Steve Jobs' Defining Marketing Principle

No one can argue with the success of Apple and the genius of Steve Jobs in driving the company to that success. Much has been written about Steve Jobs' vision, genius, intuition, etc. and at least as much has been written about his prowess as a marketer.

One of the defining principles, by most accounts anyway, in the marketing mind of Mr. Jobs was that as a marketer you drove the destiny of the brand.

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2012 IS HERE

The team at Brand Engineers would like to wish you a happy new year. We hope that 2012 is a successful year for all of our readers.

As always, we thank you for following our blog. Please E-Mail sumit@brandengineers.com if you would like to suggest a topic or guest blog your own post.

Broadening the Market Won’t Make Your Brand More Valuable

Logic suggests that if you broaden your market and expand the potential number of customers that the brand may appeal to, the amount purchased will increase and the value of the brand will go up. Unfortunately, logic and marketing often do not line up. In fact, if you look at several examples (beer, Sears, Burger King, etc.) you will find very clear examples of how broadening markets caused dilution of the brand within that market. Burger King continues to offer more and more menu items in an attempt to bring in more customers – Is that what Burger King customers want? If it is, then why are same store sales (sales for only stores that have been open at least one year) falling year after year? In comparison, consider Five Guys, the fastest growing fast-food chain in America. Five Guys server burgers, hotdogs, french-fries, and grilled cheese sandwiches – that is it. In just a few short years same store sales of Five Guys are virtually identical those of Burger King. We preach this very principle to every one of our clients. Consider the dilution of focus that has to occur in order to reach a broader audience; can the brand still maintain its appeal, its position, or do you lose more than the potential gain? Sometimes logic is not as logical as you think.

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What the Numbers Miss

When getting involved with any positioning project, we begin by reviewing the existing information our client has on the product, the market, and the customer. Makes sense - Most of our clients have reams and reams of research on their markets, but surprisingly little, truly insightful information on their customers. 

Many brand managers have grown so reliant on market research that they are hobbled by the metrics.  They understand nearly everything the customer does but virtually nothing about why the customer does it, or who the customer even is. Metrics are important tools in marketing, but they can't replace understanding the customer. If you're going to have a big idea, it's going to come from knowing your customer, not from knowing the numbers.

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Don’t Destroy the Momentum

Marketing is as much a creative activity as it is a strategic one - You rely on your team and your partners to get engaged and help to move the creation forward.

I was recently at a strategy meeting where fully half of the participants were splitting their attention between what was going on in the meeting and their laptop or smart phone. As you can imagine texting, E-mailing, and side conversations destroy momentum; all decrease the value of the meeting and tell everyone else that what is being done is not that important. If the offender happens to be a senior member of the team, you can practically pack-up and move on. If we are going to expect our partners to push us to think differently and help us get out of the rut, we should be completely engaged or give the task to someone who will.

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Brand Engineers featured in Quirks - Marketing Research Review

Dennis Crowley, President and CEO of Brand Engineers LLC., was recently published in the Quirk's - Marketing Research Review article, "Brand Positioning to Multiple Markets - Change the Message not the Mission."

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Brand Focus

When is the right time to expand your brand? 

Unfortunately, most companies do not choose to expand their brand at the right time and the results are often disastrous. In an attempt to gain additional revenue organizations expand the focus of core brands to encompass more and more. By doing this they are diminishing the meaning and value of the brand. Can you honestly tell someone what AOL or AltaVista represent today? Expanding a weak brand in an attempt to increase sales does not make the brand stronger; in fact it does just the opposite. Watering down the focus of an already weak brand further dilutes its meaning and the value of that brand to the organization.

So what is the right way? Take a look at a brand like Google, which has successfully expanded into video (YouTube) and mobile phones (Android). Why did it work for them? Because Google's exclusive focus on search built a brand strong enough to withstand the stresses of expansion. You don't rehab an injured knee by doing pushups and bicep curls, the knee gets better by exercising the knee. Focusing on strengthening the area of weakness makes that area stronger and increases the ability to take on other roles. The same is true for weak brands; moving the focus to other areas does not strengthen the brand but weakens it. Focus on what the brand should mean and make it strong, then you can consider expansion.

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No Magic Bullet

It's interesting how many teams wait until the wheels have fallen off the brand before they put serious effort into determining a truly differentiating and competitive positioning. By this point, after the brand is losing share and growth has stopped, the goal suddenly shifts to fixing the problem. I don't mean taking action to begin righting the ship, I mean they want the problem resolved immediately.

If you see your brand isn't headed in the direction you want it to go, do something about it before it's too late. Just don't expect a magic bullet to turn it around tomorrow. Chances are it took some time to get in this place and it will definitely take some time to get out.

The only problem is that it isn't going to happen. After years of unclear direction or mixed messages to your target customers, no strategic partner, no agency, no PR firm can fix the problem overnight. There is no silver bullet to turn a brand from ho-hum to star in the blink of an eye. Revitalizing a brand takes hard work, insight, competitive understanding, vision, and focus. You need to step past the preconceived notions of what you think the brand should be and stretch your mind. Look at your brand's potential from many angles to see where the opportunities lie.

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Re-center the Market

Almost every market has a product that defines it. A product that anchors the category and epitomizes what it means to be in that category. Typically this is the product that competitors position themselves against because it is the market leader. The thought being, if I can make the argument that my product is somehow better, I can steal some market share.  

The reality is this is the very product you should avoid, precisely because this product is at the market's center and literally defines it. To successfully compete in this market – or one like it – you need to move away from the existing center by creating a brand position that is differentiating and relevant, and then move the market to you. 

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Set-it and Forget-it Positioning

We've worked with a lot of companies and brand teams that work extraordinarily hard to develop and set a product position before launch. We also see far more brand teams that have worked hard to put a strong, differentiating product position in place before launch only to let it languish after the brand is on the market.

Markets are dynamic, customers change, competitors change. There's a fluidity to markets that require constant attention. Most brand managers keep close track of these changes and adjust messages and campaigns to take advantage of market opportunities, but what's guiding the brand? Have you revisited the product's positioning? Is it still relevant? Differentiating? Competitive?

When is the last time you looked at your product's positioning? I don't mean the last time you read the positioning statement, but the last time you really scrutinized it. The last time you compared it to your competition? Evaluated how you and your affiliates are executing on the positioning, are you all on the same page? Is the positioning as relevant to your customers today as it was when you wrote it? Given the way and speed in which markets change, looking at your brand's positioning once a year should be a requirement.  Does this mean you should be repositioning your product every year? NO, absolutely not. However, as markets and conditions change the positioning may need some tweaking, some adjustment, a course correction.  In some cases it will need to be recreated.

Either way, consider a positioning assessment like you would an annual physical…preventive.  You can do the most good if you find the problem before it kills you.

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