Crack the Crunch with the Crunch Breaker
Brand Clones Posts
How to differentiate your brand
June 12th, 2009
In a previous Blog I covered all aspects of Brand Cloning and how easy it is to become a copy of all the other brands out there. Here I will look at those brands that have successfully differentiated themselves and what can be learned from them.
With diffentiation you can be THE brand or THE OTHER brand. Think of Coke and Pepsi. Or Nike and Adidas.
Here are some snaphot ideas and thoughts on brands that have successfully differentiated;
- TALKING TO NON USERS: When Nintendo invented the Wii they did so by talking to people who didn’t normally use video game consoles, and asked them why they didn’t. Girls told them that unlike their brothers, they didn’t get off on killing things. So Nintendo gave them Wii Fit, Cooking Mama and Nintendogs.
- HAVING A VISION: Body Shop moved itself away from other ‘natural’ toiletry retailers when it announced it was against animal testing.
- CONSTANTLY DEVELOPING YOUR OFFER: A brand that continually reinvents itself keeps its differentiation up. The iPod developed the capability to carry more songs. Then Photos. Then Podcasts. then Videos. Then it introduced a touch interface, wifi, and then music and applications. So many digitally based brands miss this completely – most banks haven’t added any more facilities to their ATM’s since the 1980’s.
- GIVE YOUR BRAND A SENSE OF DYNAMISM; Coffee shop chain Tchibo keeps differentiation up by offering a rapidly changing set of offers for household appliances, foods and garden equipment. The rapidly changing offer keeps the brand fresh.
- USING THE POWER OF SCARCITY; If you find something you like at Zara, make sure you but it now. Because once an item sells out at Zara, they don’t re-stock it. Limited Editions work great too.
- RETHINK YOUR BUSINESS MODEL; In 2008 Prince realised that with CD sales in freefall, he was not going to make a lot from a new album release. So in the UK he gave away the album on the front of the Daily Mail newspaper. His subsequent concert tour was a sell out. Coldplay did a similar thing by making an album free for all via the internet.
- GO FOR THE JUGULAR; Dr Kawashinma’s Brain Training for the Nintendo DS has been a huge hit amongst fifty-something adults because it’s upfront as to how weak the mental faculties of this age group are. ‘You have the brain of an 80 year old’ screams Dr Kawashinma at his terrified users.
- DON’T WORRY ABOUT VALUE ALL THE TIME; A Red Bull can is much smaller than a standard drink can. That’s what makes people think it’s special. And it costs a lot more – smart marketing.
- Repeat – STOP WORRYING ABOUT VALUE; Balieys was only just the market leader in the cream liqueur market until Diageo started pushing the price up way above the competition. Girls then realised that if they ordered a Baileys they’d look expensive and if they asked for anything else they’d look like a cheap date. Today Baileys is in a class of its own.
AND FINALLY, don’t dismiss what may initially seem like an absurd idea;
- ‘How about putting little bits of metal in our Cinnamon Schnapps’? was a winning idea for Goldschlaeger.
- And could a pen with a squashy grip be positioned as having a stress relieving health benefit? The idea build Dr Grip into a pwerful brand in Japan in the past few years.
Don’t clone your brand
June 8th, 2009
In the end, a brand has only one choice to make. To be different.
Or to be the same as all the others.
Differentiation is vital. It’s the lifeblood of all marketing.
But few companies ever measure it on their brands. And as a result, many brands are becoming the same as their competitors: clones of each other.
Clone brands are often big, familiar household names. They struggle to attract customers. And keep those that they have.
Their margins are low and and they represent a kind living death in modern commerce.
Tom is a brand manager. His approach is highly professional. He’s benchmarking his brand against competitors, making it look as good as they do.
So ….. what’s the problem!?
‘Benchmarking’ and being ‘best in class’ sound important, but they all mean that Tom is COPYING his competitors.
And because his competitors are professionals too, they are copying Tom back. Everyone is copying each other.
And so brands become clones.
Digital makes things even worse.
In 2004 Tom tried e-commerce. In 2005 he developed a Flash-based website; In 2006 he developed an organic search strategy; In 2007 he explored paid search and in 2008 he dipped into social networking.
But so did every other brand manager in the world.
In 2007 every telecoms company in the world launched the same mobile, fixed line and broadband package. They had all become clones.
Airlines have cut costs so much in recent years that what’s left is purely generic. What’s the big difference between Ryanair and EasyJet? All banks now offer exactly the same cards and the same ATM functions. Most utility companies are just a logo on a bill.
So what are the effects of cloned brands?
1. Cloned brands struggle to attract customers – they have static or declining user bases.
2. Cloned brands have all failed in the past. In general, brands in the ‘Clone Zone’ were highly differentiated in the past and then lost it. Look at banks, utility companies and many airlines.
3. Cloning can happen fast – it can set in within 2 years of launch. Once a brand slips into the ‘Clone Zone’ it’s difficult to get out.
4. Whole industries can enter the ‘Clone Zone’. Look at the mobile phone sector , which was regarded as sexy and the coolest accessory for young people everywhere in the 90’s. 10 years later, these same providers struggle to differentiate from each other, each prominsing no more than ‘LOW, LOW, LOW’ prices.
5. Clone brands have the lowest margins as so often they chase price.
6. Clone brands struggle with me-too’s – these brands spend half their lives fighting off private label and other types of me-too product.
So – what’s the solution?
If you really want to be a strong and maybe global brand – think DIFFERENTIATION.
- Head and Shoulders doesn’t say it will clean your hair. It says it will clear your dandruff.
- Colgate didn’t grow by saying it would clean your teeth. It offered social confidence.
- Actimel doesn’t say it tastes delicious. It says it will improve up your digestive tract.
- McDonalds, the world’s most popular restaurant chain doesn’t even offer you a plate, knife or fork.
In a future blog in this series on BRANDING I’ll focus more on how to differentiate your brand and how other successful brands are steering well clear of becoming ‘Clones.