MAS Innovation Newsletter July | Page 10

Touch DIVERGING APPROACHES TO CREATING A BRAND ‘ The critical point of a brand is not to create emotional appeal or to create buzz. The point is to shift customer demand. Well managed brands shift demand via commanding a higher price, generating more volume or some of both A brand’s equity or its power to shift demand can be measured through discrete choice modelling – a technique for revealing the relative strength that brands have when customers make choices among competing products/services The power of a brand to shift demand applies whether a company pursues a low-price or a premium-price strategy’ BRANDS SHIFT DEMAND TO COMPANIES THAT MANAGE THEM WELL Price Whole Food 10th largest US grocery chain Operating Margin 6.9% Wall-Mart Largest US grocery chain Operating margin: 5.3% (experess stores) Stronger brands US grocery average Operating margin: 1.2% Weaker brands Wal-Mart’s brand highlights the companies ‘great value’ strategy to increase volume while Whole Foods brand places emphasis on organic food an in-store presentation BRA STRA THAT S DEM LESS MO ECONO American Apparel and Benetton are examples of brands that invested significantly in provocative advertising aimed at raising their brand profiles. However focus on advertising has not resulted in business performance with sales stagnating and declining operating income Contrastingly Patagonia spends less than 1% of Sales on Marketing and had yet built a powerful brand which revolves around high end outdoor clothing. They rely on promotion via word of mouth partly successful due to its commitment to green operations. Zara on the other hand does not spend on marketing at all and relies on smart store locations, powerful in-store experience and fast retail Property of MAS Innovation CLICK TO VIEW ADVERT CAMPAIGNS