I recently went to a café I used to visit frequently in the past. After noticing the different al fresco layout, I also realised they didn’t have the lasagna I usually ordered. The barista mentioned that the café had a recent change of ownership. The new owners were in the process of revamping the menu, the look, and the café layout. No lasagna, I could only order sandwiches.
I contrasted that experience with another café in the north of the city – locally famous for its Reuben sandwich. I’m a light buyer of the café – probably twice a year at most. Early last year I noticed that the crew serving the customers were unfamiliar. A colleague who lives in the area mentioned that the café was sold to a new owner. What was commendable was that the new owner decided to keep the familiar layout and menu offerings (“the hero SKUs”), while maintaining the level of service and friendliness. Frequent visitors would probably know about the changeover as it happened. Occasional diners like me would be none the wiser, unless we paid closer attention to some of the subtle changes.
Just like a changeover of presidents, prime ministers, CEOs, or CMOs, there’s a tendency and temptation to stamp a new direction and dilute the good work of their their predecessors. A new business owner may want to overhaul the business to fit their vision with a rebrand, menu overhaul, or a complete store makeover. Beyond the risk of undermining all the great works that have been done to the brand or the business, there’s also a risk with the consumers.
Do consumers care when a business is under a new owner? Do the millions of buyers out there notice when a brand has a new CMO? The answer is most probably – no.
An experiment by Jones, Myrden, and Dacin on restaurant ownership also showed this: trumpeting a change of management had either a negative impact on consumer perceptions of quality and reputation — or no impact at all. This finding was also true regardless whether they were previous consumers or not.
If we think about this further, a deliberate messaging of new ownership or new management disrupts the links that are already formed within existing buyers. What was wrong with the business before? Within brand context, when I see that the packaging has a new sticker or a sign that it has new and improved formula or flavour, it confuses me. I bought the product before and liked it – what was wrong with it? You can probably come up with other examples – one that comes to mind is the anger within the fragrance community with Dior tinkering with the formula of an iconic fragrance, Dior Homme Parfum – again. This happened after Francis Kurkidjian joined the company.
Unless there’s something wrong with the business or the brand, why would the company fiddle with the working formula? I would argue that the critical move to grow the brand or the business is to improve and expand its mental availability and physical availability. Get more consumers to know about the brand, and make it so much easier to get a hold of the product. A restaurant or café that is already popular just need to make it more popular when a new owner takes over and not through changing the menu or the layout.
In line with a comment by Professor Byron Sharp in Admap in 2014, that a great CMO leaves behind a company that is far better at marketing, this is also true for any corporate leaders. By all means, do things better, strengthen the load-bearing walls of the brands by carefully launching and managing products, and improve the practices to be in line with what the evidence and science supports. Unfortunately too many business leaders inadvertently damage the business or the brand, by focusing on the wrong tactic. The objective should not be to stamp our personal brand, but to ensure that we are great business and brand custodians, so they can grow stronger, long after we depart the company.