Great Brands Ignore Trends. Chapter 3

Transcription

1 Great Brands Ignore Trends Chapter 3

2 What is this chapter about?

3 Ignoring trends Trend-following is actually the more risky approach. Two strategies: 1. Challenging trends, 2. Advancing cultural movements

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5 The Risky Business of Trend Following

6 Why follow trends? Tempting to follow trends Feels natural Seems much safer and easier to interpret someone else s proven product than to risk trying your own original-butuntested idea Effective way to raise shortterm revenue Reebok

7 -er positioning

8 Why is it bad? Makes you subordinate Relegates you to having comparative value rather than inherent value Your value proposition becomes just as good as Brand X, but -er. Your brand becomes tied to the leader

9 Betrays the first two principles of business 1. Inconsistent with internal culture 2. Trend following forces ways of thinking and strategizing that revolve around products, features, and benefits

10 Great brands challenge trends.

11 Chipotle Video He determined that Chipotle could introduce a higher quality of Mexican fare to a broader audience by defining a different value equation for fast food.

12 Anticipating and Advancing Cultural Movements

13 Great brands don t wait to jump on the next bandwagon. They question what all those bandwagons might suggest about the future. There are reasonable and rational ways of assessing the risks and rewards in choosing whether to lead a movement or follow a trend But not to be left to whim of gut feeling

14 Important to stay informed and current Keep up with trends in technology, demographics, consumer tastes, laws, resource prices, and competitive behavior Identify possible ways to exploit movements in these fields

15 Important to: Decipher where society is going in the long term and analyze how your brand can add value in ways that are consistent with that direction, while staying true to your culture and your existing emotional connections with your customers.

16 The Man Behind Starbucks and how he Changed the world VIDEO

17 Personal celebrity engagement

18 Kim and Mauborgne s research into 150 significant strategic corporate moves (spanning more than thirty industries over a decade) revealed that companies grow best when they leave existing market spaces that are bloody with cut-throat competition (red oceans) and create instead uncontested market spaces (blue oceans). Value Innovation

19 Looking to the Horizon Strategies Scanning - Continuously monitor different media, cultural developments, and the activities of brands in and outside your category, and identify the meanings behind them. Look for new consumer attitudes and behaviors and try to discern how and why different groups and organizations engage with them. Listening - identify influences (Gangnam Style) Forecasting -Look for common themes across new developments and keep an eye out for innovations in seemingly unrelated fields that might influence your customers

20 A Brand Diagnostic The Brand Diagnostic is a tool for taking stock of both assets and liabilities in terms of brand equity that your company probably didn t know it had. Customers Context Company

21 A Brand Diagnostic Desk research and industry data mining Analysis of existing consumer research In-depth interviews with key stakeholders including executives, frontline employees, investors, partners, customers, and distributors Investigative audit of the brand experiences and communication for your brand and key competitors

22 Final Notes It s Not the Data; It s What You Do with It Making the internal connection Integrating the internal and external comes from connecting and elevating the first two brandbuilding principles: Start Inside and Avoid Selling Products. Create Your Own Future

23 Great brands don t mind detractors too much for the same reason they ignore trends. Great brands know that if you try to be all things to all people, you ll never connect deeply with anyone.

24 Brand Highlights