SAVE YOUR BRAND FROM DYING SOON

As an entrepreneur owning a brand or set of brands... quite a few times in your life you may come across a situation when you may start thinking, “Is my brand going in right direction? Are we loosing focus? Do i need to makeover the brand or create a new brand and let the old one die?

Its confusing situation and quite often difficult to find an easy answer to these questions. There is always a fear of going wrong in decision and damaging the existing business.

A Brand has a life...quite like us but you as a brand owner governs that life

Brands are born, stay young then mature and eventually they die, sometimes due to wrong decisions but mostly due to fast changing market conditions, emergence of new brands and change in corporate positioning where a particular brand may be a misfit.

For Example, Binaca, an oral care brand whose popularity in the 1970s and 1980s was next to that of only Colgate, and which was also a prefix to a much-loved All India Radio programme, Binaca Geetmala. It has faded to near oblivion in the subsequent two decades. Dabur bought it from Reckitt Benckiser in 1996 -- with the intention of reviving it to ride onto the white toothpowder segment but Dabur failed in that product diversification because the category was stagnant and margins were thin, and it almost withdrew and also tried to sell it off but found no takers. Similar case happened with once very popular Indian soft drink brand “Gold Spot” which is now dead.

It is important to keep a check on the ailing brands in the company’s portfolio which are slowly getting irrelevant or obsolete due to changing market scenario. If a company can proactively manage this it can minimise the damages caused due to overstretching a brand’s life cycle.

Is you brand strong and contributing to your business even in changing scenario?

If your brand is very strong in its category and has a glorious past with its positioning but is slowly losing its sheen in the changing market scenario, it is very difficult to bring the sheen back to the brand as people always identify the brand with its earlier strong identity. Changing people’s perception about the brand is an extremely difficult if not impossible task for a company. We have seen brands with cult status in their category going in oblivion.

Let us take a case of Kodak once a brand leader in the photography products now not able to sustain the challenging emergence of digital photography era which has swept away its huge chunk of market share. The reason is its strong image of a brand of traditional photography and film products. Even after adopting new digital technology...it is seen as a struggling brand now.

Remaking a brand with new emerging technology or product innovation may sometimes be helpful if you brand is the first mover in the product category but if you are a follower you carry a baggage of your earlier image which may not be exciting for the new age consumer hence you are not preferred if consumer is having option of going to the new. In case of Kodak...had they been the first and only brand to launch a product with digital technology... they could have probably retained their market leader position but other brands like Nikon, FUJI etc. got more aggressive in market and acquired the space of digital cameras leaving Kodak far behind.

Same goes with Indian brand Like BPL...one of the largest consumer electronics players in 1990’s They lost their way completely in early 2000 after Korean giants like LG and Samsung came to India and turnaround the market with innovative products coupled with high-decibel marketing campaigns & extensive after sales service centre networks across the country. They are trying hard to revive but with current competition it looks tough for them to turn it around. If BPL has to come back now merely following the footstep of LG and Samsung will surely not work...they have to come back completely repackaged and might have to change their brand identity and logo also and has to look more relevant to the new market.

Does repackaging help in reviving a brand?

For product brands it is still easy to alter or improve the brand identity by repackaging and repositioning the brand. If we take a case of Lifebuoy A carbolic soap used in office toilets, dhabas and other cost-conscious points, Lifebuoy has transformed itself from a toilet soap a leading family bath soap with its repositioning as a soap for health conscious people .

When it comes to services brand or a company’s brand identity, it is far more challenging and time consuming as options of exiting is not the option here. There are 4 options

Option-1- Repackaging the brand by changing the colour identity, brand logo etc.

Option-2- Diversify into different categories of business

Option-3- New Product innovation which can add value to the brand and edge over other

Close competition.

Option-4- Launch a new marketing campaign with new logo and new offerings under the

Company portfolio and aggressively communicate with the target market

We have seen Godrej India doing this successfully few years back which completely changed their identity of an old age brand to a new age happening brand. Godrej had shed the bright red in its logo and given it a fresh blue-green-red look. The change in the logo colour symbolises Godrej’s new corporate identity and the refurbishment of its corporate brand. With the change in logo Godrej also diversified itself to personal grooming, aerospace, property and lifestyle category.

What should you do?

As a brand owner it is important to understand that if your brand has to stay relevant to its target market and live a longer life. It must follow the DRIC Principle.

-Diversify (D)

-Repackage (R)

-Innovate (I)

-Communicate(C)

Follow the DRIC principle and save your brand.