Are you delivering on your brand promise in 160 characters or less? If not, learn to tweet, you twit. Does your current strategy resonate with your base consumer? If not, it's time to re-visit your thinking.
The authors investigate whether, and to what extent, marketing conduct varies over the business cycle, and how this contributes to the growing popularity of private labels. To address this, a unique dataset is examined that combines a broad set of seven marketing-mix instruments with private-label share, using data covering two decades for 106 consumer-packaged-goods categories in the U.S. The results show that private-label share behaves counter-cyclically, and that part of the boost in private-label share during contractions is permanent. Retailers’ observed practice of supporting their own labels in contractions while cutting back in expansion periods helps this cyclical sensitivity even further. Also national brands’ pro-cyclical behavior in terms of (i) major new-product introductions, (ii) advertising, and (iii) their promotional pressure relative to private labels, is associated with more pronounced cyclical fluctuations in private-label share, and even with permanent private-label market-share gains. While brand managers cannot be held responsible for the occurrence of economic downswings, they can be held accountable for how much contractions help strengthen their fiercest competitor, the store brands owned by their very customers.
Remember your first marketing lecture? Remember the four 'Ps'? Marketing was about Product, Place, Price and Promotion. (Note to reader: this was the mid-eighties, era of Boy George (1.0) and Banana Rama; before the 4P's middle-age waistline spread, Elvis- like, to become seven Ps.)
No I haven't misquoted the famous Mr Warhol. What you remember, as most do, is his more familiar 1968 quote promising us '15 minutes of fame'. I say 'the famous Mr Warhol', but, of course, his 15 minutes of fame is, sadly, over. My kids and their friends have no idea who he is, nor his Campbell Soup tins or quotes about fame.
In a perfect world, the need for rebranding would never arise. With all the time and effort that goes into establishing a brand, ideally they would simply stay as they are, says Mike Cathie, Commercial Director at AVI: Snackworks.
Great brands and great leaders have similar qualities. In the past few weeks South African media have been swept up by the frenzy around the disciplinary hearing of Julius Malema (ANCYL President) by the African National Congress mother body. I can only imagine how frustrating the process must be for a mother body trying to discipline what appears to be a leader in the making and a formidable politician.
There are enough good memories about the '95 World Cup to fill a Yellow Pages printed in size 6 font. Moments like that are meant to be remembered and, thanks to Kodak cameras, everyone who was at Ellis Park got to record it for themselves. At the closing ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, Kodak coordinated a camera-flash Mexican wave. Not simply for effect or visual spectacle - if you were in the crowd that night, you got to keep the camera too! This is the most memorable connection your desired audience can make with your product; it is an emotional bond at its best and delivers first prize for brand hype, product-related talk and memorability.