In my previous post, I wrote that a brand name does not possess a magical power that would grant it a better chance of success than other alternatives. Thus, it’s not how unusual or professional your brand name or your product name is, it’s what you do with it that would give it the best chance of survival and growth. In the same vein, despite weird stats claiming that certain personal names have a better chance of success, it doesn’t really matter if you name your child Annabel, Georgina, Parker, or Alexander. It’s what you do with their upbringing that matters.
Now, let’s explore another fixation. This covers product features such as trendy packaging, flavours, scents that may possess some kind of catalyst power for more powerful growth.
A couple of years ago, I got curious when seemingly every gin or vodka brand released a blood orange variant. Of all the possible flavours, why blood orange? It seems that the blood orange bandwagon has now departed, with multiple brands of soft drinks deciding that cherry is the flavour du jour. In the past few years, every doughnut, ice cream, or dessert would also offer a Biscoff variant. In a blink, they all disappeared. It’s similar with fragrances – every so often, new launches seem to copy one another which end up like dupes with similar fragrance notes.
Then, some years ago, a wine brand also released a range of wines where the label would come alive if you scan the QR code and give the Augmented Reality (AR) experience. The AR experience was topical a couple of years ago which covered product categories such as shoes and furniture. Somehow, it appears that it has also lost some of its steam. The list also includes changing the brand’s typeface, packaging, or other things in the quest of finding the secret ingredient to success.
I’m not saying that offering new flavour, packaging formats, new technology does not have any effect on brand growth. Innovation is important. However, every product offering needs to have a strategic intent — and then also evaluated against the original design. At the planning stage, it would be better to take into account all of the learning and the patterns from Marketing Science. Which ones that would likely appeal to heavy buyers, and which ones that would expand the brand’s penetration. Even when the aim is to please the retailer partners or to bring ‘excitement’ to the category – these need to be justified and compared against other types of activities that are in line with the Laws of Growth. It would be regrettable if the money that could be used to build reach and penetration is channeled towards short-term products or special editions. What is even dangerous when the core products, the hero SKUs, are somewhat sidelined to give the limelight to the newcomer. This may be giving the hero products fewer facings – or less favourable shelf placement, or worse, taking them off the shelves to give the new products the better chance of success. You sacrifice your load-bearing walls to expand the building.
With inflationary and competitive pressures, it pays to be grounded in Marketing Science. Knowing the mechanics of consumer behaviour and brand growth, and yet daring to be creative with the available parameters. Otherwise, we may be like cats chasing a laser pointer: grasping a shadow, without having any long-term effects to the brand.