Not too long ago reports had Peter Brabeck, the departing CEO of Nestle, putting the company on a diet.
He discovered that the food maker was churning out 130,000 variations of its brands–and 30% weren’t making any money. He has launched an aggressive plan to jettison weaker brands and simplify the organization. It’s bye-bye to low-carb Kit-Kats and lemon cheesecake-flavored chocolate. (Can you imagine?)
Nestle faces a predicament that haunts many companies that have acquired other companies to a point that its subsidiaries are almost impossible to manage. When you’re into dog food, chocolate, baby food, ice cream, coffee and on and on, you can easily see the problem.
But what’s even worse is that these mega-companies end up with hundreds of marketing people sitting around cooking up new ideas that aren’t very good ideas. Or they sit around and try to figure out how to improve things. They just can’t stop tinkering. What top management fails to understand is that the road to chaos is paved with improvements.
In all my years in the business, I’ve never seen a marketing person come into a new assignment, look around, and say, “Things look pretty good. Let’s not touch a thing.”
To the contrary, all red-blooded marketing people want to get in there and start improving things. They want to make their mark. Just sitting there wouldn’t feel right.
When a company has offices full of marketing people, you’ve got to expect endless tinkering with a brand. It’s how they keep from getting bored.
Someone on the Prell shampoo brand said, “Hey, why don’t we add a blue Prell to our line of green Prell?” Of course, this ignores the consumer perception that if it isn’t green, it can’t be Prell.
Bad idea.
At McDonald’s someone said, “Hey, let’s take advantage of the pizza trend and add McPizza to the menu!” Of course, this ignores the consumer perception that hamburger joints can’t know much about making pizza.
Bad idea.
Someone at Anheuser-Busch said, “Hey, why don’t we add dry and ice beers to our lineup?” Of course, this ignores the consumer perception that beer is usually wet and not served over ice.
Bad ideas.
Someone at Volkswagen said, “Let’s introduce a $60,000 automobile called the Phaeton.” Of course, this ignores the fact that in America, a Volkswagen has no prestige as a brand.
Bad idea.
At Bic, the marketing people, because Mr. Bic is still around, are busy putting the brand on everything they can think of–such as pens, lighters, razor blades, panty-hose, perfume and even sailboards.
Bad ideas.
Someone at Heinz, the king of ketchup, figured out that they should also be in mustard. And, to save money, let’s use the same-shape bottles. People thought it was yellow ketchup.
Bad idea.
Someone at Daimler Benz figured out that luxury cars aren’t enough. Buying Chrysler would give them a wide range of vehicles to sell everywhere.
Very bad idea.
And of course, you can’t leave out the endless and painfully expensive tinkering with logos.
Xerox, one of the great logo designs of all time, decided to change its logo and have the big letter “X” break up in pieces to signify going digital. This was unfortunate, for at about the same time, the company ran into serious financial problems. All the new logo said to people was that Xerox was disintegrating. Luckily, a new CEO and smarter heads prevailed, and Xerox went back to the original logo.
Positioning has to line up with the perceptions in the mind, not go against them. What people inside the company perceive as “improvements” often only cause confusion inside the mind of the prospect.
In positioning, once you’ve gotten a brand up to altitude, your watchword should be “steady as she goes.” A brand can only stand for one thing in the mind; the more things you try to make it stand for, the more the mind loses focus on what you are. Endless variations give marketing people something to do while they do long-term damage to a brand or a company.
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