Marketing in general is challenging, creative and glamorous but it is also laborious and harrowing, especially when the brand is weak and not in the purchase consideration set. The challenges faced by such brands are unpleasant and never ending.
Some of the challenges and problems that I have experienced are:
1) Standing up to the world: Weak brands have to stand up to a world where consumers are indifferent, where the management is never satisfied, where the trade is opportunistic and where the employee motivation is non-existent. These brands hardly ever get the support that they require from the stakeholders. It isn’t lonely only at the top. It’s even worse at the bottom.
2) Efforts disproportionate to results: Such brands have to run faster, do more and better things than all the other brands in the category just to maintain share and ensure that they don’t yield further ground. Staying on the treadmill is the only choice for these brands even though the mileage gained, if any, is much lower than what other brands gain for half that effort. Results are never commensurate with the resources and efforts spent. At the same time, getting off the treadmill is not an option.
When results don’t justify efforts and resources, management cuts back on marketing investments further aggravating marketing difficulties.
3) Stronger reason: A brand outside the consideration set has to continuously provide a strong, differentiated and relevant rational “why buy me?" reason for it to be considered. Emotional appeal does not work for such brands. The reason has to be credible, tangible and demonstrable. Preferred brands don’t have such compulsions as the brand by itself is a reason for preference.
4) Credibility: A good argument (excepting price) provided by a weak brand normally goes unheeded as consumers are mostly reluctant to listen to and believe such arguments. These claims are often dismissed as being “too good to be true" to come from such a brand. Consumers do not believe that weak brands have the credibility and status to make challenging claims. Even if the brand does manage to gain some attention for such claims, it only succeeds in providing a new evaluation parameter that works more in favor of the category leaders as they are believed to have far higher credibility to make such claims. Irrespective of reality, consumers take it for granted that market leaders offer everything and more than what other brands in the category offer.
Since consumers do not have an emotional connect with weak brands, these brands, even when they have a compelling reason to be considered, are still rejected on grounds of “not for me”.
5) More for less: Resources are finite but the pressure to deliver is infinite. These marketers are forced to do more and many things with fewer resources. The urge to experiment, to find that elusive magical success formula, is a constant distraction. Eventually, these brands resort to short-term unhealthy measures with the full knowledge that the long-term interest is being compromised.
6) Motivation: Considering that such brands don’t gain mileage despite the non-stop running they are perpetually low on faith and gasoline. Nothing ever works despite the hard work and sustained investments. With every business/marketing cycle the will and resources to continue running weakens.
These challenges are not unique only to weak brands. The market leaders would also have faced similar problems in the life cycle of the brand. These challenges have to be overcome if the brands are to survive.
In my next post "10 Suggestions for weak brands", I share my thoughts on what weak brands could do to mitigate and overcome these challenges.
