Page 283 - Marketing Management

260 PART 4 BUILDING STRONG BRANDS

credentials—street cred—like our brands do. It’s all about leveraging the power of our brands against
a focused consumer target with a unique brand message.” New grassroots marketing for Pabst Blue
Ribbon beer thus emphasized its genuine, no-nonsense qualities in nonmainstream locations such as
tattoo parlors, snowboarding venues and pro shops, and underground music scenes. Positive word of
mouth—there was essentially no advertising—gave the brand an authentic “retro-chic” image. PBR,
as it became known as, was suddenly hip. The brand’s resurgence was marked by a 25 percent in-
crease in sales in 2009 that far exceeded even other sub-premium brews. 58

In other cases, however, the old positioning is just no longer viable and a reinvention strategy is
necessary. Mountain Dew completely overhauled its brand image to become a soft drink power-
house. As its history reveals, it is often easier to revive a brand that is alive but has been more or less
forgotten. Old Spice is another example.

Old Spice One of the first mass market fragrances, Old Spice dates back to
Old Spice 1937. Its classic aftershave and cologne combination—with soap on a rope sometimes

tossed in for good measure—was the classic Father’s Day gift for baby boomers to give, but
was largely irrelevant by the time Procter & Gamble acquired the brand in 1990. P&G’s
revitalization strategy was to abandon the old cologne business to focus on deodorants
and other male grooming products. Facing tough competition from Unilever’s edgy line of Axe products,
the firm reverted to its classic one-two punch of product innovation and new communications to target the
12- to 34-year-old male. New product development resulted in the creation of Old Spice High Endurance,
Pro Strength, and Red Zone lines of deodorants, body washes, body sprays, and shaving products. Old
Spice’s latest line, Ever Clear, arose from focus group participants’ “good-bye letters” to their current de-
odorant. A technological breakthrough allowed Ever Clear to promise the protection of a dry solid without
the uncomfortable waxy residue that left white streaks on clothing. All Old Spice products were backed by
tongue-in-cheek advertising that stressed the brand’s “experience.” 59

There is obviously a continuum of revitalization strategies, with pure “back to basics” at one end,
pure “reinvention” at the other, and many combinations in between. The challenge is often to change
enough to attract some new customers but not enough to alienate old customers. Brand revitalization
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of almost any kind starts with the product. General Motors’s turnaround of its fading Cadillac brand
was fueled by new designs that redefined its look and styling, such as the CTS sedan, XLR roadster, and
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ESV sport utility vehicle. High-end clothing retailer Paul Stuart introduced its first ever sub-brand,
the bolder, sleeker Phineas Cole, to update its conservative image for a hipper, younger demographic. 62

Devising a Branding Strategy

A firm’s branding strategy—often called the brand architecture—reflects the number and nature
of both common and distinctive brand elements. Deciding how to brand new products is especially
critical. A firm has three main choices:
1. It can develop new brand elements for the new product.
2. It can apply some of its existing brand elements.
3. It can use a combination of new and existing brand elements.
When a firm uses an established brand to introduce a new product, the product is called a brand
extension. When marketers combine a new brand with an existing brand, the brand extension can
also be called a sub-brand, such as Hershey Kisses candy, Adobe Acrobat software, Toyota Camry
automobiles, and American Express Blue cards. The existing brand that gives birth to a brand
extension or sub-brand is the parent brand. If the parent brand is already associated with multiple
products through brand extensions, it can also be called a master brand or family brand.
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Brand extensions fall into two general categories: In a line extension, the parent brand covers
a new product within a product category it currently serves, such as with new flavors, forms,
colors, ingredients, and package sizes. Dannon has introduced several types of Dannon yogurt line