You have just been promoted and now are responsible for the leading brand in its category. This may seem like an enviable position, but with it comes the responsibility to hold market share and still meet corporate growth demands. What do you need to do in order to be successful?
First things first, don’t change things just to make your mark. Your new brand is a leader for a reason; make sure you understand that reason before you do anything further. You will likely hear a lot of anecdotes about what is wrong with the brand and what could be done better, and they may be true; then again, they may not. Make sure you understand why consumers value the brand before you judge whether those anecdotes have merit.
Second, don’t take your foot off the gas. Sure, your brand is big and salient, the first brand to mind when people think about a need related to the category, but you need to keep it that way. Make sure that the brand’s share of voice is at least as much as its market share and ensure that spending is being used effectively. Is your campaign driving awareness, search and social commentary better than the competition? If not, better find out why.
Third, if your brand is already the most salient brand in the category then it may well be that this route to growth is tapped out; you will need to seek out alternative growth strategies. The one in five brands measured in BrandZ that managed to grow without a significant change in salience had to do so because they were already 50 percent more salient than the category average. Instead they held that advantage and focused on making the brand more meaningful and different.
Fourth, decide which growth strategy is going to work best for your brand. A key ingredient of making your brand more meaningful is to make sure that your brand is meeting all people’s potential needs of the category. However, this does not mean you automatically need a new line extension; maybe you just need to reframe the brand as serving a wider set of needs. Another key strategy is building people’s instinctive, positive feeling about the brand. This may be as simple as focusing attention back on what people already value about the brand, or it might be that something additional is needed to build more positive associations.
Fifth, maintain your brand’s sense of difference. I use the word ’sense’ very deliberately because all too often difference is perceived to relate to the product, when in reality it is driven by the overall brand experience, from customer service to, yes, advertising. Make sure you know what differentiates the brand from others in people’s minds. If that difference still resonates, then highlight it in everything the brand does. If people struggle to say why the brand is different or are not enthused by that difference, then the time has come to figure out what might make the brand meaningful and different, because without them your competitive edge and pricing power are at risk.
Last, but not least, keep looking over your shoulder. Is there a new and potentially more meaningful and different brand out there? If so, better think about how you best counter it before it becomes more salient. Hint, this does not mean offering exactly the same thing; play to your brand’s strengths, not theirs.
Written by Nigel Hollis, Executive Vice President and Chief Global Analyst, Kantar Millward Brown