Re-Branding - A Better Option Than "Disruptive Innovation"?

A recent "Economist" article compared the virtues of older brands using traditional technologies to the astonishing advances from new internet technology, often the result of the "disruptive innovation" process. Some of these established products have been able to resuscitate their business by re-positioning their brand proposition to create a viable, profitable niche in their markets. These turn-around examples raise insightful questions on the merits of "disruptive innovation" for many companies.Management gurus rave about the importance of "disruptive innovation" for creating new ideas today. Disruptive innovation as an explanation of how change happens is everywhere - we hear all about disruptive consultants, disruption conferences, and disruption seminars these days. (Wikipedia defines disruptive innovation as "an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology".)The notion of disruptive innovation was first described in detail in Clayton Christensen's 1997 book "The Innovator's Dilemma", where he explained that executives often made "good decisions" that reflected previous decisions which made their company successful. The dilemma was that "doing the right thing was the wrong thing", or what Christensen called a missed opportunity. His primary example of this involved mainframe computer manufacturers focusing only on refinements (or "sustaining innovations"), and completely missing an untapped customer desire for a cheaper, poorer quality personal computer, which eventually took over the entire industry.However, there is growing skepticism about the true rewards from "disruptive innovation", especially when there is a reasonable likelihood of a disaster instead. In Jill Lepore's recent article in "The New Yorker" on "The Disruptive Machine - What the Gospel of Innovation Gets Wrong", she states that Christensen's sources for his case study analyses were often "dubious and his logic questionable". Jill sites two other examples, Morrison-Knudsen and Time, Inc. that did embrace disruptive innovation, but their new businesses turned into disasters. Furthermore, when comparing disruption to evolution, advocates of disruptive innovation use a circular argument: "if an established company doesn't disrupt, it will fail, and if it fails it must be because it didn't disrupt".


These gurus claim that several staid businesses such as law firms, book stores and universities are threatened by the key drivers of change, technology and globalization, behind disruptive innovation. On the other hand, this "Economist" article identifies some enlightening examples of how such threatened companies have re-positioned their brand to create a new meaning based on its traditional model and image. The classic example is the Swiss mechanical watch, which was almost wiped out by the introduction of cheaper digital watches. Instead Swiss watchmakers re-branded to offer the more emotional benefit of status, as prestigious fashion items (e.g. Swatch, Omega, Breguet), rather than just an instrument for telling time, with higher prices to reinforce the perception of greater value. In doing so, they leveraged their brand reputation for tradition and craftsmanship to attract an additional set of customers.Another example is independent bookshops. Many are re-defining themselves as communities where people who care about books meet and socialize. Also, some sunbelt cities have re-positioned trams as an important green solution to both pollution and urban sprawl.The key to successful branding is to establish a close relationship with the customer, one that is ideally based on trust, credibility and other important emotions. These old fashioned industries and brands focus on quality rather than quantity, and heritage rather than novelty. They are all emotion driven, making the brand seem more distinct and hence valuable to a core group of customers who are willing to pay a higher price as a result. Instead of relying on "disruptive innovation" to respond to external threats from advanced internet technology and globalization, these brands went backwards and found a novel way to leverage their core meaning and create a rejuvenated and profitable, niche business that has a new life.

Brand Building Strategy

In the overtly competitive era, businesses that resist change are less likely to exist. One careless decision could turn out to be the competitor's Holy Grail. Brands are introduced and ruined every day. To sustain such volatile market scenario and excel in the respective segment, it is imperative to have well-laid plans, guided moves and most importantly, an effective brand management strategy.Strategic brand management is a comprehensive process requiring persistence and patience. When entering a competitive market, it is essential to have best brand positioning which is largely perched on the foundation of research and analysis. By scouting information about competitors, potential customers, their behavior and preferences, one can cut through the clutter with a unique, distinguishing brand identity. A good positioning of the brand can tremendously contribute towards further business branding.Post brand positioning, comes a powerful communication strategy. Here, your communication objectives are defined in terms of identifying the target audience, demographics, the tone of your communication, media outreach and the Brand Message. Describe the messages that will form your communication with proper selection of media channels to deliver your content in the best possible manner. A gamut of communication deliverables like logo, mark, corporate profile, brand stationery, printing, packaging, editorial, advertising, events, brand launch and other activities could be incorporated in innovative styles and approach.


While contriving a brand promotion strategy, it is important to discover ways in which your strategy can be adapted to suit customer's changing tastes and how to cope with market unpredictability. You need to know a consolidated view of customer's preferences and expectations in order to gauge what's working, what's not... mostly in the buying process. Media channels should be wisely chosen to support your branding strategy with insights about where, when and how customers are most receptive to your message. The deeper your insights into customer behavior and preferences, the more likely you are to engage them in lucrative interactions.Well-planned business advertising has worked wonders for many brands manifested by their immense success. Marketing efforts get an absolute focus, refined approach and confidence to deliver results. It' crucial to hire the right advertising agency who understands your objectives, your vision and can contrive strategies that help to achieve your business goals. Associating with a brand communication agency brings about the professional outlook in analyzing the market, articulating the Brand Message and building the required Brand Image that customers can acknowledge.

Defending End-Customer Value

In the 30 years I've been an entrepreneur consultant, I've had the opportunity of sitting with senior management teams from enterprises in diverse industries to infuse customer centricity into their products and services. This has been both a pleasurable experience and the toughest job in my business life.I've always faced two types of clients; those interested in achieving customer centricity, and the large section that's quite indifferent. The interested ones put tremendous effort to understand how core the customer is. They drive hard to inject this core inside their organisation, facing the difficult job of changing employee behaviour. The second type of clients enters the comfort zone of ad hoc adaptability. They deliver what's feasible as per their backend capability and act as though customers will accept it. This is the trouble-free route of changing the bottle, not the wine; and hoping against hoping that customers will not notice.Without end-customers, where is business? Enterprises agree to this, but miss out on driving it seriously as business truth. It makes me uncomfortable when managers barely try to understand the end-customer's subconscious mind where buying motivation resides. I cannot fathom why trying to own the end-customer's mindshare is not the first priority of every enterprise. If an enterprise can find out what to do to change the end-customer's behaviour towards favouring its product or service, that enterprise can smile all the way to the bank.I believe in non-stop enterprise learning using customers as teachers and insight dispensers for business improvement. The ability to absorb human culture and behaviour, anticipate economic and political phenomena in advance, co-opt technology advancement and dig deep into the social and psychological aspects are all necessary at this level to know how to respond to the market. But industrial heaviness sometimes becomes so overpowering that managers get waylaid from the track of discovering and satisfying end-customer need or desire.Because managers do not always live in the end-customer's domain, it becomes difficult to make them understand micro layers of end-customer centricity. To tell you the truth, I'm addicted to observing human behaviour. Wherever I am, with the family, in the sports ground, entertainment or seminars, condolence visits, while travelling, watching television, Internet surfing, visiting museums, or receiving response from my readers, my eye turns to watch behavioural traits and reactions. The rapport between people of any age and economic stratum, their relationship with some product or service, is indeed very telling.No matter where and in which country I am, I don't hesitate to ask if something raises my curiosity. 'Why' is something I never ask as the person gets intimidated; it's the 'how' I enquire about, and learn about the purpose. Learning can never be achieved when you are in the challenger mode. Rather I try to make learning conducive for both of us, me the learner and the end-customer as teacher. These ingredients have helped me understand end-customers in every industry wherever I have entered because no industry can run without an end-customer. Challenging a learning seed is totally destructive; as is the preconceived notion, which intellectuals and professionals are said to be guilty of. Preconception actually kills unearthing the new.


Corporate transformation is mere jargon: It's true that behavioural change cannot be an easy job in a company aligned to market dynamics. You can transform a material in a machine to make products; iron ore can become steel. But human beings cannot be transformed like that. Actually changing employee behaviour can be a nightmare in our country's multi-behavioural heterogeneity, because people work and interpret the same subject very differently inside an enterprise. When they go into social and family life, it's diametrically different.That's why a huge drive from management is required to thoroughly educate employees on the purpose and objective of internal behavioural change according to changing end-customer trends. The company has to patiently work to make employees understand the benefits of end-customer centricity. Not only will the enterprise get better returns, but employee skills will improve, careers will get furthered, which in turn will impact the enterprise. It's a very painstaking task. Unfortunately, most enterprises would rather spend money buying hallucinating capital assets than training human capital.Indian enterprises are largely growing in a demand-led market. Just to illustrate, look at the contrast. Organized retails in Western countries have captured more than 50 per cent market share in every FMCG category. They sell high-quality private-label products at 30 per cent lower price than national brands. So most manufacturing company brands are in a tight situation. Indian manufacturers are likely to face this condition too when this market matures. But managers today mistakenly believe that once they've performed in their key result areas, they've achieved the business strategically. In reality they have merely supplied to existing demand. They have not worked to sustain their business, make it long-term sticky nor worked to deliver differently to get end-customer mindshare for repeat purchase consistently today and tomorrow.Need to deal with new market realities: Having brought end-customer centricity into several Indian enterpises in 15 years, I've seen growth happen when end-customer centricity is tightened, and slacken when corporates get diverted to make easy money trading in diverse categories. When they lose sharp competency focus and capability, they become like conglomerates selling products in different categories wherever there is demand. With complacency and routine comfort, they bring products from China or cut price to make volume. They've still not taken seriously the global predator-competitors ready to kill to grab market opportunity.To capture local and global markets with sustainability, enterprises need to cultivate the passion for end-customer centric drive and change employee behaviour to align with that. The best way to do so is to grab the changing behaviour of end-customers.

The New Hershey's Logo: Everyone's a Branding Expert!

Four reasons the new Hershey's logo worksWhen news of a company's re-branding hits the wire, it's in vogue to find some fault or phallic symbol in the new logo. Some people won't miss an opportunity to mock a logo as evidenced by the flurry of internet postings comparing the new Hershey logo's Kiss to a friendly, excrement-like Emoji. Sometimes it's deserved, but often, the critics are quick to jump in with little information about the process it took to get there. Taking a shape to its simplest form-and still capturing the qualities below is creativity. To visually communicate an entire brand in the logo is not a simple task!The Hershey's rebrand met the four principles that we use to qualify a good mark.Four Pillars of a Good LogoDistinctive. It's unique. Differentiate from competitors.• Created specifically for unique product/service you provide.• You are the only one who looks like you.Hershey's owns the Kiss.Relevant. It's meaningful. It communicates meaning and benefits.• It is NOT random symbols or clip art.• Essence of business' past, present & futureThe Kiss has demonstrated adaptability and longevity. It's a perfect symbolEffective. It's memorable for the right reasons! Creates a positive impression or memory• Creates customer recall• Reinforces a relationship.The Kiss is so simple and iconic; it's a strong symbol for memorability. The symbol builds on the relationship people have with the brand.


Consistent. It does what it's supposed to do-everywhere, every time.• aesthetically pleasing - simple vs. busy• it is scalable and it works in B/W - NOT amateur design-symbol with gratuitous use of gradients and drop shadows• balanced - symmetrically or asymmetrically• long-standing (not quickly dated) - use of color has relevance and supports the messageThe logo must be used consistently. It is the company's identity and the foundation of everything visual. The shape of the iconic Kiss can be reduced, is simple, recognizable and clearly has longevity.Would we have wanted to take our turn at the design table? Yes. It would have been fun to explore a word mark with the "y" and create a unique sub-line rather than the redundant "The Hershey Company." Did they need to remove the wrapper? Could they have designed a cool silver swirl?Ultimately, it comes back to the customer. What is the direction the design team is given? The parameters of the project establish limits. No doubt the new Hershey logo was run through various focus groups. If someone did see an Emoji, the design team and the company didn't think it was enough to scrap the icon.Call it what you will. If your brain takes you there, so be it. It's certainly creating a good media blitz for Hershey's! The Kiss symbol is elegant. The paper waves as a flag, with a gentle, yet strong movement. It works.Visit Brand New to see examples of Hershey's custom font and the new visual identity system.

Creating an Amazing Brand on a Budget

When you first start out in business, you know that you have to brand that business. However, what you may not realize is that it won't necessarily cost you a fortune to do that. With social media and inbound marketing being at its most popular, there are so many ways that you can brand your business effectively and inexpensively.Getting your business's name recognizedThe first thing that you need to determine is your branding strategy. Part of that strategy is causing strong brand recognition to be generated. If you own a small business, the chances are pretty good that you don't have a large amount of money to spend on branding your offerings. Of course, it still goes without saying that you still have the same need and urgency to brand your business as larger businesses. Fortunately, there are several different approaches that you can take to successfully brand your business so that the results that are achieved are what you need them to be.

Make sure that you have a clear understanding of your target audience: It is absolutely imperative that you understand your target audience as thoroughly as possible before you start to brand anything. That means that you need to understand who they are and what they need and want. Only after you have established that will you be ready to come up with a clear strategy for your brand. Of course, all of this must be done before you spend a single dime on branding and marketing.



Share your knowledge and expertise: You need to come up with ways to share your knowledge with other people, namely, the members of your target audience. You can do this in several ways, including sharing a white paper, eBook, newsletter, blogs, etc. What you will achieve from this is that you will be positioning yourself as a subject matter expert in your niche and Industry. The more people come to understand that you know what you are talking about, the more they will consider you an expert and when they need that particular sort of information, you will be the first person they turn to. In other words, you will be building trust and credibility in your relationships with your target audience members.



Leverage social media to the best of your ability: As you are well aware, social media holds a great deal of power and you need to take advantage of that power as effectively as you possibly can for your business. Not only is social media marketing powerful but it is also free (in many cases). However, one of your biggest challenges may be which social media channels to choose to market your brand and your offerings. It is very important that you choose those social media channels wisely and that means that you must do your homework before you make any decision about which ones to choose. Some of the contributing factors that will weigh in your decision will be the needs of your target audience as well as the needs of your business. They are all extremely important and should be considered carefully before you make any decisions.



Work the public relations from a different angle: It is important to recognize that your approach to public relations is not what it would have been previously. In some cases, it is more challenging to work the PR angle for your business. It is important to keep in mind that you need to reach your target audience on an emotional level if you expect to elicit any kind of valuable response at all.





ConclusionWhen it comes to branding your business, you can get away with successfully doing that on much less money than you might imagine. Remember to do your homework and make sure that you choose where and with whom to brand in the most appropriate manner possible. It is definitely worth spending more time trying to figure out which approach will work best for you up front so that the process will go smoothly after that. It is important to keep in mind that if your branding concepts and approach are enticing, you will succeed at what you are trying to do and you won't have to spend a lot of money to do it. It is also important to remember that your content must touch your target audience emotionally and the needs of that audience must be at the top of the priority list.We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. For a complimentary assessment of your online presence, let's have coffee.

How to Make Packaging and Shipment of Goods Hassle-Free

Irrespective of whether you are an individual planning on relocating his office or home, or you have a business which needs to transports its goods to target locations, you always need proper packaging and effective shipment. But as much as this process is important, it has its own challenges and hassles. Right from acquiring the proper packaging material to selecting the best transportation media for delivering the products - every step in the process needs careful attention.The Hassle-Free Packaging ProcessIf you have large consignments of varying sizes, then the best solution is to use a corrugated box or corrugated paper rolls. This gives you the flexibility to accommodate smaller to larger sized products with better space utilization. The corrugated rolls are really useful for creating a package around large consignments or the roll can be cut into sheets of various dimensions which can be converted into flexible packaging. Unless your products have specific storage environments, you can use corrugated boxes exclusively.With corrugated boxes, you have the option of getting varying durability configurations as these packaging materials come in dual or triple layered flutes. Moreover, you can use materials such as foam pellets, bubble wraps and other easily available materials which can be used for cushioning. All of this can be done without much hassles and saves considerable time as well.


The Hassle-Free Shipment ProcessDue to the widespread availability of target markets globally, consignments need to be transported with the use of multimodal logistics solutions. This means that the packages should be durable enough to handle the wear and tear that is often inflicted on the consignment during transit. Consult with the person who is responsible for overseeing the logistics and transportation of the goods. Sometimes, it would be better to use flat boxes instead of regular boxes because the flat shape allows the products to be kept stable during transit. Simple checks and timely intervention can help you to choose the correct packaging material and it would also help you to reduce the hassles of managing the transportation of the goods.The Bottom LineA lot of packaging materials and accessories are available today. But you should assume that an expensive material would offer greater protection for the contents just because it has a higher price tag. A corrugated roll or a box may be cheap (even cheaper if it is made from recycled materials), but it has the ability to offer high durability with less weight being added to the overall consignment. All it needs is a little preparation and careful consideration and you would be able to package and ship your products without any hassle at all.

Managing Your Brand's Reputation

Your personal and business reputation needs to be solid for your brand. Most of the business owners in your industry will not have a plan in tact, when or if something bad happens. However, it's important to not only promote your brand, but you have to protect it. A way to stand out from competitors, is having a strategy in case someone attack your business. This will allow your audience to keep their trust in you.1. Be truthful - No matter how bad things get, lying makes things worst. Do not lie under any circumstances. Mistakes are very fixable, but getting caught in a lie is one of the worst things you can do for your brand. It makes you look untrustworthy. And it can be hard to recover from a lie, because you would have to work to rebuild trust, and that is very difficult to do.2. Get the Team involved - Make sure that everyone that represents you are all on the same page. The entire team needs to be involved with protecting your reputation.3. Act Fast - With the internet, things go viral quickly. The longer you are quiet the worst it looks on your behalf. I always recommend to act as quickly as possible. As you soon as you have a good written statement or press release, sent it to the public.4. Be realistic about it - You can't control what is being said about you. However, you can still have a voice. This is why you have to communicate, especially when you are in the middle of a crisis. Let your audience know that you are still the same company that they put their trust in. Use your voice, and strategize ways to get your reputation back on track.


5. Be patient - It takes time to rebuild a brand. Things are not going to get better overnight. Just don't give up on your business. The length of time it takes does depend on how prepared you are, and the depth of the crisis. However, you should not lose patience and give not, no matter what the crisis is. A mistake that some business owners make is giving up too soon, or letting one mistake or bad review affect the outlook on their business. The key is to be consistent with your communications plan, and being patient with your results.6. Believe in the quality of your products and services - You know your that the products and services are valuable to your target market. Use that as an angle in your crisis management plan. In all of your communication (press release, article, blog, podcast) let your audience know how your business exists to help them. This let them know you are still thinking about your best interest.Whether it's a bad review or a blogger attacking your business, you need to protect the brand that you worked so hard to build. If you need help consider hiring a Publicity Virtual Assistant.

What Is Brand and Brand Identity?

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BRAND AND BRAND IDENTITY?Brand is the way someone perceives your business, its a gut feeling. It encompasses every point of contact that a business has with outside world. This could be everything from the way a staff member conducts them selves, language used or a web site. The identity is part of the brand and focuses on the way your brand is perceived visually.WHAT ARE THE MAIN FUNCTIONS OF A BRANDNavigation - to enable your business to stand out from your competition. To aid customers in navigating the huge array of competition and pick you out.Reassurance - to provide reassurance to clients that they are making the right choice in choosing your company by communicating the quality of your service or product. Taking trust out of the buying process is key to a successful sales process.Engagement - to help customers to identify with your company through the use of imagery and message. Without engagement your product or service will only compete on price.WHAT ARE THE CORE ELEMENTS OF A BRAND IDENTITY?The identity is made up of a series of visual items which form a system. The strength of the system is in creating a visual language that is easy for a customer to understand, making it easy for the business to communicate their message and values.


When designing an identity it is essential to have mastery of all the individual core elements to enable them to be combined into a powerful visual language for your business. The success of the brand identity will succeed or fail on the consistency and quality of the elements and how they are used.APPROACH TO DESIGNING A BRANDIt is important to understand the commercial and academic reasons for a strong brand and its structure. How many businesses and designers make choices purely based on aesthetic reasons? How many businesses make decisions on their own branding on their own personal taste rather than their target market? More than you would think, I would say.Strong brand design is the art of creating and combining all of the core elements of a brand from the ground up. An essential element of the brand design process is to get the business focused, to enable it to become a brand. A brand needs to be simple and easy to understand. This allows the creation of a strong brand which provide navigation, reassurance and engagement in a customers target markets.