Killer Brands: Book Review

Killer Brands by Frank Lane is a very insightful book for any marketer. The author talks about how a brand can be created such that it rules the market, and how it leverages the brand equity to an advantageous position in the market. This book is very relevant for both novices as well as experts in marketing. It dives deep into the chasms of marketing practices and shows the importance of creating a compelling and differentiated expectation. And if someone really wants his products and services to be the number one choice for his customers then this book will be more than helpful for him.

The book is divided into 5 parts. And throughout the book the author focuses on a three-step technique viz. Focus, Alignment and Linkage. All these three parts are like the three sides of a triangle which give meaning to the whole concept. The author tries his best to bring forward arguments and examples from the real world to make the reader pretty much aware of all the nuggets of branding and positioning.

This book focus primarily on the American markets and the whole idea is how a marketer can break the barriers of a me-too product, with no way to compete in the market except the price. And how can he make a product which is differentiated from the rest and recognised as something which people can associate themselves with and make people ask for the product even if it is priced a little higher. The author further points out that the task of creating a ‘killer brand’ is as difficult and equally as easy. And he shows in this book how with the use of his three-step techniques anyone can make a ‘killer brand’ and bask in its success!

Here the author talks about the differences and similarities between dominant and killer brands. He takes an example of Nike as a dominant brand which is not a killer brand, whereas Air Jordans from Nike is a killer brand. Here the whole ideology is that owning a brand which is not dominant can be equally valuable as that of a dominant brand.

The book has been made very practical with numerous examples from the author’s real life where explains the nuggets that he discusses in the book. He has used the example of how the Janitor in a Drum and Spanx became leading brands even when they were products from very small companies.

The author has laid stress on the importance of strong focus in a business. He says that when it comes to creating a killer brand, the first principle of focus asserts that no matter how many strong selling points or expectations might exist, it is wise choosing one and making it the sole focus of the brand! The author further points out to a very basic fact that mere focus won’t help a brand get the killer status, the brand’s expectations needs to be compelling and differentiated from other brands that offer similar expectations. It’s not easy to learn this art in the long learn and one needs to practice this right from scratch and slowly build on the expectations. Unless a brand does exactly that, it becomes just like other me-too brands that are in galore!

The author, Frank Lane, very rightly mentions in his book about the compelling power of expectations and the other basic nuggets that really matters. Multiplying the focus without actually changing the focus is another very useful insight that the author has touched upon in this amazing book. He talks about the power of alignment whose purpose is to create coordination which in turn multiplies the power of focus. Creating the brand’s backbone with strategies that feed each other is another interesting valuable insight for the readers.

The next step of the three step process of making a brand a Killer Brand is Linkage. It aims to make your Killer Brand synonymous with the product in the marketplace, so the consumer thinks only of your brand when the need arises. Linkage is said to be a fairly simpler process as compared to the previous two steps and has been described as the glamour part of the business. The book describes various ways in which the Linkage can be created for your Killer Brand. One is to have a memorable slogan for your brand which the consumer can recollect very clearly. Also, the advertisements of your brand should be consistent with the product and in the right context and it is expected that effective ads create the right linkage. The author also says that the message that your brand should give should be simple and clear so that it doesn’t create unnecessary confusion in the minds of the consumer. And finally, the author says that the Linkage should be a continuous process and needs to be reinforced time and again. The author also gives substantial examples to justify the importance of Linkage in the success of the Brand. The process of Linkage is stated and described to be the simplest but is indeed the most difficult and complicated process.

There are many factors that affect consumer decisions rather than simply linkage and this includes the changing needs of the consumers. The process described in the book cannot be generalised to all products and many other factors should be considered to ensure the successful Brand equity.

The various examples from the day to day life at the end of the book are really catchy, though some examples may sound familiar but they are projected in a totally new light and the reader significantly relates to the theories that have been mentioned in the book. The book is a very handy guide for any marketer or a layman who is interested in knowing brands and how to make a brand really stand out and be successful in this huge competition in the market. We recommend people who are really interested in marketing to definitely go through the book as it will be a great and interesting read. Lots of fundas will be created and lots of concepts will be cleared.

Marketing in Analytics? Analytics in Marketing? :P

“How much are you willing to pay for a product and what are you willing to trade off”

Conjoint pricing is a very innovative marke

ting strategy because it segregates the functionalities, the utility as well as the price and attributes for the different consumers in the market. It does not particularly focus just on the price or just on the features, it rather focuses on what a consumer is willing to let go to for getting something else...for e.g. if a customer is willing to pay Rs 10,000 more for a laptop which has a better battery life then he is trading off on the price of the laptop. He could have spent Rs 10000 less to get a laptop if he didn’t bother about the good battery life.

So basically, conjoint pricing is a bracket or range of offerings what you are willing to pay for.

Let’s look at an example to understand th

is further...

Sony Bravia is a premium TV brand. There are so many features that you get- but the question is how much do you feel is the utility of all those features...

Let’s say you don’t want to pay for a feature that the company is offering to you, but at the same time you get other features which you definitely want in the product...hence you are looking at the utility that the product brings to you and this is because different features are looked at by different kinds of customers...

Here we have a TV which offers all this features and functionalities, and can combine these features into several groups depending on the demand criteria by the different types of customers...we can actually focus on just the size, slim, colour and pixels for customers who are more concerned about the “looks” of the television. Like this we can make several other groups and develop ad campaigns and promotional events that could be targeted at those specific utility quotients perceived by those segments of customers.

This method is very useful as it focuses on the different consumer segments more accurately and more effectively. As the people are paying for the product which is giving them the best utility according to them and not confusing them with too much information not valued by them.

Life's Old Song

Remember us when we arent there

Wonderful memories that we shared

Will always be close to us

Will always remind us of who we are

And when we never meet for long

We will always know life's old song

That tells us who we ought to be

All those days will last you'll see

Forever and ever and ever...

Never pretend to never care

We'll pick up each smile on our way

All because we are bound by this

Stirng that holds us end to end

Dreamy thoughts defines us well

And no one would know or ever tell

The faith that keeps us stong

And this is life's old song

Consumer Insight of Famous Products

Wheel detergent- this was a very important product launched by HUL in India and after studying why a consumer wants to buy a detergent powder at that end of the market they found lather is a very important cure for that, hence they decided to give them lather in the product. They also found out that a lot of detergents that the consumers were buying at that end of the market were also giving them a burning sensation in their hands. The consumer insight here was that their product gave the consumer fantastic wash, at a great price and is gentle on their hands.

Sony walkman- this consumer insight came to the then chairman of Sony Mr. Akio Morita, when he went to a park for a stroll and found some people carrying big music stereos while jogging. He thought that if his company could make a music player that would be portable and would be convenient to use, then it could really be a successful idea. Hence the walkman was invented and it became a runaway success. It eventually had to die out due to the advent of cd/vcd players.

Chick shampoo sachet- the company was the first ones to have come out with the shampoo sachet concept. They found that the consumers often the lower income group didn’t want to spend a lot of money at a time to buy a bottle of shampoo. They wanted something for cheap and convenient and at the same time of good quality. Hence the company came out with Rs. 2/- sachets which became a huge success story.

Laundry detergent tablets- Salvo was the first company to understand the pain point of the people who washed their clothes in washing machines. They realised that the process of taking the detergent out and then measuring the exact amount to be used for a perfect wash is very hectic! Hence it came out with a laundry detergent tablet which could be directly pun in the washing machine. This was a very good consumer insight.

Motion sensor room freshener- this was a good consumer insight as consumers many times wonder if their expensive room freshener is getting wasted unnecessarily when people are not present in the room. Hence the concept was born to use motion sensors which would let the room freshener to automatically spray the perfume only when it detected motion within the room.

Electric toothbrush- The first successful electric toothbrush, the Broxodent, was conceived in Switzerland in 1954 by Dr. Philippe-Guy Woog. Electric toothbrushes were initially created for patients with limited motor skills, as well as orthodontic patients (such as those with braces). Claims have been made that electric toothbrushes are more effective than manual ones as they are less dependent upon patients brushing correctly. But it slowly gained popularity and spread all across the world and was based on a very impressive consumer insight

Surf Excel Easy Wash- it was found out by HUL, that a lot of water was required to wash clothes. And in India as it is there is a distress of water and they wanted to use less water in detergents and we were the first in the market to come up with Surf Easy Wash which says you save two buckets of water in terms of rinsing. So we created a formulation for this market. This was a very nice project that surf undertook and were very successful in the market.

Mc Veggie- Mc Donald’s understood that if they wanted to launch in Indian market in a big way they needed to change the basic concept of it selling beef or just meat burgers. Its consumer insight helped them to introduce mc Veggie burgers in the Indian market. This became a huge popularity with the vegetarian people in the country and they gained a lot of customers extra, which were completely against their norms in the western world.

Canon Printers- the consumer insight here was to make something that is portable and convenient to use by the consumers. This was carrying a big insight as the whole printing experience would be changed as the smaller and portable printing machines were very much required by the corporate organisations! Here canon saw an amazing gateway which Xerox failed to monitor and hence the market share of Xerox printers got replaced by canon over a period of time!

The Innovation Economy: How technology is transforming existing industries and creating new ones.

Here the whole topic of discussion is- how innovation influences the various processes in different industries? Why do leaders of the industries have such a hard time dealing with the new technology that comes in? What is disruptive technology and how does it affect the industry?

There is great deal of dilemma when it comes to technological innovation as people feel that the whole concept is based on randomness. They feel that when they have certain objectives which they set out to meet, they very often miss by a large margin, thus they infer that innovation is just mere randomness. But researchers today, are trying to prove that innovation is not at all mere randomness, and the deviation from the targets is greatly due to the various factors that come into play in deciding our success. They are trying to find out how the probability of getting all the factors that influence the success can be maximised.

Man has always had this desire to reach the skies. Right from the Middle Ages, man had made various attempts to fly...sometimes strapping wings onto their shoulders and sometimes making machines with wings. They all fell to their deaths with their fate-less attempts. The thinkers of that time then said that it was foolish for man to even think that they could actually fly! But later on people understood that it was a waste to go against the basic laws of nature and if they had to succeed in their endeavour then they ought to flow parallel with the laws of nature. And hence the aeroplane was invented; which was nothing but a machine that was so built that the air resistance from the wings would make it airborne!

The reason why the big players in the industries have such a hard time with the changing technologies is that they are never prepared for the breakthrough changes which innovators come up with. The leaders in the industries have all grown with an accumulated year on year growth with their constant but limited innovation. It’s not because when companies reach the top they tend to become risk averse, slow, bureaucratic and lose their ability to do breakthrough innovation, but because of the mere reason that someone in the competition does something so different and radical that it totally changes the equation in the businesses!

Now, What is disruptive technology and how is it a major form of innovation and how it hampers the industry position of the stalwarts?

Disruptive technology is something that doesn’t sustain the trajectory of the technological progress. It is brought in the market as something which is worse and not better. For example: Intel launching Celeron, a cheaper and lesser efficient cousin of Pentium. Disruptive technology makes the leaders’ chances of staying at the top very difficult.

In the mid 1980s Intel made chips that were very basic and could not effectively serve the customers’ needs and demands. This led them to improve on the technology and make advanced chips such as the Quadra core duo etc. They pursued to cater to the needs of the customers to whom they could sell the improved products at a higher margin in the demanding tiers of the market. But in doing so they over shot the demands of the mainstream customers who would not require such advanced technology for their daily small works!

Apple sold its Apple 2 to children as a toy and this was a disruptive technology. Digital’s customers didn’t know how to use a personal computer and hence they never demanded what they desired of the products. The company needed to listen to their needs so that they could provide the required technologies in the next generation customers, but they got no signals from the customers because they didn’t know how to use them.

But as the years progressed, the computers went on to become way more advanced than what the customers could ask for, the technological innovations outstripped the requirements of the mainstream customers. And through the 1990s the companies targeted the mainstream market where the margins were lower and the requirements were also lower. But the choice that the companies had to make was whether to make high end computers that earned them huge margins or concentrate more on the lower priced computers which would earn them a much lesser margin but a significant amount of sales. Most of the companies capitalised on this segment by coming out with low priced computers, and that was the time when households all across the world started purchasing for their personal use in a big way!

If an innovation company seeks to enter an industry with a sustaining technology (as in the case of computers), meaning they try to introduce a better product which is actually better than the products currently available then the chances of success is nearly zero! This is because you create a territory in the industry which the leaders can easily copy because of their immense strength and resources, plus it becomes a region for more profit margins for them. But when a company enters an industry with a disruption then it becomes very easy for the company’s success, because they can seize a territory which the leaders don’t want because that becomes less profitable for them.

Companies keep falling to the belief that there can be demand for high end products and they keep on innovating and make products and overshoot what even the most advanced customers can actually use. Hence companies enter the disrupted market with lower technology products which cuts down sales of the high end products...then other companies enter with more limiting technologies at much lesser prices...so this vicious cycle kills the players who keeps innovating and overshoots the demand and utility limit of the customers. And the reason for innovative failure is because of the belief that there will be more demanding application for products at the high end.

People buy a lot of technology but hardly use it or don’t know how to use the products to their full utility. For example many people have broadband high speed internet but they hardly use it except for sending or receiving emails, this is very typical of the older generation.

There are two types of disruptive technologies:

First: The slightly low end technology at a cheaper price tag and lesser profit margin. These are the products which are good value for money to people who want products at a much affordable rate and are also confident of being competent of using the product efficiently. Example: the Celeron chip for personal computers, which were a little low end but very good and efficient product for the mainstream customers who didn’t want to pay a large sum for an advanced micro processor in their computers. Intel successfully disrupted the industry and stayed on top adopting this method.

Second: the discount retailers such as Wal-Mart and K-Mart, where they sold commodities at a much lesser price than the other retailers. This created their own sweet space in the market where they got customers who were willing to travel a little outside of the cities and do the shopping at a much cheaper rate. And now the hard goods specialty discounters like home depot, toys R us, Staples etc. They are now come in from the bottom and have disrupted the market. They don’t create new markets but they create a lower cost business model that allows the disrupted innovator to discount prices that are required to win market share.

There is a lot of creation involved to effectively use these disruption technologies. The companies are constantly looking at targeting the existing customers or are trying to cater to new customers with their innovations. For example the vacuum valve was replaced by the disrupted innovation of transistors which were much smaller in size. Then Sony later came out with a much smaller portable radio which was cheaper and also convenient for the youth to carry around with them. These competed with non consumption, as we also saw when portable television was invented.

The voice processor is a new venture that technology oriented companies are targeting at. They want to substitute the word processor with a word processor. So by merely launching the technology won’t help the companies if they don’t find a way to disrupt the market and make the technology cheaper than the current technology! The main hurdle here is to predict whether technology can make the life easier for the larger group of the targeted population who lack the historic skills or the money to participate in the market. Whether the new technology will be helpful where the substituted technology can be a little difficult to use, or are people are willing to buy the crummy products.

We will have to wait and see what these innovations hold in the lives of the common man in future. In a very short span of 2 decades we have moved from ancient boxes that could compute numbers and do word processing for us, to the wireless and nano technology age where computers are getting smaller and smarter. We have seen gadgets change, replace old ones and evolve, and we are yet to see so many path-breaking innovations that researchers and scientists are currently working on...

What the industry challenges will be... how the customers’ demands will be met...only time will tell!