Posts Tagged ‘BRAND MANAGEMENT#8217;

Cuando empezamos a ver el final de este año, aunque no sé si alegrarme mucho en vistas de lo que intuimos del 2012, los rankings comienzan a aparecer en varios foros y entre ellos, uno de los más respetados, es el que publica anualmente Interbrand, una de las consultoras más importantes en lo que se refiere a los estudios de marca y su valor en el mercado.

En esta edición de 2011 no hay grandes cambios en el panorama general exceptuando, cómo no, a Apple que gana 9 puestos y aunmenta su valor de marca en un 57%. Será muy interesante ver qué ocurre el año que viene tras el fallecimiento de S. Jobs. En el resto del Top Ten no se producen variaciones significativas en el orden aunque sí en la valoración de algunas de las compañías que aparece en el reflejadas. Los clásicos Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft y Google copan los primeros puestos mientras que la primera marca española es Zara en el puesto 44 y que presenta una evolución de cuatro puestos en el listado.

Lo más interesante de las valoraciones de Interbrand es el algoritmo que utilizan para valorar las marcas en función de parámetros estables lo que permite la comparación a los largo de los años. De un modo resumido, su valoración se reduce a este esquema:

Aunque para comprender cuáles son todas sus variables os recomiendo que entréis directamente en su web y lo podáis ver. Además, tienen un comparador animado entre marcas en donde vemos las fortalezas y debilidades de los diferentes comparadores.

Basándome en estos datos, os adjunto un pequeño resumen del Top 100 en el que apreciamos cuáles son los sectores más importantes en cuanto a valoración de marca en este Ranking y cuáles son aquellos que más han crecido.

A nadie le extrañará ver el importante peso que ha adquirido el mundo electrónico en los últimos años (de la mano de las innovaciones de Apple) o de internet. Sin embargo, llama la atención el importante crecimiento en los servicios financieros que se puede explicar por la correcta evolución de las principales marcas representadas y el gran impulso de las marcas de Lujo que, en su conjunto, aumentan su valoración en más de un 11%, siendo esta evolución la tercera más importante de todo el top.

Estas marcas del universo del lujo siguen comportándose muy bien en términos de facturación y en estos momentos de crisis parecen haberse convertido en un valor refugio de tal manera que la fidelidad a sus principios y un marketing cada vez más sofisticado les ha permitido aumentar el valor total de marca.

Os invito a que echéis un vistazo al ranking y me comentéis qué pensáis.

Jesús Rebollo

Last September Burger King was  sold to private equity firm 3G Capital in a deal valued at $3.26bn (£2.1bn), after having struggled significantly with the crisis and having projected  weaker than expected demand for the rest of the year. In the meantime, its main competitor, Mc Donalds reached an all time high share value due to its sales performance.

Why do we have such a big difference in performance? Why is the recession not hitting both chains in the same way? Hasn´t the BK campaign “Have it your way” worked as expected?

As usual the response is complex but could be understood by the Marketing Strategy that both companies have in place, and specially with how they have coped with the crisis.

The first  reason has to do with SEGMENTATION and TARGETING. Mc Donalds is mainly targeting Families that, during the crisis, has not suffered as much as the 18-34 year old segment of BK,  that has specially been affected by unemployment.

Second reason should be found in the PRODUCT OFFER. While Mc Donalds has worked significantly in diversifying their menus (betting aggressively on alternative dishes like chicken and salads), BK has kept on pushing burgers, ensuring that theirs were best in class. Something that could have worked properly in a scenario where the price for beef had not increased significantly, and there had not been a switch in the taste of consumers, that are now looking for more “healthy” dishes.

Third and fourth reasons could be found in PRICING AND PROMOTION. BK has launched new combos (termed special offers) that turned out to be new product offerings, at very special prices. A movement that could partially offset the sales drop by retaining customers that could have opted for more pricey choices but, had had eventually led to a cannibalization . Moreover, a sort of contradiction was created for, on the one hand they were positioning as best-in-class burger suppliers (with campaigns like “Have it your way”), while on the other one they were advertising heavily their unbeatable affordable combos.

And last but not least, it had also been an issue of DISTRIBUTION. Not really about Distribution Deployment and Franchise Management, but of being unable to optimize the capital spent in their shops, introducing new menus and offerings for the whole day. Which has not been the case of Mc Donalds, that have successfully launched breakfast and brunch offers to ensure more traffic and consumption per customer, in a successful effort to maximize the return on assets and increase the CVE.

Quite a few reasons as you can see. I am aware that some of the points are not that easy to tackle with and require some time to take place and level off. But unfortunately, under the current situation it is not enough to be the King of the Burger Kindgom. You need to be the King of the Inn.

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo

How would you feel if, someone you have known for long and trust, all the sudden tells you “Show me your money!!!”.

Do not worry, this is not about robberies and criminality but about Marketing. The latter exemplifies one of the core messages that most companies (you name them) are conveying to their customers, no matter how good they are. But before jumping into it, let me give start sharing you the context around this.

One of the best exercises that a marketer can do is to observe and speak openly with his customers. The latter goes far beyond traditional market research, where we get quick insights about Brand Perception or reactions from a focus group about how good (or bad) a product it; it also goes beyond quantitative research done by third parties, or statistics from the panel of a well known research company. It implies a face to face converstation (not monologue) with customers and letting them speak spontaneously and in depth about what sort of messages do they get from our companies, how satisfied they really are, what is moving them and what sort of value do they ultimately get from our companies.

Seems to be obvious. This is what we all learn at Marketing Fundamentals and what we all assume we should be doing. However, I can assure you that this is not the case for many companies, end up suffering the CUSTOMER GAP. I would define the Customer Gap as the distance we have with our customers, a measure of the degree of disconnection we have with them. So that the bigger the wedge, the bigger the disconnection, the bigger the Customer Gap will be.

Many companies claim that their Customer Gap is zero or irrelevant. According to them they are communicating continuously with their customers. But the reality is far from here: They are not communicating, they are throwing away messages to their customer base, with no space for real interaction (even if they open a web site or other similar channel through which their customers can express themselves). In other words, theirs is a kind of monologue, with no chance for the conversation being given.

The results of the Customer Gap are quite predictable: The higher the Customer Gap, the higher the risk of generating customer dissatisfaction, losing loyalty, decreasing net promoters and eventually compromising all the company long term growth.

So, you will agree with me, we need to overcome it and decrease it and implement kpis and mechanisms that help us signal where we are going. On of those would be what I mentioned before: Implement real conversations with a representative sample of customer where we get where we really are and what we are really passing on. Wait and see; you will be amazed to find for instance that your messaging is completely distorted. That when you say for instance “Welcome on board to our loyalty program” the customer might be understanding a “Show me your money!”, for you are requiring his credit card details and will charge him for any new service, trial or new product you have launched.

All companies are at stake. Even great managed ones like Apple and Amazon seem to be increasing significantly their Customer Gap, and enter into the “Show me the money!!!” destroying wave when milking their customers with service platforms like Kindle or iTunes. How come, you would say? Not sure about the answer; guess that the pressure to attain short term results exerts more influence that long term ones…

Having said that, let me finish with one straight question that only you can answer: WHAT IS YOUR CUSTOMER GAP?

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo