The Perils And Payoff Of Changing A Brand

What Happens When A Product Becomes New And Improved?

(CBS)  It has to be the most overused phrase in marketing: "New and improved!"

But in business new isn't just a selling point, but it's a mantra. Companies walk a tightrope to balance the need to be the newest, the freshest; the best while staying stay true to the product that put them on the map.

For example, the packaging for a Cheerios box has changed, but what's inside the yellow box is pretty much the same as it was back in 1941, when General Mills launched "Cheery Oats."

"An iconic brand like Cheerios, or Green Giant, or Pillsbury are brands that people — that have brand champions — what we call brand champions — people who cannot live without the brand," General Mills Marketing Chief Mark Addicks told Sunday Morning correspondent Joie Chen. "People who identify with the brand and people who wear the brand like a badge."

Consistency can pay off. Since 2003 Cheerios has been the number one breakfast cereal in the United States. Companies that make the best loved brands know that sometimes "new and improved" can prove a big risk.

"We don't like change very much," said Jack Trout who wrote a book about the perils of corporate change called "Big Brands Big Trouble." "To change an attitude about a brand or whatnot, you really have to change the attitude on which that — the belief upon which … that idea was. And people hate to change their beliefs"

For example, Trout said the classic business failure was when Coca-Cola tried to build a new Coke.

"People said, no, no, no, no, no," Trout said. "I mean, you're the classic. I may not change my mind about you. You are what you are. And of course, that was also a disaster."

On the other hand, even the most iconic brands sometimes resist change at their own peril. For more than a century, the Eastman-Kodak company was photography: Kodak cameras, Kodak film; capturing those "Kodak moments." If you wanted to take pictures, there was only one name to know.

"Film was everywhere. It was a part of everything that we did," Kodak Vice President Betty Noonan said. "We had film rolls in our drawer at home. We had pictures on the counter. We had massive photo finishing locations at retail outlets. I mean, the brand was ubiquitous. The brand today is different."

[frebergfan]

Loved the info on Marketing - especially the Geico Ads! But You were Dead WRONG and a very important element of the segment! Stan Freberg (REMEMBER: "Today the Pits - Tomorrow the wrinkles" in the Sunsweet pitted prunes commercials & MANY other VERY GROUND BREAKING ADS that changed Marketing/Ads F O R E V E R!) Stan was/IS the FATHER of the adverse advertising concept! AND WAS THE VERY FIRST EVER AD MAN TO APPEAR IN COMMERCIALS HE CREATED - and he appeared in MANY! Hey, wouldn't you want to be given credit for your original and very venture-some, ground breaking & field changing work! So let's give the "Madison Avenue Werewolf" his credit that you totally overlooked in that segment! The additional component you thus left out is the "cyclical" pattern of marketing and thus the FREBERGIAN type ads are Back and As successful as when Stan birth the trend (at the risk of his career!).
Thanks, Deb - ie FrebergFan!

[orkinn]

Dear henninghg,
My "grammar" seems more important to you than the ripoff by Kodak. Too bad. Perhaps we'd have a good employee inventor law with fewer people like you!

[hennighg]

orkinn: his/her and he/she are not words in English. It reads like bloody hell. Either choose a pronoun (masc. or fem.) and go with it, or bother to write, "his or her" and, "he or she". Ye gads, it's hard to read/comprehend with all the words/slash/marked.

[orkinn]

The employee who invented the Kodak digital camera in 1975 received no remuneration for his/her invention. He/she was also subject to termination under employment at will if he/she complained. Not so in Germany & Japan where employee inventors are entitled to mandatory compensation. the German law was enacted by the Nazis in 1942, the Japanese in 1959. Why can't we do the same in our democracy????