Brands

Sorting out the brand portfolio to drive business growth

Brand portfolios evolve. Businesses expand into new categories, launch new sub‑brands, acquire competitors and before long, what starts as a well-thought-out portfolio architecture becomes a messy patchwork. It’s all too easy to end up with a unintended mash‑up: a unified master brand covering a few brands here; endorsed brands over there; somewhere else, standalone brands with equity of their own; and maybe even own‑label offerings fighting for the same customer’s attention.

A clear portfolio architecture isn’t a nice to have. If there’s no organisation or logic there’s risk of diluting equity, confusing customers and consumers, burdening sales teams with conflicting direction, and potentially wasting money or making poor investment decisions. And from that come the intangible issues, an erosion of internal confidence and decision‑making that becomes bogged down, slow, political and tentative.

The question then is how to disentangle it all and get something that works in place.

It starts by recognising the problem: a clear, strategic portfolio architecture maximises both brand equity and business performance. When architecture is muddled:

Customers don’t understand your brands’ roles
Brands more easily cannibalise one another
Marketing spend can be wasted
Future NPD rationale gets murkier
Teams can’t prioritise with confidence

Next, an objective and systematic mapping of the current architecture

Speak with customers and consumers. Get an honest, visual map of how your brands are currently positioned. Plot them according to customer journey and decision drivers. What do customers actually think each brand stands for? How are they perceived not just individually, but together. Are the linkages known? Understood? Helpful or a hinderance?

What’s often revealed are multiple brands trying treading on each other’s toes, inconsistent endorsement logic, or brands that have outgrown their original purpose and now lie in no-man’s land.

Then, define brand roles with clarity

The key here is to get some intentionality behind the portfolio structure. Every brand in your portfolio should have a distinct role and is (classically) organised into a portfolio architecture

Unified Brand where the master brand leads all products – think Apple or Virgin.
House of Brands where individual brands have independent equity, think Mars or P&G
Endorsed Brands where sub‑brands get credibility from a parent but still stand alone – like Courtyard by Marriott or Sony PlayStation

And you don’t need just one approach. A hybrid will work fine if each brand’s role is clear and defensible. Is it clear on what customer need the brand serves that others don’t? Is it clear on whether the brand dilutes or reinforce the unified parent brand?

Time to act: rationalise, realign, reposition (other letters are available)

Once roles are clear, it’s time to prune and align. This might mean:

Consolidating brands with overlapping roles
Elevating or retiring brands
Re‑endorsing sub‑brands for clarity
Reallocating brand investment to strategic priority or driver brands

And finally, actively managing the portfolio

Errors or relapses happen when organisations lack brand governance. Establishing clear rules is always beneficial. Be clear:

what constitutes a new brand
when you endorse vs. when a brand can stand alone
what ‘distinctive assets’ are truly owned in your targets’ minds, so they can be nurtured and stewarded across different sorts of consideration or consumption moments.

And when you are brand planning, build in portfolio planning as a crucial first step.

Cleaning up a messy brand portfolio is not merely cosmetic, nor an intellectual exercise. It’s a strategic action that markedly helps to drive internal alignment, helps your business cut through market noise overall, helps sharpen customer understanding, and helps to direct investments against those brand priorities which need it. A well-oiled machine, if you will, not a patchwork quilt.

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy, innovation and brand planning company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success. Talk to us if you need a strategic diagnosis of your portfolio and an action plan that will drive meaningful commercial change.

david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh. © The Crow Flies, 2026.

Crow Essentials / Strategy

A couple of weeks ago we posted that no matter how long you’ve been around, any brand or business shouldn’t ever forget to remind, refresh and reinforce what it is about.

And, as a brand building agency we really ought to practice what we preach – with that in mind, here’s the second part of our ‘Basics’ series; this time on our strategy offer.

Dispassionately working out where you are, and what the options are going forwards, bearing in mind your competitors, consumer or customer dynamics, or the general shifts in attitudes and behaviours in your category, is critical to any business or brand.

If you need help working out what your options are, then get in touch.

We build brands sure, but strategy is vital at any level – it could be your business EVP. It could be a business unit strategy. It could be your corporate direction. Or understanding what the options are if you’re undertaking M&A.

Or of course, it could be what you do with your brand or your portfolio.

Magnet or Mirror?

There is a balance to be struck when building a brand. On the one hand, there are brands that have come into being on the back of an experienced eye seeing or sensing a gap in the market. Often this coincides with the belief system of their founder – and the brand becomes a way to fulfil that belief. We call these Magnet brands. On the other, there are brands that are created through a research process, by spotting patterns in the data, by seeing what people are saying or how they’re behaving and working from there – these are Mirror brands.

Both Magnet and Mirror brands are built from a market orientation, but reflect different approaches, different attitudes to risk and different cultures too.

Magnet brands have a confidence in their beliefs. They act with an inner confidence and are set on shaking up or disrupting their market because they believe there is a better way. And these brands aren’t solely ‘purpose’ brands – a purpose may be articulated, it may not, but it’s more about an attitude of if you like what we stand for, how we do things, and what we believe in you’ll be attracted to us. Magnet can be seen across the spectrum from smaller, fleet-of-foot start-ups to some big old behemoths.

BrewDog was built from a manifesto that beer should be interesting, tasty, different and a bit ‘punk’. Dyson believed that vacuum cleaners should actually be able to suck up dust effectively and new technology was needed. Patagonia want to save our home planet. Fat Lad At The Back believe that cycling is for everyone no matter your size. Dacia believe that simpler is better and that you don’t need all the bells and whistles that most cars have.

Crucially, Magnet brands have market orientation; they undertake market research and seek consumer feedback – but they do this through the lens of their principles and red lines. A Magnet brand recognises that because it is forsomething, it is not for everyone. It wants to understand how it is used, perceived, how it is trending, but also is clear around what can flex and what can’t.

A Mirror brand conversely reflects the market. Again, market orientation is crucial, but here the usage is different – Mirror brands look to understand what’s trending, what’s on the way up and build it into their mix. It will want to know the attitudes and perceptions of its current and potential consumers are positive or becoming so. And crucially, a Mirror brand responds to the feedback by altering its course – perhaps only slightly, perhaps quite markedly – and usually because it is following the short-term money. Most household name brands are Mirror brands, and they have been incredibly successful meeting our needs for years and years. Whether this is Persil launching a new variant, Mars stretching their incredible confectionery brands up or down in size to meet different occasions or whether this is Tesco extending their offer so that every little helps.

And this isn’t a case of ‘one is right’. Both directions have validity. Both can lead to success, or failure; both indeed have risk attached. For every Who Gives A Crap there are 10 copy cats struggling to cut through. For every Warburton’s Toastie there’s a competitor covering its packaging in baked beans because ‘that’s when our customers use it’.

It’s best to be honest and upfront about what your brand is. If you have a clear point of view on the world leverage it. It doesn’t have to be grandiose; it just has to be something that the business really believes in. And if you’re a Mirror brand, that regularly audits what consumer think and how they use your category good for you, because you’ll be many steps ahead of those who think that market research is unnecessary.

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success. david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670 or +44 (0) 7885 408367; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh. © The Crow Flies, 2024

Caw! It’s the Crow Chronicle, Autumn 2022

As if by magic, the leaves are turning brown, the last flowers are blooming, and brand builders start thinking about the run into Christmas. Well, here’s some light reading, the latest Crow Chronicle in which we *cough, cough* humbly show off about some recent successes we’ve been part of helping to get to market. And, we talk about some of the considerations to be thinking about during these ‘interesting times’ we’re living in.

Make a lovely warming Twig Broth, pop some Worm Bites in the oven and put your feet up to enjoy the latest… Crow Chronicle AUTUMN 2022.

Autumn: the best time for brand planning

It comes as no coincidence that both my letterbox and media feeds are sending me all sorts of catalogues and top tips on gardening… it seems that now is deemed to be THE time in the gardening calendar to get it ready for next year. That, coupled with turning my attention outdoors to a much-neglected garden during lockdown, has obviously put me on the mailing list radar.

Whilst sifting through all this mail what struck me was that the parallels between Autumn brand planning and the Autumn gardening activity calendar both serve to make the right preparations for an impressive performance starting next Spring. After all, there’s nothing like getting the year off to a good start to make the hard slog to the end of the financial year so much easier. Plus there’s the feel good factor and confidence in what you are doing to bolster the commitment for the rest of the year – without the need for any budget cuts!

So, how to make the most of Autumn brand planning? Here are five things to consider:

Review your performance over the year. It has been a testing year for all but by taking the time to take stock of what has worked well, what has failed, and sifting past the big macro-level factors that have impacted everyone to find the deeper underlying reasons of why for your brand, is time well spent between the trading peaks of Summer and Christmas. Too often marketing teams talk about but then don’t spend time unearthing the real truths behind performance: why new launches failed, why new distribution opportunities didn’t quite deliver, why redesigns fell flat or flew.
Mind the gap! Where have other competitors performed well when you have struggled to make your mark? Has your brand been overshadowed by new market entrants? Were you waiting in the wings, hoping things would get better when other brands were stealing the march and confidently pushing forward. Gap spotting is such a critical part of understanding your brand’s opportunities.
Perfect your positioning. Be really honest. Do consumers, customers, stakeholders and colleagues truly have a shared understanding of the brand, what it delivers & how it delivers it? Is it consistent, distinctive and differentiated? If it isn’t, now is the time to get under the skin and review.
Try something new. When the stakes are high, risk is often avoided but sometimes when the market is stagnating, breaking away with new ideas and approaches is what is needed to invigorate growth. How brave are you?
Land the brand. A great plan needs the support of the business. an insight is nothing if it doesn’t grab people. A strategy is nothing if it doesn’t create action. Innovation is nothing if you can’t bring the ideas to life. A brand plan is nothing if it doesn’t inspire. Focus time on creating the tools that will sell your brand and your plan not only to customers but also internally, to stakeholders and sales teams. Buy-in is everything, don’t leave it as an after-thought.

Now more than ever is the time to get your brand back on people’s radar – start planning!

Gael Laurie is Brand Building Director of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps brands find a direct route to long lasting success. gael@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670; www.thecrowflies.co.uk; @crowflieshigh

Research re-emergence (a moving feast)

As the Government begins to ease us out of the lockdown, we’re getting a fair few enquires about what brands can and can’t do in terms of research.

Pandemic considerations

As well as working on a number of online research projects through the pandemic, we’ve been listening to and contributing to different debates in the research sector and there are a few clear themes:

The pandemic is not having an adverse effect on recruitment quality (assuming you plan with care)
Yes, people have time on their hands, but there are no real issues with a rise in non-representative or ‘hobby’ participants
Quality of responses remains high (there was a fear that we would get people taking part to fill their time – turns out time is precious even during lockdown)
Face to face has stopped temporarily and will likely be slow to start up.

Research approaches
A number of enquiries worry that Online Qualitative research is just a ‘Poor Man’s’ version of face-to-face. As with most things in life, balance is required: there are clear similarities online research needs to be seen as an additional yet slightly different tool in our armoury for understanding people’s behaviours and attitudes.

Face-to-face Groups (also Connections / Mini Groups and so on)
There are two factors often overlooked in ’traditional’ face-to-face qualitative research which underline its real value.

Firstly, humans are a social species and Groups give the opportunity to observe social interaction – bear in mind, copying behaviour is enormously important in people’s lives and therefore understanding where there is agreement, dissonance and influence effects that change views, is incredibly valuable.

Secondly, and related to this, as we begin to understand more about the non-conscious pre-eminence (System 1) in our behaviour, so Groups give us the opportunity to study non-verbal behaviour and interaction as well as visual ‘ evealers’ of beliefs, values and behaviours – things like metaphors, for example. They allow us to get deeper understanding in a way that is not immediately obvious and a sense of how heartfelt or deep views are held.

But when can face-to-face start up in a safe way?
Well, not yet, clearly but soon – and here are some of the things we’re planning for groups in the coming months:

run smaller groups so we can allow more space – think shorter, mini groups and more of them rather, than larger, longer groups
use well-ventilated spaces
allow longer for recruitment (the recruitment pool will temporarily shrink and we’ll need to reassure about participants well being during the process)
allow participants to bring their own food (no handling, no sharing platters!)
provision anti-bac hand wipes / sanitising gel
advise against sitting behind the mirror clients (who will want to sit in a confined space anyway?) – viewing in room, smaller numbers watching only, or potentially consider remote viewing / streaming too.

As the situation develops we’ll amend our guidance and advice – and obviously, widely available tests / vaccines will make a massive difference.

Online Focus groups, conducted in real time (synchronous)
These are run using video conferencing software. They are particularly useful for observing instinctive reactions from participants to stimulus materials, and for verbal engagement between participants. In practice they are best run in a mini-group format with 3-4 participants. Whilst not welcome, a byproduct of the pandemic is making more people familiar with technologies such as Zoom and Teams, which means barriers to using video conferencing are falling (although this shouldn’t be overstated). And we’re learning a lot about the best way to set the calls up to ensure we can see people and their body reaction, not just hearing what they say (avoiding ‘Half A Head’ syndrome!).

The watchouts are that it requires more set up and time to ensure that the participants are comfortable, not distracted and ready to focus on the discussion. Stimulus is also trickier and we’ve been developing a few interesting ways to introduce stimulus and use it to good effect over the last few weeks. So – don’t think of online groups as a poor relation – they have clear differences and advantages which make them a worthy consideration depending on the project objectives and the timelines.

Asynchronous Online Focus groups and Bulletin Boards
‘Asynchronous’ is surely a high scorer in Scrabble, but all it means is that people respond in their own time, rather than in an immediate conversation with the moderator. We prefer the name ‘Bulletin Board’ for this reason – you post a message on the fridge door and they respond when they see it

These are run over several days, with participants spending 15-30 minutes each day answering the questions and replying to questions and further probing. They’re not ideal for group interaction, but they can produce good results when this is not needed; they’re great for individual reflection and they are a little more cost effective and faster (end to end) than real-time online groups or face-to-face Groups. At The Crow Flies, we like them, but generally would recommend that they support other methods. They’re particularly useful when used with ‘top and tail’ dialogue approaches for example, a video / face to face interview to kick off; then the online group and perhaps an interview to close.

Qualitative Online Surveys
Sometimes people talk about ‘quali-quant approaches’ and they can seem either like a pragmatic badge of honour or a hybrid – somehow, there are methodological compromises. Well, Qualitative Online Surveys are a great reposte to that. If you do not need group interaction these online surveys may be something to consider: this method uses time controls and plausibility checks to elicit good quality answers, both instinctive and considered. It can also include probing, using a Virtual Moderator (which is a predictive AI tool that runs in the background). We can even build in IAT methods too (implicit attitude testing) to grab that initial ‘purchase moment’ reaction.

The depth of the qual findings isn’t as pronounced as in a Group of course, but they are really useful for identifying the fundamentals of what people are looking for – their immediate needs; the instinctive appeal of concepts or ideas (or lack of appeal!) as well as a good level of richness about what territories hold potential and why. There’s another inbuilt advantage – they give a bigger sample size than qual – 150 – 200 would be perfectly feasible here.

Digital Diaries / ethnographic
If you’re interested in how a pandemic affects daily life, or affects your brand / offer in real time, this is the way to go – a longer-term digitally-led approach. Here of course, people’s everyday behaviour has changed markedly through lockdown – this may make these approaches more or less valid.

Intercepts
With the right permissions in place, intercepts are perfectly possible. Social distancing is fairly easy to implement and the presence of wearing a ruddy great mask may also help! Bear in mind, that strike rate is likely to be lower as people remain nervous (if you could see our hair at the moment, you’d be nervous too…)

Quantitative research
Broadly speaking quantitative research continues as normal – the only thing we’re finding is that for longer surveys, drop-out rates are better – probably fewer distractions. Our development focus on quant is to push into understanding System 1 responses as much as System 2 – Implicit Attitude Testing, Find Time testing are good examples of this.

To chat through in greater detail, feel free to drop us a line.

David & Rob

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that finds the direct route to success for categories and brands. david@thecrowflies.co.uk | +44 (0) 1889 725670 | http://www.linkedin.com/company/the-crow-flies-ltd | https://www.facebook.com/thecrowfliesltd © The Crow Flies, 2020

Consistently tricky

One of the most difficult aspects of brand building is delivering a consistent experience. It can be tricky because perhaps yours is a product-based brand where the experience feels like a less significant touchpoint; or it can be tricky because you’re maybe a retail brand where controlling all the variables seems nigh-on impossible. It can be tricky too to define which aspects of the brand experience should be focused on: the process of consideration and buying; opening; using; consuming? It’s complex… yet crucial.

This was brought home to me recently when I went for a coffee at a local café for a business catch-up. This is an award-winning café in fact, with courteous staff, a chilled ambience and thoughtful product selections across both drinks and food. The groundwork of their offer had clearly been thoughtfully considered too – the foundations to build a powerful brand experience all in place. The coffee, for example, is delivered in signature crockery, with a biscotti and sugar that looks like rock-salt, served to one side. You know, all a bit la-di-da, yet enjoyable all the same; little touches that justify the premium.

I ordered a coffee which was shortly brought to the table but… wait. No biscuit. ‘First world problems‘, I thought to myself and let it pass – it was, after all, just a biscuit. I put it out of my head and carried on with my meeting. Two or three minutes later, a waitress came to the table and apologised for forgetting the biscuit before placing them, unprompted, on a small plate in front of us. Mild disappointment swerves through 180 degrees to delight. They spotted the problem, then over-corrected. All good – a little slither of positive brand equity is accreted into the brand ‘goodwill bank’.

Sometime later, a second coffee was ordered. Again it was brought to the table a few minutes later, and again, no biscuit was brought with it. Only this time, no corrective action was taken. And you might think that ultimately, it doesn’t matter. After all, it’s only a biscuit. It’s not even a particularly posh or special biscuit.

But in truth, the biscuit is a vital part of the mix. Indeed, it’s not really a biscuit at all. Rather, it’s an essential strand of the delicate web of expectations that weave together into a fragile whole that makes up the brand experience. It’s one of the small, yet disproportionately important, parts of the brand which together add up to more than the sum of their parts. And like a spider’s web, removing just one thread can weaken everything.

Would I refuse to go back to the café again because they forgot the biscuit? Of course not… but here’s the thing. This small, almost imperceptible mistake creates a much bigger seed of doubt. It opens up a chink in their armour such that next time you’ll be less forgiving and be much more open to going elsewhere. One reason politicians worry about tactical voting is because they know that when a voter does it for the first time, they’re much more disposed to doing it again.

What does all this mean for brands? Well, for one, brand experience isn’t easy nor forgiving. “A brand is a living entity, enriched or undermined cumulatively over time – the product of a thousand small gestures” is how ex-Disney CEO, Michael Eisner put it. Be thoughtful and rigourous in defining what is critical to your brand experience. Don’t overlook the small details if a consumer perceives them as vital to your delivery. Build up a clear picture of what is core to your brand experience and focus your resources, your time and your training around delivering that, time after time, and especially when you’re bored of doing so. And experience isn’t just about experiential brands (like retail). How a brand is presented; the materials used; the tone of copy; how it is opened, or used; how it feels; how it sounds… everything matters in the web of sensory touch-points that makes up the brand world.

Yes, brand experience can be difficult, yet consistent delivery is one of the big prizes of brand stewardship; one of the golden threads that runs through your brand and connects with your target’s emotions.

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that finds the direct route to success for categories and brands. david@thecrowflies.co.uk | +44 (0) 1889 725670 | http://www.linkedin.com/company/the-crow-flies-ltd?trk=company_name | https://www.facebook.com/thecrowfliesltd © The Crow Flies, 2019

Why Santa sacked his Brand Manager…

Old Year Resolutions

“Happy New Year!”

As we approach the middle of January, these words do start to lose their resonance. Unlike Christmas, there’s no accepted cut-off, no Twelfth Night, to guide us. There’s a fair chance that this is the last time you’ll hear them, for a year at least… New Year’s Resolutions usually follow the same timing plan. By the middle of the month, many a ‘Dry January’ is already looking decidedly moist, gyms are getting emptier and houses return to their less tidy, but more homely, natural states. Even newly converted plant-powered Veganuary-ists may be waking up to the smell of bacon.

Saying that, as the world turns on its axis and the daylight hours extend, it’s as good a time as any to consider what changes are needed to step-up brand performance – and never more so than when you’re responsible for a team of people, accountable for their commercial performance and central to the culture they live in 5 out of every 7 days (and often more). Reflecting on the changes needed over some slightly stale mince pies, we realised that the answer lies with Call the Midwife.

If you’ve never watched it, it’s about a group of midwives (no, really!) in London during the 1950s. In most episodes, nothing happens and then it snows. Yet on Christmas Day it was the fourth most watched programme and is the biggest new drama series on BBC One since records began. Or there’s Downton Abbey too, set around the 1920s where ‘those upstairs’ flirt with ‘those downstairs’. And before both we had Heartbeat, the ITV police drama set in 1960s Yorkshire which used the same plot for every single episode for 18 years.

But what has this got to do with your marketing resolutions?

As it turns out, everything, really. When you consider why these programmes are so popular, you uncover the heart of so many frustrations with the current status quo. The gentle nostalgia appeals because it paints a picture of a period in time when communities mattered and people cared. Policemen were respected, midwives were magical and jobs were for life. Contrast this with the return to work for many in January 2018: huge commutes, little job security, the globalisation of industry set against an international political framework of growing extremism: you can understand why many are questioning just how far we’ve come in the last 60 years. We may have ‘Smart Homes’ and technology at our fingertips but now we also have armchair ‘experts’ & professional sceptics in all areas of life…why trust your doctor when you can diagnose yourself on the internet before you go to your appointment and then check whether the doctor gets it right?

In business terms, the impact on marketing teams is greatest of all as they sit at the very centre of the business: everyone is now a marketing expert. Performed well in sales? Have a crack at marketing. Done a great job as a management accountant? Try being a brand manager. Don’t expect to be one for long though – you’ll soon be moved to a role in customer marketing. Actually, do we still need brand managers? We don’t need to worry about brand positioning any more, this is the age of ‘big data’ and personalised marketing. Forget about long-term strategy, let’s build followers on social media NOW!

Extreme perhaps. But working across different client companies and sectors we see it as a consistent pattern. Unsurprisingly, the discipline of marketing itself is being undermined bit by bit. Brand success is not delivered within a calendar year regardless of resolutions. Brands are built over time, the product of a thousand small gestures – we all know this and yet too often we don’t create cultures in which such success can be delivered. So a break with the past is required. This year, make five OLD Year resolutions that will transform the happiness of your team, the approach they take and the commercial success that you deliver together. Here are our contenders.

Old Year Resolutions

OLDIE #1: Work Less
Marketing is not a science, it’s an art and it needs to be treated as such. Brand-changing ideas are seldom created in windowless meeting rooms however well thought through your agenda might be. To get the best out of ourselves, we actually need to think differently about the working day. The human mind can focus on any given task for 90 – 120 minutes, then a break is required. Instead of worrying about time spent in the office and what can be achieved in any given day, switch the focus to ‘what can be achieved in a 90 minute session?’ Can’t be done in your working environment and your culture? Not true: challenge yourself. Create the physical & emotional space needed for creativity. Structure in time out of the office or undistrubed time for focused effort. Stop multi-tasking. Spend time with customers and consumers in the real world. Less time and more focus will transform productivity.

OLDIE #2: Market Marketing
Marketing expertise needs to be respected and specialisms should be celebrated. This applies equally within businesses, within marketing teams and within the wider marketing communities of agencies, suppliers and clients. A great customer marketing manager should be allowed to flourish within their specialism, not pushed to also become an innovation expert. Agencies must also take note. Great advertising is born of great positioning which relies on solid research but no agency can claim to have expertise in all three. Marketing is wide-ranging, complex and critical to commercial success. It’s time to give the discipline back the respect it deserves.

OLDIE #3: Get Personal
“Business is business, it’s not personal”. What a daft saying. Your career is not separate to your life, it’s a core and intrinsic part of it. It should be personal. When it comes to building brands, personality is absolutely everything: most purchase decisions are made subconsciously and great brands succeed by building intense emotional connections with consumers. Of course, marketing teams need to retain objectivity but this should never be at the expense of personality. A marketing team culture in which everything is a bit more personal – for the brand and the people working on them is no bad thing.

OLDIE #4: Focus On Your Foundations
Modern technology is incredible and the pace of its development creates a myriad of new opportunities for brand building. However, despite the claptrap you may read, technology has not changed the fundamentals of marketing. Brand positioning is critical, consistency of activation is imperative and a brand without a purpose is never going to inspire. Start the year by making absolutely certain you’ve got your brand foundations in place – if you’re not executing consistently against a clear positioning built on unique insights then all the Twitter followers in the world and that lovely app that works with an Amazon Echo are not going to move your brand forward before 2019.

OLDIE #5: Be A Wolf
There’s many a marketing regulation in 2018 that would have prevented the most famous advertising campaigns from existing had they been in place for the last 60 years. But that doesn’t mean that 2018’s marketing campaigns need to be timid. Brands have to be talked about. If not, they’re just products. Be bold and push boundaries, it’s the only way to be heard.

In with the old!

Rob Parker is a Partner at The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps discover the direct route to success for brands and businesses. rob@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670. For a different perspective on your research, strategy or innovation brand challenges, get in touch. © The Crow Flies, 2018

Brand architecture…or just city planning?

At the start of the year, Coca-Cola went public with a piece of brand architecture work that will impact their whole range – what they are calling their ‘One Brand’ strategy. All brands will be united under a strategic sign off of ‘Taste The Feeling’. This is not a branding revolution – far from it in fact. Many companies when starting out simply don’t have the financial resources to market multiple brands. Creating a single meaning is logical, commercially sensible and often quite desirable.

What’s unusual in the Coke example is that often, companies move away from this single ‘architecture’ approach over time as they wrestle with multiple sub brands sharing a single meaning. How can a low fat, full fat, high taste, low taste, large size, small size, for the young, for the old range cohesively sit together. It’s not impossible, but it creates strain. And of course, Coke are not lacking in the funds to adopt a brand by brand approach – which is why over many years they haven’t. Coca-Cola brands – original / diet / diet Caffeine free / Zero have been connected by shared values and iconography, but have ploughed, very successfully separate furrows. Separate furrows in the same field, but separate nonetheless. Off the back of this, Coke Zero has been an incredible launch and Diet Coke – well, in overtaking original Coke has been a phenomenon. So why change?

Potentially, it’s competitive pressure. Coke can’t move without Pepsi or another challenger matching it; or indeed leading and putting them under pressure to respond. More likely, it’s pressure from outside soft drinks – from other drinks categories. But surely this is a matter of ensuring that the Coke range remains fresh, relevant and contemporary? How does making each brand share a single meaning help that – versus keeping each brand sharply targeted and focused on key needs, attitudes and consumer segments.

Perhaps then it’s Governmental pressure? Soft drinks are an easy target for obesity campaigners and the UK Government’s new ‘sugar tax’ is evidence of targeting the low hanging fruit. But again, how does a single brand architecture help?

So then, surely it must be the changing media environment? The fragmentation of channels and increasing personalisation of viewing and ownership of content by consumers. But again – it doesn’t wash. The whole point of our media landscape now surely, is that we can build more specific brand positionings for more specific audiences and needs? If anything, wouldn’t Coke be doing the opposite? Making individual brand positionings even more refined?

The confusing factor in all this is that as consumers we buy brands, not companies. Oh, there’s no doubt that how companies set up their mission and their principles casts a discrete halo on individual brands – but that’s different from owning a single minded thought in the mind of your target consumer. I may buy Diet Coke, but I wouldn’t buy original, yet when I want full flavour I may choose Pepsi Max. I love the flavour intensity of Taylors of Harrogate’s Hot Lava Java, but occasionally I just need the convenience of Kenco Millicano. Different needs, different occasions, same consumer.

Which makes the whole ‘One Brand’ approach a worry. If it’s not a response to competitive pressure, Governmental pressure or changing consumer usage habits and needs then it can only be one thing: intellectual neatness. It’s more like city planning – idealistic but difficult to deliver. Coke will find it tough precisely because they did such an amazing job building their individual brands and I suspect, it will quickly unravel (as reports suggest). Intellectual neatness is not always the commercially neatest thing to do.

David Preston is founder of The Crow Flies, a research, strategy and innovation company that helps discover the direct route to success for brands and businesses. david@thecrowflies.co.uk; +44 (0) 1889 725670.