Brand Equity is like basketball. Every brand gets one pivot foot. Every brand can keep its pivot foot still and take one step in any direction before it begins walking. Special K cereal’s pivot foot seems to have been weight loss for quite awhile. When they took one step towards having a variation of Special K cereal with protein, they were still using the weight loss expectation, still featuring their “lose inches in the waist” expectation on their packaging.
Now they have introduced Special K cereal bars, not so bad, but then they leap to Special K Protein Water. Now I as a very loyal user, am confused. Is Special K a weight loss cereal or is Special K a protein product? And if it now represents an expectation of extra protein, why do the original sku’s of the brand not have anything to do with protein?
From a Killer Brand standpoint, a water product is clearly not in alignment with the brand’s core expectation, and protein is beginning to fuzzy up the brand. This looks like a problem to me, how about you?
“IT IS RARELY IN YOUR BEST INTEREST TO CONFUSE YOUR PROSPECTS.”
Hmm. And I thought marketing was easily transferable to political goals. Actually, I’m trying to think of an instance in which the opposite is true.
I know. Remember the “real cheese” TV commercials which ran ten years ago or maybe longer ago than that? Well, the Kraft boys, who sold Velveeta, turned around and produced a commercial in EXACTLY the same look and sound (”cheesy” music, heh). It was obvious that they were trying to make their commercial as close to the Real Cheeese spots as possible. I thought it was a brilliant strategy. It was an obvious attempt to obsfucate and confuse. And as far as I know it succeeded.
Xenophon, you are correct. That’s specifically why I said “rarely” rather than “never.” I have another example too when Ralston marketed a cereal that seemed more like Kellogg’s Muelix that Kellogg’s did. Every time Kellogg advertised, Ralston’s sales went up. We call that particular strategy, Shadowing, and there have been rare instances and circumstances when we recommended it.
Shadowing Strategy is fundamental to most private label branding, but hardly in the spirit of the principles of KILLER BRANDING.
Frank:
Welcome to the blogosphere. Glad to have discovered your blog. I’ve subscribed to it in my Google Reader and I look forward to reading your thoughts on branding.
Tim
I could definitely see the charm of expanding to other “healthy” products. Special K carries enough loyal users, trying to parlay that into water customers would seem a good idea. Think about the power of Special K and Propel together in a cohesive marketing push. Still, you’re absolutely right. If you’re losing market share, a shift in expectation is rarely a good strategy. Why would anyone invent a new brand to help push another?
On a side note, Pepsi Co owns both QuakerOats and Propel. Would a Bi-Product push be a good way to increase market share on both ends? Could you effectively market these two products without confusing your customers? Seems realistic =)
Brad,
First, I believe that Special K is owned by Kellogg’s not Quaker.
Having said that I believe that a joint promotion between the brands would be a better idea than Special K water. I have worked on everything from Gatorade to Patrick Flannigan’s Hunza Water from glacial melt. It doesn’t hunt for me. Cereal bars are a fine brand extention of cereal, because the user needs only to think of cereal in a different form factor.
Sometime removing the brand name and thinking about the category helps clarify the brand. E.G., cereal bars makes sense. Does cereal water?
Frank