4 reasons why your good brand may not be yet successful

Your brand has been put together rather neatly - the design side (like logo, colors, graphics is in place) and the marketing mix side ( Product, Packaging, Price, Promotion) is in place AND YET YOU ARE STRUGGLING  to make a dent in the market? Probably the following 4 issues may have prevented you from doing so....

You may be going against the grain / charter / DNA / destiny of the brand

You may have done market research and benchmarking and spent a lot of money and time on R&D, Product Engineering, positioning, marketing mix, offer and schemes etc. But are going in the direction of your brand's DNA? 

 Look at Apple :  Apple's charter has always been to (a) challenge the status quo (b) emphasize beautiful design (c) make computer devices.... in that order. Apple's following is based on creating this charter.  Apple does not start with market research (where people can tell you what they know but cannot tell you what they dont know) or with benchmarking (of best practice) but they start with their DNA of challenging the status quo (primary DNA) and they enhance the deal by creating beautiful and useful products (secondary) . Apple always markets this mission first and the products come later. From the founder all the way down to the customer, everyone knows exactly why Apple  exists. 

BMW used to make fighter planes and motor cycles for the German air force during the war. They did not know what to make when they came out of war. But they knew how to design and make high precision machines using internal combustion engines and to make them respond swiftly to even the slightest touch from the person driving the machines. Hence came their DNA of "The Ultimate Driving Machine". Their entry into car market was driven by this vision.

Way Forward : Knowing what energizes your key stakeholders, and what you are good at, is fundamental in deciding which markets to serve.

Did you count that different cohorts have experienced you differently

If your company is old, you have created different impressions in the minds of different cohorts because they all have experienced you differently. Let us take the example of IBM.

• People who are over 70 today have experienced it as a electronic typewriter company
• People between 50 and 70 have experienced it as a mainframe (corporate) computer company
• People between 35 and 50 have experienced it as a PC (home) computer company
• People between 20 and 35 have experienced it as a solutions company

As a result of this, any action that IBM takes will be interpreted differently by these different cohorts and IBM must take this into account and the external branding strategy needs to view these different markets individually and  a broad brush stroke - treating all these customers as one - will not work. The same goes for internal branding : IBM is likely to have different cohorts of employees who have experienced the company differently during these times and IBM will need different approaches towards them.

Way forward : tools are available today to segment external markets as well as internal employees.

Set your sights on undervalued and unfathomed markets

Be like a value investor… find markets that are under-valued but have promising growth because if you jump into a highly competitive or shrinking market you may not succeed.  It is better to create your own market.
 
Amazon jumped into e-readers and caught the attention of  early adopters. Though Kindle has not yet been as great as people hoped, there is no doubt that Amazon will dominate the e-reader market

Way forward : the model of 3 concentric circles is a good tool to uncover invisible markets and to see customers which your competitors do not see.  

 Take the case of  Jim Beam. They saw the market for women.  Most of the big spirits companies didn’t give any attention to women, even after knowing 50% of the Vodka market was of women. Their plan was to advertise to the men and the women will follow.  Jim Beam decided to treat women as the primary market and developed product lines like a margarita variety (Skinny Girl Cocktail) that became #1. They did it using a unique flavor and lower alcohol content.

You don't need a different product : so long as your experience is different

Most products are so similar these days that probably the only way to differentiate them is to creating an  awesome user experience.  Your customers must feel that interaction with you is what makes you different.  

Cell phones were all the same till Apple entered the market and  challenged status quo.  This all started with the iPod. Apple floated a minimum viable product out into the market to see how it would be responded to. People went crazy over the iPod so Apple figured that the iPhone, which would cost more to create, wouldn’t be such a gamble. They were right. 

Way Forward : Start by looking at the customers of your competitor and see what is missing from their experience. 

And the nice thing about user experience is you can go after big competitors without having their deep pockets.