Every year, many new brands appear and disappear in consumer markets, while the popularity of established brands rises and falls. What is going on? Why do some brands successfully market and win consumers, while others do not, even though all brand managers use the same marketing tools? Read about what mistakes brand managers make in the process of brand promotion and how to avoid them?
We can highlight 10 of the most common mistakes brand managers make:
1. Lack of a clear hierarchy in the brand portfolio:
Many brands, after strengthening their position in the market, in order to expand their target audience, start to produce many sub-brands, within which a large number of product offerings are also created. For example, the personal care company Colgate has produced a large number of toothbrush sub-brands with at least 10 product offerings.
These toothbrushes differ from each other in the comfort of the handle and the design of the cleaning head, but only slightly. This product differentiation was designed to meet the needs of a wide variety of consumers in order to capture as much market share as possible.
But such a technically detailed variety, confuses the consumer, because the difference between the products is not very noticeable to the average consumer. Therefore, having been tortured to choose between the positions of one brand, the consumer is likely to choose another brand, where in the category, for example, “toothbrushes” will be only three types of goods, or a brand with a little more than three gradations, but the differences between the positions of which will be clear and obvious to him.
2. Release of non-traditional products for the brand:
Nike, a well-known sportswear manufacturer, noticed that their consumers often wear sneakers to work and on walks – i.e., they use their products on a daily basis.
Then they decided to release a line of casual wear, as a result, the company made losses for 2 quarters, because the release of casual wear eroded the attitude in the minds of consumers about the brand, which produces only sportswear. The target audience of Nike did not accept the new products, and even more so, had a negative attitude to the changes.
Another example would be XEROX, which decided to produce computers, which consumers categorically rejected because XEROX is perceived only as a copier manufacturer.
3. lack of feedback between the consumer and the brand:
As a rule, brand managers conduct marketing research only at the initial stage – at the launch of a brand, and then – for a long time marketing decisions are based on the data of exactly the initial research. But it is foolish not to realize that the consumer market is inherently changeable. Therefore, the preferences and needs of consumers often change. Therefore, if you do not conduct new marketing research, you can confidently look for success where it does not exist and can not be….
HappyLand Company has launched a low-alcohol drink of 4 types on the Russian market: “Black Russian”, “White Russian“, “Red Russian“, “Blue Russian“. Think about these names. It would seem that marketers simply divided the product line by the colors of the Russian flag and added some mysterious black, but consumers perceived this division extremely negatively and the company suffered losses. And all because there was no preliminary research of consumer preferences. Draw conclusions.
4. lack of innovation:
Let us immediately consider the example of marine products producers “Russkoe More” and “Meridian”. “Russian Sea” is an innovative company, innovations are introduced constantly and in everything – in raw material processing, in packaging design, in product range, etc. “Meridian” has a standard set of product lines, which has not changed for a long time. The sales volume of “Russian Sea” is 3 times higher than that of “Meridian”.
Another example, the company Gillettemade an innovation in advertising – it placed an advertisement on a human hair. This advertisement was a huge success and was entered into the Guinness Book of Records. Conclusion: innovation is an integral part of thebrand promotion strategy!
5. Copying the actions of competitors:
Until 2002, wheat beer had no demand in Ukraine, until Chernigivskereleased the same wheat beer, but with the name “White”. A different brand presentation – and consumer loyalty was won. And already in 2003 “Obolon” and “Slavutich ” companies released their own brands of “White beer”. But they still have not managed to win back consumers from Chernigivske. Chernigivske’s market share in the wheat beer position is 60%, while Obolon and Slavutich have approximately 20% each.
By copying someone, you lose your individuality and identity among your competitors!
6. Lack of brand differentiating characteristics:
Many manufacturers of homogeneous products offer the same benefits to the consumer. For example, stationery manufacturers always offer quality and convenience – PILOT, Erich Kruuseyand others. But SILWERHOFoffered consumers “help in work and good mood”. As a result, the company was recognized as Brand of the Year.
7. The concept of promoting brand characteristics that are unimportant to the consumer:
Sargis juices entered the market as a gourmet beverage for high-income consumers, but has not had any success as high-income consumers prefer fresh juices.
8. Short-term profits are more important than a strong brand:
Recently, companies have been making decisions in favor of making quick profits rather than strengthening brand positions. This is why sales have become popular, during which companies’ profits increase significantly. At the end of such sales, profits fall below the pre-sale level.
But, in the case of a long-term project with stable profits, in order to maintain the position of the brand, sometimes it is better to give up quick profits!
9. Reducing costs through qualities that are important to the consumer:
Companies, which entered the market as quality benchmarks, more and more often start to save money at the expense of further reduction of quality level and thus lose their loyal customers. At the moment when the quality reduction becomes too obvious, the company suffers losses and it is almost impossible to regain the loyalty of consumers. This approach is most typical for the sausage and beer market. But similar “tricks” are also noticeable among producers of tea, detergents and coffee.
10. Excessive amount of emphasis in brand communications:
The human brain is not capable of memorizing more than three points at a time, it is too lazy, and a large amount of information seems difficult for it. Therefore, when companies use more than 4-7 messages in their communications, consumers most often don’t remember any of them. For example, few people will remember the names of all 4 members of the Beatles, but everyone knows the names of three of them. Therefore, a brand manager should identify the 3 most important benefits to the consumer and reveal them through brand communications. Don’t believe me, try to reproduce all 10 points of this article without going back to what you have already read! 😉
Make a business notebook to promote your products, write down a list of the 10 most common mistakes of brand managers, and, every time you check the correctness of the brand promotion strategy, try to avoid these mistakes! Have a good branding! 😉
