“When I am asked for guidance on marketing problem, I usually respond that I know a method that is guaranteed to work: find an organization that has successfully addressed a similar problem and adopt what they did. Don’t limit the search to those organizations that look like yours; look across industries’’ ....Professor David Aaker, Brand consultant/Vice Chairman at Prophet.
As
Trond Riiber has noted [an interview with CEO of Electrolux,
Mckinsey quarterly, December, 2006, page 72], in 2002, Electrolux was
facing a rapidly polarizing appliance market. At one end, low-cost Asian
companies such as Haier, LG and Samsung were applying downward price pressure.
At the other end, premium competitors such as Bosch, Sub-zero and Viking were
continued to grow at the expense of the middle-of-the-road brands. Electrolux
new CEO Hans Straberg who took over
the reins decided to rethink Electrolux customers’ wants and needs. Rather than
accepting the stratification between low and high, Straberg segmented the market
according to the lifestyle and purchasing patterns of about 20 different types
of consumers – unveiling 20 product positions. Electrolux then started
marketing its steam ovens to health-oriented consumers and its compact dishwashers
developed for smaller kitchen to broader consumer segment interested in washing
dishes more often.
To companies finding
themselves in mature market, John Iduh offers these words of advice:
1.
Start
with your customers and understand what their latent needs are and what problem
they are experiencing. Then put the puzzle together to discover what they
really want to have – figure out what they really want though some might not
express it.
2. Leverage the current market trend to identify
unoccupied market space where competition is not visible, weak at best or
irrelevant.
3.
Adjust
your organization to accept and commit and support the development of new
CUSTOMER VALUE that will break away at the marketplace. Then consider what the
target market will see as “must-have”
that will define or create a new value category.
4.
Get
a chief: a CMO, COO, CEO or any corporate executive that will play a role of
value champion or visionary and capable of supporting the strategies going
forward.
5.
Find
your VALUE DNA. Your customer value DNA is its truth and relevance and what
will define and differentiate the value from competitors’ offerings and it will
be the single most important weapon your value will ever have to battle for
increase awareness, market share and profitability. Take a calculated risk to
ensure that the value rises above competition.
6.
Target
wining mindsets. The wining mindset is the potent aspiration view shared view
of needs among all the core market segments. It becomes the filter through
which all the marketing message will flow.
7.
Define
your value and its market category. To make the value relevant to customers and
breakaway, it needs not only stand apart from competition but also transcend
categories and open a defining gap between itself and what competition will
offer. Then it becomes a category exemplar of one.
8.
Identify
the customer purchase drivers or the consideration sets customers use to make
purchase choices and the logics and motivations behind their purchases.
9.
Match
the purchase drivers with the existing market trends, category trends or
existing culture in the industry landscape. Then accelerate innovation that
will rise above me-too initiatives crowding the marketplace. Invest wisely as
if your business depends on it.
1. Demand a great marketing campaign that will
break out-of-the-box; promote the value category rather than the products the
customer value is supporting. When the value wins, the product will also win.
It means that your brand is the only one offering such relevance. Don’t stand
still, execute flawlessly. Frame competitors negatively: tell customers that
your competitors are pursuing the old ways. Then create barrier to keep
competition off the game. Trademark the value. Build large customer base.
Create club membership. Use social media going viral because the value needs to
be talked about. And because change and trends will emerge making the category
dynamic, provide a moving target with flexible-adaptable strategies going
forward.
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