While brand building has long been the mantra of marketers, the fundamental meaning of this term has radically changed. No longer are soft measures like ‘brand awareness,’ ‘brand preference’ and ‘intention to buy’ acceptable. Brand building from the CEO’s perspective is about business building – generating higher revenues and profits, which in turn will lead to greater shareholder value.
To achieve these lofty goals, brands not only need to be built, they must also be continuously reinvented to remain relevant to ever-changing consumer needs and desires.
Brand reinvention begins with innovation. Innovation that continuously refreshes the brand in ways that speak to consumers one-to-one and build long-term appeal and trust.
The iPod is an amazing example of innovation. It has totally reinvented the way music is acquired, played and enjoyed. In fact, industry analysts are now talking about the “halo” effect of the iPod. They’re predicting that continued sales of iPods to Windows PC owners will eventually translate into increased Mac sales. And they’re beginning to see a steady stream of first-time Mac buyers at the Apple retail stores. That’s the power of innovation to build brands and business!
Of course, innovation not only drives new brand introductions - it also drives the reinvention of existing brands. Here’s a fabulous example:
Motorola has engineered a remarkable business turnaround by reinventing its brand and approach to marketing. In the early 90’s, Motorola owned 46 percent of the mobile handset market. But that leadership dramatically eroded against strong competitors like Nokia. By 2001, the company’s share had plummeted to just 14.5 percent.
New CEO Ed Zander and CMO Geoffrey Frost – who sadly died last year – led a remarkable reinvention of the Motorola brand – driven by off-the-chart innovation.
Positioning Motorola as “wickedly cool and compelling,” they made a highly focused, strategic investment in a new kind of marketing. Among their steps was to permeate the micro-culture of trend-setting Hollywood. They established a Motorola office in Tinseltown and courted the “alpha techno-geeks” who love to have the latest, greatest gadgets.
Motorola products subsequently began appearing in films and TV shows – not as the result of paid product placement, but because the brand had penetrated the living, breathing celebrity community. Of course, marketing fabulously innovative products – like the amazing RAZR – was the foundation of the strategy. And the buzz built fast.
Now you might think that this kind of innovation only applies to consumer products. Not true - just ask the marketers at General Electric.
Although GE markets consumer products like light bulbs and home appliances, the lion’s share of its revenues come from business products and services like jet engines, plastics, power generation and medical equipment. For decades, the company’s brand identify was tied to its “We bring good things to life” tagline – a remarkably durable slogan for a difficult-to-describe conglomerate.
But CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, and chief marketing officer, Beth Comstock, recognized that the GE brand needed reinvention for the future. At General Electric, marketers and marketing were charged with a most unusual and dynamic objective – to change the direction of the company. Mr. Immelt wanted marketing and business strategies interwoven to optimize synergy and productivity. And they did just that with the spectacularly successful platform of “Imagination at Work.”
More than just a tagline, Imagination at Work is a promise to the marketplace and an internal cultural commitment to drive organic growth through innovation. In typical GE style, the company supported its new theme with rigorous training programs and a new enterprise-wide process that challenged managers to develop five new ideas, each with the potential to grow revenue by $50-100 million.
Today, some 80 growth projects are now “in plan” and being funded. These efforts encompass technology innovation, product commercialization, growth expansion and value creation.
It’s not easy for a mega-company to grow year-over-year. But GE is consistently doing just that. Its 2004 revenues rose nearly 14 percent over 2003 – that’s over $18 billion of growth in one year! Brand reinvention driven by continuous innovation is surely a key reason why!
I agree its important to change your brands with the markets diversifying need and wants .
Posted by: Shortcuts to Millions | October 18, 2009 at 11:45 PM
Wow! An ad guy who gets it. Finally! Thanks Bob.
Posted by: Tom Asacker | February 09, 2006 at 06:02 PM