Every product or service category is governed by a set of assumptions that define the space in which the established brands compete. Every now and again, however, one brand asks the question, “Does it have to be this way?”
NEW THINKING
Every product or service category is governed by a set of assumptions that define the space in which the established brands compete. Every now and again, however, one brand asks the question, “Does it have to be this way?”
Marc Pritchard, Procter & Gamble’s global brand building officer, proclaimed digital dead at Dmexco and urged marketers to look beyond the pipes and plumbing of digital and social media to what really matters: engaging people with creative campaigns.
Oscar Yuan, at Millward Brown Optimor, has written a really interesting Point of View about innovations in marketing.
I suspect that everyone knows that copying is big business in China. Copying can range from specific products to entire stores (as in the case of Apple). But it took a visit to Qingdao to remind me that sometimes all you need is to leverage an existing brand’s equity to make money. You can just take a well-known brand name and stick it on your own product and package.
I recently came across this McKinsey Quarterly paper by Harvard Business School professor, Teresa Amabile, and co-author, Steven Kramer. The paper proposes four traps by which senior management can accidentally undermine the motivation of their staff. And it makes me wonder if those same traps can undermine a consumer’s allegiance to a brand.