Posts Tagged ‘Strategy’

Wanting to Be Like Mike

We as consumers are willing to buy just about anything our favorite celebrity endorses. We want the experience of being just like them, don’t we? For instance, take the Michael Jordan boom of the 1980′s and early 90′s.  The Chicago Bulls were undisputedly one of the best teams the NBA turned out in the decade. Michael Jordan slammed dunked his way into the gleaning eyes of little boys and girls across the globe, while at the same time giving swift rise to the Nike Air brand. Just as fast as Mike NBA championships, the folks at Nike made billions creating an entire market of Nike Air branded products that used his likeness to captured a premium from consumers. Why such a fee for shoes, hats and other Air Jordan products? Simple. Sporting the Air Jordan logo meant that kids like you and I could be just like Mike. Like Shoes, Like Headphones Today, it’s the brand experience of headphones were after. Dr Dre noise canceling headphones, branded as Monster’s Beat’s by Dr. Dre fly off the shelves at a whopping $299.95 per pair. If you order online, you can even choose one of six custom bright and bold colors (which obviously will make you look even more like the famous hip hop giant). This fad is taking off so quick, that even Ludacris has coined his own branded pair of headphones dubbed Soul. Note to self: If ever branding headphones for a client, it’s a good idea to stick with single word names. The Lesson Here is Important We consumers make all kinds of purchase decisions simply by the way a product or brand makes us feel inside. That’s marketing 101, but an easily forgotten truth. The thing about brand experience is that the strong ones stick with you for quite a long time. The inherent problem marketers face is [...]

Read This Post

On Cheapening Your Brand

The more traditional school of marketing thought is that price cutting cheapens your brand. Maybe so. Yet, at Bob Evans, we’ve instituted a value menu for the first time in company history, driven by the needs of our restaurant guests.  That decision was not come to lightly either, but it’s working. This year, retailers everywhere relied heavily on discounting to drive sales during the holidays. Not that that doesn’t happen every year, but it was BIG in the retail recovery of 2011. Karah Joy sent me this article earlier today on how the New York Times botched a discount program by sending a 50% discount offer ment for a small list of unsubscribed readers to 8.6 million list members. OUCH! That’s a steep price cut that they may have to honor, at least for those who make a big deal out of the mistake (no pun intended). The Question for You In the wake of the disastrous economy of the past few years, can you really still cheapen your brand through discounting your products and services?  Or, is this a mechanism of survival driven by lighter consumer pocket books? Do you believe that price cutting still cheapens your brand?   nateriggsLike what you just read and want to get my posts delivered to your inbox? SUBSCRIBE HEREMore Posts Follow Me:

Read This Post

About Dark Periods

I’ve been spending time thinking about a talk I saw Jeffrey Hayzlett present at the BMA conference a few years back. When he became CMO of Kodak in 2006, he spent some time taking the brand dark. Consumers appetites had shifted to digital cameras with video capabilities, and the race to product innovations was already full-go. Knowing that silence could act as a brand reset button, Hayzlett shut down marketing for a few months to spend time with his team, working up new ideas and developing new go to market strategies. When the lights came back on for Kodak’s marketing department, millions of consumers we drawn online gallery communities, new market-leading products and a fresh perspective on what consumers really wanted. About Dark Periods Getting stuck in the day-to-day, status quo, business as usual paradigm can create dangerous waters for any big brand. Large ships moving at high speeds are difficult to steer away from glaciers. The only way to avoid the eventual collision, is to stop, shut down the engines and plot a new course. When we marketers do that, we regain control of our ship’s velocity and direction. Moving forward without that control makes sinking imminent… nateriggsLike what you just read and want to get my posts delivered to your inbox? SUBSCRIBE HEREMore Posts Follow Me:

Read This Post
  1. Pages:
  3. 1
  4. 2
  5. 3
  6. 4
  7. 5
  8. 6
  9. 7
  10. ...
  11. 18