness features.7

For companies in categories as diverse as toys and entertainment products, personal care products, and insurance, innovation is critical to success. For example, Progressive has become one of the most successful auto insurers, in part due to consistent innovations in service. A pioneer in direct sales of insurance online, the firm was the first to offer prospective customers the ability to instantly compare price quotes from up to three other insurers. Other Progressive innovations include an accident “concierge service” through which its representatives handle all aspects of the claims and repair process for its customers, and online policy management that lets customers make payments and change coverage at any time. See Branding Brief 13-1 for a summary of how Gillette has built equity in its razor and blades categories through innovation.

Failure to innovate can have dire consequences. Smith Corona, after struggling to sell its typewriters and word processors in a booming personal computer market, finally filed for bankruptcy. As one industry expert observed, “Smith Corona never realized they were in the document business, not the typewriter business. If they had understood that, they would have moved into software.”8 Guitar Hero was once touted as the first game franchise of the twenty-first century, but oversaturation and an inability to introduce engaging new products led its owner Activision to shutter the division after lackluster 2010 holiday sales.9

Product innovations are therefore critical for performance-based brands whose sources of equity reside primarily in product-related associations. In some cases, product advances may include brand extensions based on a new or improved product ingredient or feature. In fact, in many categories, a strong family sub-brand has emerged from product innovations associated with brand extensions (such as Wilson Hammer wide-body tennis racquets). In other cases, product innovations may center on existing brands. For example, General Mills’ “Big G” cereal division historically strived to improve at least a third of its nearly two dozen brand lines each year.

At the same time, it is important not to change products too much, especially if the brand meaning for consumers is wrapped up in the product design or makeup. Recall the strong consumer resistance encountered by New Coke, described in Chapter 1. In making product changes to a brand, marketers want to reassure loyal consumers that it is a better product, but not necessarily a different one. The timing of the announcement and the introduction of a product improvement are also important: if the brand improvement is announced too soon, consumers may stop buying existing products; if too late, competitors may already have taken advantage of the market opportunity with their own introductions.

For brands whose core associations are primarily non-product-related attributes and symbolic or experiential benefits, relevance in user and usage imagery is especially critical. Because of their intangible nature, non-product-related

associations may be easier to change, for example, through a major new advertising campaign that communicates a different type of user or usage situation. MTV is a brand that has worked hard to stay relevant with young consumers.

MTV

Over the course of 30-plus years, MTV has built a powerful youth-oriented brand that spans the globe. When the all-music channel debuted in 1981, few dreamed it would attain such a prominent place in popular culture. Few also imagined that MTV would attract as many international viewers as it did—it is seen today in 592 million households in 161 countries and 33 languages. Domestically and abroad, MTV developed programming and content that consistently resonated with viewers over the years. It attracted loyal U.S. followers in the early 1980s and in each of its international broadcast regions in the 1990s and early 2000s. The channel built more than just its own brand equity. Throughout the years, MTV served as a star-making vehicle for pop artists and on-air talent. Experts credited the channel with changing the course of music and television, and in some cases even with having an impact upon sociopolitical events, including the collapse of the Eastern Bloc communist regime, the 2004 and 2008 Presidential elections, and the aftermath of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina. MTV’s rise to cultural prominence was not achieved without difficulty. The channel endured a lengthy stretch of flat U.S. ratings in the mid-1990s as music tastes shifted and it lost touch with its core audience. However, MTV managed successfully to reinvent itself and establish a following from a new core audience by embracing “long-form” programming, starting with the run-away success of Real World and Road Rules. The channel even dropped the “music television” tagline from its logo in early 2010 in recognition of its new focus. Company president Van Toffler said at the time that MTV had evolved away from playing as many music videos as possible to including more “genre shows” such as Jersey Shore, Teen Mom, and 16 and Pregnant. The shift in programming contributed to MTV’s highest annual increase in ratings since 1999 and the explosion of teen pop. Toffler noted: “We really evolved in youth and pop culture and music, and we just speak to purely the 12–34 audience.” The first decade of the new century had brought a new era of growth for MTV. In 1999, Viacom formed MTV Networks to offer its advertisers a full spectrum of demographic groups. MTV Networks included sister channels such as VH1, Nickelodeon, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central, and Spike TV. MTV also had expanded globally during this time—over 150 locally programmed and operated MTV channels now exist—to become the largest global media brand in the world. With the youngest member of Generation X turning 33 in 2012, however, MTV has moved on and now has set its sights squarely on the millennial generation, transforming programming and marketing in the process. Social media, original short-form programming, and a slew of digital content now play a key role in MTV’s plans to engage this younger generation. Through the years, one thing has always been true: MTV has stayed focused on its central challenge of remaining current and relevant within the fickle world of popular culture.10

Nevertheless, ill-conceived or too-frequent repositionings can blur the image of a brand and confuse or perhaps even alienate consumers. It is particularly dangerous to flip-flop between product-related performance and non-product-related imagery associations because of the fundamentally different marketing and advertising approaches each entails. Heineken has sometimes been accused of flip-flopping too much between product-focused advertising (“It’s All About the Beer”) and more user-focused advertising (“Give Yourself a Good Name”).

Significant repositionings may be dangerous for other reasons too. Brand images can be extremely sticky, and once strong associations have formed, they may be difficult to change. Consumers may choose to ignore or simply be unable to remember the new positioning when strong, but different, brand associations already exist in memory.11 Club Med has attempted for years to transcend its image as a vacation romp for swingers to attract a broader cross-section of people.

For dramatic repositioning strategies to work, marketers must present convincing new brand claims in a compelling fashion. One classic example of a brand that successfully shifted from a primarily non-product-related image to a primarily product-related image is BMW, the quintessential “yuppie” vehicle of the 1980s. The brand’s sales dropped almost in half from 1986 to 1991 as new Japanese competition emerged and a backlash to the “Greed Decade” set in. Convinced that high status was no longer a sufficiently desirable and sustainable position, marketing switched the focus to BMW’s product developments and improvements, such as its responsive driving and leading-edge engineering. The brand was also able to add a strong safety message—but in a very BMW kind of way. Volvo’s emphasis on safety, for instance, was about how the design and construction of the car would protect occupants if the car was hit. BMW’s safety message was that the car handled so well, you just wouldn’t get hit! These performance-focused efforts, showcased in creative ads, helped diminish the “yuppie” association, and by 1995 sales had approached their earlier peak.12

Reinforcing brand equity requires consistency in the amount and nature of the supporting marketing program for the brand. Although the specific tactics may change, marketers should preserve and amplify the key sources of equity for the brand where appropriate. Product innovation and relevance are paramount in maintaining continuity and expanding the meaning of the brand.

At the end of every day, week, month, quarter, and year, marketers should ask themselves, What we have done to innovate our brand and its marketing and make them more relevant? A weak answer can have adverse consequences. One-time industry icons Nokia and Blackberry have both desperately struggled in recent years to catch up as the smartphone market has gone through remarkable technological and marketing transformations.13 On a more positive note, Branding Brief 13-2 describes how the British brand Burberry remade itself in the world of fashion. Next, we consider what to do when brands find themselves in situations in which more drastic brand actions are needed.

To identify additional or new opportunities for consumers to use the brand more—albeit in the same basic way—marketers should design a marketing program to include both of the following:

• Communications about the appropriateness and advantages of using the brand more frequently in existing situations or in new situations

• Reminders to consumers to actually use the brand as close as possible in time to those situations for which it could be used

For many brands, increasing usage may be as simple as improving top-of-mind awareness through reminder advertising (as V8 vegetable juice did with its classic “Wow! I Could Have Had a V8” ad campaign). In other cases, more creative retrieval cues may be necessary. Consumers often adopt “functional fixedness” with a brand, which makes it easy to ignore in nontraditional consumption settings.

For example, consumers see some brands as appropriate only for special occasions. An effective strategy here may be to redefine what it means for something to be “special.” Chivas Regal ran a print ad campaign for its Blended Scotch with the theme “What are you saving the Chivas for?” The ads included headlines such as “Sometimes life begins when the baby-sitter arrives,” “Your Scotch and soda is only as good as your Scotch and soda,” and “If you think people might think you order Chivas to show off, maybe you’re thinking too much.” For campaigns like this to work, however, the brand has to retain its “premium” brand association—a key source of equity—while convincing consumers to adopt broader usage habits at the same time.

Another opportunity to increase frequency of use occurs when consumers’ perceptions of their usage differ from the reality. For many products with relatively short life spans, consumers may fail to buy replacements soon enough or often enough.17 Here are two possible solutions:

• Tie the act of replacing the product to a certain holiday, event, or time of year. For example, several brands, such as Oral-B toothbrushes, have run promotions tied in with the springtime switch to daylight saving time.

• Provide consumers with better information about either (1) when they first used the product or need to replace it, or (2) the current level of product performance. For example, batteries offer built-in gauges that show how much power they have left, and toothbrushes and razors have color indicators to indicate when they have worn out.

Finally, perhaps the simplest way to increase usage occurs when it is at less than the optimal or recommended level. Here, we want to persuade consumers of the merits of more regular usage and overcome any potential hurdles to increased usage, such as by making product designs and packaging more convenient and easier to use.

The second approach to increasing frequency of use is to identify completely new and different applications. Food product companies have long advertised new recipes that use their branded products in entirely different ways. Perhaps the classic example of finding creative new applications is Arm & Hammer baking soda, whose deodorizing and cleaning properties have led to a number of new uses.

Other brands have taken a page from Arm & Hammer’s book: Clorox has run ads stressing the many benefits of its bleach, such as how it eliminates kitchen odors; Wrigley’s chewing gum advertising touts it as a substitute for smoking; and Tums promotes its antacid’s benefits as a calcium supplement. Coach managed to expand usage and increase frequency for both the brand and the category, even in recessionary times.

Coach

Coach has played a key role over the past decade in getting U.S. women to buy more handbags; most now make three new purchases annually. Coach’s strategy was to fill “usage voids”—situations where existing bag options were not appropriate—with a plethora of different bag options for almost every occasion, including evening bags, backpacks, satchels, totes, briefcases, coin purses, and duffels. Rather than owning a small number of bags suitable for a limited number of uses, women were encouraged to treat handbags as “the shoes of the 21st century: a way to frequently update wardrobes with different styles without shelling out for new clothes.” When the recession of 2008 challenged many providers of luxury fashion accessories, who began to introduce steep discounts, Coach was an exception. The company maintained prices on its regular product lines and instead introduced new low-priced items. Coach always conducts much research, and here it engaged with consumers to confirm two facts: First, the new products would not cheapen or damage its image. Second, the resulting decreases in margin would be more than offset by increases in volume. Through renegotiated deals with suppliers, new sources of leather, fabric, and hardware, and other steps, the company assured itself the handbags could have the proper designs at the necessary price points. Thus, the youthful and somewhat eclectic Poppy line was launched with an average price of $260, about 20 percent less than the typical Coach purse. The percentage of sales of low-priced handbags increased from about one-third to one-half of sales as a result of the shift in consumer willingness to pay. Handbags make up almost two-thirds of Coach sales.18

New usage applications may require more than just new ad campaigns or merchandising approaches. Sometimes they can arise from new packaging. For example, Arm & Hammer introduced a “Fridge-Freezer Pack” (with “freshflo vents”) for its natural baking soda that was specially designed to better freshen and deodorize refrigerators and freezers.

Marketers often focus on taking action with one or more of four key target market segments as part of a brand revitalization strategy:

1. Retaining vulnerable customers

2. Recapturing lost customers

3. Identifying neglected segments

4. Attracting new customers

There is a clear hierarchy in these strategic targeting options. In an attempt to turn sales around, some firms mistakenly focus initially on the fourth one, chasing after new customers. This is the riskiest option. If it fails, two bad things can happen: the firm may fail to attract any new customers, but even worse, it may lose existing ones.

When Talbots, seller of women’s suits, blouses, and dresses in roughly 580 predominately suburban locations, ran into sales troubles after the 2008 recession, it decided to expand its target market. Bold jewelry and metallic suits appeared next to classic pearls and seasonal sweaters in an attempt to reach a younger audience than its traditional over-35-year-old woman. The result was a disaster that confused existing customers as well as hoped-for new prospects, and sales plunged. Asia’s leading chain of low-priced casual wear, Uniqlo, ran into the exact same predicament when stores began to stock too many fashion-forward items at the expense of popular basics.19

To avoid this double whammy and steady the course in the face of a sales decline, it is often best to try to halt the erosion first and ensure that no more customers are lost in the short run before chasing after new ones. Some of the same marketing efforts to retain existing customers can also help recapture lost customers who are no longer using the brand. This may mean simply reminding consumers of the virtues of a brand they have forgotten about or begun to take for granted. Recall how the New Coke debacle described in Chapter 1.The New Coke debacle—although not intended to do so—accomplished just that, in a roundabout way. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes once ran a successful ad campaign with the slogan “Try Them Again for the First Time.”

The third approach—segmenting on the basis of demographic variables or other means and identifying neglected segments—is the next-most viable brand revitalization option. Of course, the final strategic targeting option for revitalizing a fading brand is simply to more or less abandon the consumer group that supported it in the past to target a completely new market segment.

Many firms have reached out to new customer groups to build brand equity. The Home Shopping Network (HSN) found success in going after fashion-oriented power shoppers by dumping a slew of unknown brands with me-too products to make the cable channel more designer-friendly to celebrities such as Badgley Mischka, Sean “Diddy” Combs, Stefani Greenfield, and Serena Williams.20

Market segments the firm currently serves with other products may represent potential growth targets for the brand. Effectively targeting these segments, however, typically requires some changes or variations in the marketing program, especially in advertising and other communications, and the decision whether to do so ultimately depends on the outcome of a cost–benefit analysis.

Attracting a new market segment can be deceptively difficult. Brands such as Gillette, Harley-Davidson, and ESPN have worked hard for years to find the right blend of products and advertising to make their masculine-image brands relevant and attractive to women. Creating marketing programs to appeal to women has become a priority of makers of products from cars to computers.

Marketers have also introduced programs targeted to different racial and ethnic groups, age groups, and income groups. These cultural market segments may require different messages, creative strategies, and media. They can be fickle, however, as Tommy Hilfiger discovered, forcing the brand to implement a back-to-basics revitalization strategy.

Tommy Hilfiger

One of the hottest fashion brands in the 1990s—when its worldwide sales peaked at $2 billion—Tommy Hilfiger was overexposed and struggling to stay relevant by the early 2000s. Other labels such as Phat Farm, FUBU, Sean John, and Ecko had drawn customers away by better executing the young urban, hip-hop style on which Hilfiger had built its 1990s success. Bloomingdale’s reduced the number of Hilfiger boutiques from 23 to 1, and Hilfiger closed all but 7 of its 44 own-brand specialty shops in 2003. To recover, the firm essentially cut all ties with the style that had made it popular—oversized apparel, even more oversized logos, and an edgy urban aura—even going so far as to remove the stylized U.S. flag logo from many of its clothing products. Hilfiger struck out in a new direction with classic preppy styles more closely associated with the brand’s original roots, although perhaps with a twist. One set of styles was inspired by the sun and surf, for instance. An exclusive distribution deal with Macy’s in 2008 allowed the company to focus its marketing efforts, and by 2010, the brand was being sold in 1,000 retail locations in 65 countries. Hilfiger tailored its offerings in many of these markets. For example, German consumers preferred darker colors, whereas Spanish consumers wanted lighter and brighter shades. In many overseas markets such as China, India, and parts of Europe, the brand was seen as high status. All these revitalizing efforts were validated when the Hilfiger brand was purchased for $3 billion by Phillips-Van Heusen.21

Regardless of the type of target market segment, repositioning the brand sometimes requires us to establish more compelling points-of-difference. At other times, we need to reposition a brand to establish a point-of-parity on some key image dimension.

A common problem for marketers of established, mature brands is to make them more contemporary by creating relevant usage situations, a more contemporary user profile, or a more modern brand personality. Heritage brands that have been around for years may be seen as trustworthy but also boring, uninteresting, and not that likable.

Updating a brand may require some combination of new products, new advertising, new promotions, and new packaging. Reaching its 100th birthday in 2013, Clorox is a heritage brand that must periodically take steps to update itself. To reach young parents on the go, it developed the myStain smartphone app dedicated to stain removal. Family-oriented images, such as photos of kids’ faces covered with spaghetti sauce, were included to make the app more accessible and fun. Many solutions offered convenient alternatives to Clorox products, such as seltzer water as a stain treatment in a restaurant.22

Often we must change one or more brand elements either to convey new information or to signal that the brand has taken on new meaning because the product or some other aspect of the marketing program has changed. The brand name is typically the most important brand element, and it’s often the most difficult to change. Nevertheless, we can drop names or combine them into initials to reflect shifts in marketing strategy or to ease pronounceability and recall. Shortened names or initials can also minimize potentially negative product associations.

For example, Federal Express chose to officially shorten its name to FedEx and introduce a new logo to acknowledge what consumers were actually calling the brand.23 In an attempt to convey a healthier image, Kentucky Fried Chicken abbreviated its name to the initials KFC. The company also introduced a new logo incorporating the character of Colonel Sanders as a means of maintaining tradition but also modernizing its appeal. When the company began to emphasize grilled chicken and sandwiches in its national advertising over the traditional bone-in fried offerings though, some franchisees actually sued, saying the brand had strayed too far from its roots.24

It is easier to change other brand elements, and we may need to, especially if they play an important awareness or image function. Chapter 4 described how to modify and update packaging, logos, and characters over time. We noted there that changes generally should be moderate and evolutionary, and marketers must take great care to preserve the most salient aspects of the brand elements.

How do you decide which brands to attempt to revitalize (or at least milk) and which ones to discontinue? Beecham chose to abandon such dying brands as 5-Day deodorant pads, Rose Milk skin care lotion, and Serutan laxative, but it attempted to resurrect Aqua Velva aftershave, Geritol iron and vitamin supplement, and Brylcreem hair styling products. The decision to retire a brand depends on a number of factors.

Fundamentally, the issue is the existing and latent equity of the brand. As the former head of consumer packaged-goods giant Unilever commented in explaining his company’s decision to review about 75 percent of its brands and lines of businesses for possible sell-offs, “If businesses aren’t creating value, we shouldn’t be in them. It’s like having a nice garden that gets weeds. You have to clean it up, so the light and air get in to the blooms which are likely to grow the best.”32