Rebranding: Learning from the Past

I once had a conversation with the Marketing Director of a brand that is a household name in which he suggested that no products had updated their brand identities.  We were having the conversation because his main brand was so tired that sales were in decline and customers didn’t see its packs on the shelves of their supermarkets: it looked exactly the same as it had a decade earlier (and it was hardly the most relevant product back then). When I used Skoda as an example, he moved the goal posts to FMCG products.  Then when I referenced other FMCG products that had dramatically redesigned their brand without disaster he argued that these weren’t in the same category as his product. So his point was, that since none of his competitors had successfully updated their brand identity, he shouldn’t be the first one to risk it. Except, of course, all of […]

Getting a Book Published: Countdown to Publication

It’s been a while since I updated my series on getting a book published, partly because I’ve been so busy with book-related activity! The publishing industry works backwards.  That’s not a slur on their approach, just an observation.  They set a publication date based on a number of factors: Is there an event they can associate the book with? If you’ve written a book on space travel it probably makes sense to time the launch to coincide the publication with a large space conference or the intended publication date of the latest Mars pictures, or whatever.  There are two reasons for this: firstly, the human brain works by associations and if the media are developing the neural paths to space-related thoughts your book is going to feel more relevant and is more likely to get noticed.  Secondly, journalists looking to cover the event will appreciate an angle from you that […]

Innovation: Can Market Research Help?

Yesterday I visited the Marketing Week ‘Insight Show’ at London’s Olympia Exhibition Centre.  I was underwhelmed. For the most part the market research companies who were exhibiting were pedalling the same old methodologies in the same old ways – all the stuff that doesn’t really work but makes companies feel better. A number of firms were presenting themselves as excellent at helping clients with innovation: I’m not convinced that this is something market research can help with: as Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.”  Or perhaps they would have said they wanted the same horse cheaper. I have no problem with talking to consumers – it’s a very worthwhile thing to do: there’s a small chance that one person might say something that sets an idea off in your head and leads to create something amazing. But the problem with […]

Market Research: Perception Versus Reality

It’s often claimed in market research circles that perception is everything. I suspect this stems from the thought that, provided the customer perceives things as being good then that is what matters, be it customer service, product quality, your brand’s image. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is a really stupid way of thinking about consumers. Let me explain… In one sense, perceptions are all that customers have to provide in market research. Life isn’t absolute when you’re living it. For example, I’ve been having some lower back ache (too much time spent writing in a bad chair) and have been treating it with a physiotherapist and lots of exercises. Unlocking my lower back has caused other parts of my back to react and the other night I turned over and stretched at night and managed to pull a muscle higher up my back. Now, at the moment, my […]