Brands die (if you let them)
The 1950s was a boom period for concentrated fruit squash drinks and Treetops was a leading brand with an eye-catching bottle design that still served it well into the design-conscious 1960s. The brand definition was about economy and thrift, and very appropriate for the time.
Today most of us will happily pay more for a 250 ml bottle of flavoured mineral water than for a litre of squash that might make 20 pints. We will even pay a huge premium to have that same squash (though not Treetops) in a small cardboard box, ready diluted. The values of social expression and convenience have grown more significant in this market; some brands managed the transition, while some did not.
In some ways those brands with the strongest and most recognizable positioning have the hardest task of changing to move with the times. It is a feature of anachronisms that they were once absolutely spot on…
Some brands become liabilities and should be killed, or sold. Others may still provide a nice
Brand positioning 쐽 105
income stream as they are progressively run to grass. Then there are those brands with enough long-term value to make it worth the risk of reposi- tioning. The risk is twofold – if you fail then not only is the investment lost, but now try going back to where you came from. The truth of the matter is that repositioning is probably harder than the initial positioning – there is the question of existing percep- tions and beliefs. Rather than providing a good foundation on which to build, the existing brand heritage is often an obstacle to change.
Leaving home
It’s the same with people. Imagine that someone wants to change their personality. They might change their clothes, their hairstyle, their accent, their behaviour, but the problem is that their family and friends still remember who they were before all this confusing messing about. If a person really wants to change their personality then the answer is usually to leave home. Repositioning a brand often involves much the same process.
Lucozade
Time was when Lucozade was what your mother bought for you when you were ill. Generations have grown up identifying the brand with illness and recuperation. It was a clear positioning but once it was well established the potential for growth was rather limited. SmithKline Beecham, the brand’s owner, conducted a brilliant campaign over a number of years to repo- sition the product as a high energy ‘sports drink’. SB had iden- tified the potential in this segment and it had a product with many of the necessary attributes. High-profile product endorse- ments from the likes of Daley Thompson were used to great From bedside to trackside
effect alongside new packaging designs and new target retail outlets. Lucozade is still a favourite choice for those over- coming illness, but it now also occupies a position well away from the invalid’s bedside table. The brand managed to select the appropriate parts of its existing definition and personality to act as a protective halo on its journey to its new home.
Changing the mood
Not all repositioning has to be this dramatic.
Leaving home is an extreme step with extreme risks.
Sometimes repositioning can be effected through changes of mood.
Predictor
Predictor, a self-use pregnancy testing kit, found that its personality was not entirely suited to its growth aspirations. The product was well thought of, reliable and responsible, but it suffered from some negative associated images – unpleasant surprises, let-downs, unwanted pregnancies. It was too often a product that you bought when trouble was looming. While that might have been a base on which to position the brand – a promise of performance in use – it wasn’t where Predictor wanted to be. It wanted the brand to have a more upbeat emotional charge, and so a more prominent place in the customer’s mind: personal fulfilment. A combination of a pack- aging redesign and an advertising campaign demonstrating the joy, private and public, of discovering your dreams come true helped to put the brand on to this new level.
Irn Bru
Irn Bru, a brand of fizzy drink with an almost fanatical following in Scotland, had for many years made much of its rather
Brand positioning 쐽 107
How Predictor changed the mood…
minimal iron content – ‘made in Scotland from girders’.
Appealing to an increasingly ageing audience, Figure 11.4 illus- trates the extraordinary change of mood developed, with great success, in order to build sales among the new generation of
‘fizzy drinkers’.
The Irn Bru case again illustrates the high-risk tendency of some brands to appeal to ‘the in crowd’ and in so doing risk the disapproval of those beyond the target audience – good segmentation is vital for such a strategy.
Changing with the times
Repositioning along with the changing times is the lowest-risk strategy, but calls for a surprising flexi- bility of mind. Its main obstacle is all those who cry out ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, the death knell of many a brand.
Changing the mood… and the audience
Figure 11.4 Changing the mood
Boots
Boots the Chemist has been more than just a chemist for some time, and after many years of moving towards a kind of variety store, we can now see Boots repositioning into the service sector with in-store opticians, dentists and chiropodists. In part this is a continuation of the shift from chemist to ‘pamper parlour’, but it also sees Boots taking on (from the beleaguered NHS) a new role in auxiliary health care. This new positioning is one that its existing brand strengths, based on responsibility, trust and confidence, makes particularly attractive.
Repositioning from behind
When a company is aware of a poor image for its product it will need to do more than just tell people how great it is. Humour is a favourite tack and there have been many adverts that appear to knock the advertiser as a means of changing people’s percep- tions. A recent TV ad for a Skoda car has a car park attendant apologizing to a worried car owner (a Skoda owner) for the vandalism done to his car – some little devil has stuck a Skoda badge on the front. Humour, recognition of the current percep- tions, and a clever point about how things have changed, yet some (not you of course) are still behind the times.
Brand positioning 쐽 109
Taking a leading role in changing times…