Branding is a business strategy. It can justify higher margin because customers trust the brand based on their prior experience or because the brand is the best match for their preferences with respect to one or more product characteristics. The value of the brand to the firm is the price premium it commands.
The news from YUM! is that Pizza Hut may be sliced. The other two big brands in the YUM! portfolio – KFC and Taco Bell – are managing. Sadly, Pizza Hut is not hot.
The world of marketing has evolved, and today the companies that supply marketing communications and brand strategy are very different. There was a time when ad agencies were also the chief brand builders for their clients. It was called the 20th century. But that era is over and even big and brilliant agencies are no longer qualified to work on brand strategy.
From all my years in research and consulting, I think I’ve learned a thing or two about marketing worth sharing. Enduring fundamentals, mostly yet often overlooked. So, this year, I’m sharing some for your consideration. I hope they’re helpful. This week’s thought: Change is overrated. Marketers love fads and fashions. Change is the watchword of marketing. I’m in the trends and futures business, so I’m not unhappy about this. But part of studying trends and...
At Amazon, there are no PowerPoints at key meetings. Rather, a well-written and reasoned Word document is distributed and read by everybody at the meeting. Then a real meeting, which involves discussion and interrogation of the material, takes place. Everybody has the same information, and reading the information is far more time-effective than being paraded through a few words or charts flashed in sequence slowly. In many cases, even this well-crafted Word document may not...
