When Jill Little, merchandise and marketing director at John Lewis, recently announced that the retailer was to introduce a value range, it was widely seen as a smart move. The homeware products line has been specifically designed to help John Lewis defend its ‘Never knowingly undersold’ slogan against supermarkets that have moved into its territory.
The most recent case study came last December, when it emerged that Google would launch a service in the UK allowing real-estate agents to list their properties for free. The news came as a shock to Rightmove, the leading online real-estate service in the UK. Yet, as usual, the executives in charge were openly dismissive of the threat.
Category drivers are predictive of how consumers will behave in a given category. These drivers have shifted this year, and all brand-related characteristics are making larger contributions to the consumer engagement and loyalty process, specifically in the areas where consumers expect the most in the category.
There’s the key and the lock. The bolt and the nut. The button and the button hole. So, too, there’s the position and the hole in the mind the position is trying to fill.
Nokia retains a massive share of the global mobile phone market, but cracks are beginning to appear in its once-impenetrable leadership.
