Refocusing your brqnd? Proceed with coution

By Greg Stine Polaris, Inc.

1|.\NE of the questions I am most \-foften asked during workshops or by clients is, "We want to change the focus of our company. Is it a good idea to try and change our brand or should we create a new brand?"

This decision is often very difficult and not clear cut-make the wrong decision and you can do considerable damage to your business.

The Lifecycle of a Brand

Like all things in life, brands are born, mature, and eventually die. Successful new products or services are perceived as new or different; those qualities (new or different) are part of a new brand. As a product or service becomes established in a marketplace, being a market leader replaces being new or different as a brand quality. At one time, Pepsi was new and different. No lonqer. Now, the Pepsi brand has matured and is perceived as a market leader.

Eventually, all brands die. Sometimes this happens because companies simply make mistakes that kill a brand (or sometimes the entire company), but changing market conditions is the most common reason that once successful brands die. As powerful as the Kodak brand has been, it has begun the process of dying due to the emergence of digital technology (industrywide, digital product sales are now outselling traditional film products).

Savvy companies acknowledge the reality of this cycle and when the time comes, they let obsolete brands die. With that said, the decision on whether you can change or refocus your brand should be based on a few conditions...

How Strong and Focused Is Your

Existing Brand?

Simply put, it's very difficult if not impossible to refocus or change the perception of a strong brand. What I mean by this is that if a product or service is perceived strongly in the marketplace, it is extremely difficult to change how people think about it. Whether the perceptions are good or bad doesn't matter-changing people's mind is tough.

Kodak has been trying to extend or refocus its brand to include digital products and services. I think this is a big mistake. As one of the strongest brands ever, Kodak is associated in people's minds with photography and, specifically, film. Kodak is fighting a losing battle and the writing is already in the wall. They would have done better to accept the reality that eventually the Kodak brand would die, and use the opportunity to launch a new digital photography brand.

Think back a couple decades to Mazda and its rotary engine. The engineering behind these new motors was revolutionary and the first generation of those cars was launched with a great ad campaign. They were ready to change the industry. The problem was, the first wave of these new motors had problems in manufacturing and the

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"Rotary Engine" brand ended up being perceived as inferior to piston engines. The rotary engine failed to change the industry because Mazda did such a great job of marketing a first generation of faulty cars. The brand was forever associated with these negative qualities.

If you have a strong brand, live with it, or let it die. It's hard to make it something different.

Product Brands

If your business sells products, improving or altering a brand is fairly easy-simply kill the old brand and replace it with a different, refocused, or repackaged brand. This happens all the time. Procter & Gamble has done this over the years better then anyone, with currently over 180 brands in their product line. Managing brands from A to Z (Always to Zest), they sell you such well know brands as Charmin, Ivory, NyQuil, Old Spice, Pringles, Pepto-Bismol, Scope, Vidal Sassoon, and many others. They create new brands, push the successful ones, and pull old ones when they stop selling.

Service or Company Brands

Refocusing the brand of an entire company is much more problematic than a product brand. You can't kill companies like you can products. Nevertheless, companies reach a point in their development where they have outgrown their current brand. The company name may be misleading, the visual identity (1ogo, marketing materials, etc.) may not be communicating the brand qualities that have developed over time. So now what? says specifically on its Web site, "Our name change reflects the fact that we are no longer the same company we once were." If the negatives outweigh the positives, sometimes changing your company name may be the only choice.

If you have a weak or unclear presence in the marketplace, my advice is this: Make the identity change and make a big deal about it. Let nothing be sacred and make the changes that will allow you to communicate what makes your company special. If you currently have a weak brand, making this change will be like launching a new brand. Forget about the old you and charge forward.

If you have a well known but misstargeted brand, it's not so simple. Some companies choose to change their company name when the negative brand perceptions are overwhelming. Philip Morris Companies appears to be distancing its corporate empire from tobacco-related issues that are under fire by becoming Altria Group. Altria, which owns Kraft Foods as well as the Philip Morris companies.

In other instances, simply altering your existing brand and promoting those new qualities can be effective. You can't be subtle about it thoughif you are no one will notice. A recent, hi-profile example of this was the retargeting of the Subway brand. Not long ago. Subway was trying to compete with other fast food giants such as MacDonald's, Burger King, etc. About a year ago, Subway refined its brand to focus on the healthy qualities of its food and has since become a Ieader in a new category of restaurant-healthy fast food.

Successfully altering a prominent brand can work, but only if you are altering or simply emphasizing some of your brand qualities-not changing everything. With a well-designed campaign, it is possible to turn a duck into a swan-but not into a tiger.

- Mr. Stine is the founder, president and director of sales at marketing specialist Polaris Inc. (www.polaris-inc.com)