Retail Dude

Its about your image, its about your brand, its about your fans and its about your positioning. A Logo of a company depicts lot about it. It is a face of a company which talks to its customer and consumer feels attach to it and to its owner company. And company spends lots of million for the same to promote it and make it a top of the mind recall for particular commodity. So when its done, when a company have a perfect, popular brand logo, then why they changed it. Like Rebook, B.P., Pepsi to name some, even having a good and recognized and honorable logo, they changed it and then again spent some more millions on marketing campaign to make their new logo their new identity.
But the question is why they did that, why they spent a good portion of their bottom line on redesigning a logo which was already on its ace. The reasons can be many depending on what the company trying to achieve. One of the obvious one is “connect with new generation”. Every new generation likes new stuff as they can connect with that really well. It’s the thing which is happening right in front of their eyes which they remember. They don’t even bother about what happened before their birth. At least I never liked History (as a subject ). So for every generation a re-branding should be done. And to give a new look to logo is a best way to do it. Very recent example which I can think of to demonstrate this reason is redesign of “Belk department store”. Other reason which I can think of is, we become habitual to things we see every day and we generally skip those things unintentionally. So until and unless you see any new thing your eyes won’t get attracted to it and thus normally we skip all the big hoarding and marketing done by our old renowned brands. But when they change their logo we tend to look at it, we notice the change and we recall the brand. Some more reasons can be brand imitation, merger or new identity of company itself, or may be if company wants to change their positioning.

Now in the age of social media, companies can opt for a better way to redesign their logo which is contemporary and close to their target audience. They can use social channel to involve their fans and followers to suggest new look they want in their fav brand. This way the process make brand closer to their customer and definitely it’s a plus point for a company. In this consumer driven era this is a right thing to do I guess.
BTW logo of Google on their webpage, is a totally different story and a different approach which I think can only work online.
Readers do share your views on re-branding and new logo for brand. If you have any case study to share, please share it and we can have a discussion on the same.

-Prateek Katiyar

 Email  Print Make a Comment »

Rajeev’s honest post calls for a round of applause. Honest being the key-word. Here and Now.

It will not be untrue to say that the average urban consumer has lost significant trust / faith on the average business. We all seem to know that a Nike or Reebok “can” be bought at heavy discounts & why! That, unfortunately also means that apparently very “robust” brand identities have lost much of their values! And that we all seem to be in the know that what Koutons does, as an USP, is not very different to what the Benettons of this world offer, at Factory Outlets or Clearance Sales. Too many brands are on “upto XX%” discounts, for too long, to pull the perceived premiumness off!

So, what’s next?

One - Why can’t we (marketers) broaden our user-base, significantly? It’s already proven that FMCGs, which cater to almost the largest user bases worldwide, are the least affected by slowdowns. Yes, it IS definitely much easier to sell one garment & make a killing but then, let’s not crib when that “one” customer walks away! Premium should now become a dirty, very dirty word. Across products, services & realty!

Two - Having decided on #1, the second action comes naturally. Penetrate! No, Adidas does not need to do a Bata, yet. But, that’s the way to go. There were times when MNC brands & their custodians used to crack jokes about Bata. I am sure the tables have turned since. The kind of low-cost presence Bata has across most of India, the level of trust people still have in the brand, much more than make up for its decidedly stodgy marketing. Bata & Raymonds are two great retailing examples which have stood the test of time and even geography. There are many wonderful learnings we can pick up from them. And no, it’s NOT unfashionable to replicate success formula, even that of “grand-dad” brands.

Three - In steps one & two we may have managed to Buckle our Collective Shoes. Like Johnnie Walker & one Mr. Gandhi once preached….let’s start walking now! Walk the talk. Let our brand communications not try to project the “unachievable” aspirations any more. The bluffs have been called off, time & again. Why spend shooting in Monte Carlo when the buyer cannot possibly afford to fly to even Mumbai? Every bloody product & service went “aspirational” with a vengeance, in the past 3/4 years. It “was” easy, as the heavily misused (term) TG was so easy to fit-in, into such communication! That same TG is now nursing its deep wounds from Dalal Street to Wall Street, via Chanchalaguda Prison. Let’s get real boys!

Four - The foreplay ends here & out comes the unpalatable truth. We now know that ballistic rates of increments or career paths are History. So are possibly the obscene bonuses & incentives. How about a little bit of real, hard work? You know, it feels good, really good, to “earn” the pay-cheque every month. Try it, and you’ll sleep a happy one tonight. Well, if that erodes market-cap of sedative marketing companies…good riddance

 Email  Print Make a Comment »

Certainly, sir, and how would you like your sandwich?

At SUBWAY sandwich shops around the world, the ’submarine’ style sandwiches come hot or cold, and with an almost infinite combination of breads, fillings and sauces. The first choice: do you want your sandwich to be ‘6-inch’ or ‘footlong’. Then there are 5 types of bread, 11 toppings, and 9 dressings and sauces to choose from - making for an almost endless combination of possibilities. These choices involve consumers in the brand, allowing them to ‘make it their own’ and giving them a reason to keep coming back. There are more than two million different sandwich combinations available on the SUBWAY menu.

The SUBWAY restaurant chain was founded in 1965 by Fred DeLuca, a 17-year-old college freshman, and family friend Dr. Peter Buck. The first restaurant opened in Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA on August 28 and was called Pete’s Super Submarines. Now, there are nearly 30021 Restaurants In 88 Countries, and the company estimates that about 1,900 SUBWAY sandwiches are served every minute around the world. It’s the biggest fast-food chain in the USA, and the company aims to overtake McDonald’s globally by 2009. The number goes on increasing each day. This is one of a kind of its business, since all its outlets are franchisees. They believe that it’s the country that wants good and healthy food that brings them to it and not their operations. SUBWAY chain is a privately held company and is not traded on any stock exchange.

McCarthy, Mambro Bertino Advertising (MMB), located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the SUBWAY^® chain’s creative agency. They very widely use the acronym BMT® which stands for Biggest, Meatiest, and Tastiest. In the early days of SUBWAY^® restaurants, it was a promotion that was based on the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit system in New York City that went along with the subway theme.

And in a deliberate strategy targeting rivals such as McDonald’s and Burger King, SUBWAY have positioned themselves as the healthy choice: offering sandwiches with ‘6 grams of fat or less’ as well as salads and other low-fat options. There is one amazing story of a person called Jared Fogle who lost 245 lbs. by eating nothing but SUBWAY sandwiches for almost a year in a diet program of his own design that included lots of walking and, yes, he is real. Jared came to our attention after Men’s Health magazine ran an article that featured his amazing weight-loss success story. Appearing in a series of SUBWAY TV commercials beginning in January 2000, Jared has since inspired many others to follow his lead. These days, he keeps busy by traveling throughout the United States and Canada, making public appearance and doing thousands of interviews for television, radio, newspapers and magazines. All their menu cards and delivery have the nutrient content of the diet. A wholesome list is also available about nutrition and contents in its website.

They also care about the localized market where they go into, such as they replaced beef with chicken when they launched in India and similarly pork with beef when in Pakistan, so as not to hurt sentiments of its residents.

The questions that comes to my mind is that  “Can we offer customers more choice, and so make the brand more appealing, while staying true to our focused and distinctive brand offer? “

Who remembers that Porsche has a category of SUV’s?  Usually companies and organizations spread out while trying to do so and in the process dilute its own image even if it is the “MENU”. This is what SUBWAY has done so exceptionally.  

BRAVO!

Sudip

 Email  Print Make a Comment »