When Philip Morris Company in the United States is mentioned, people will immediately think of cigarettes, and the famous Marlboro brand cigarettes are the fist products of this company. However, if someone asks you which company produces Kraft yogurt and Miao sauce, Guozhen drinks, Maxwell coffee and Miller beer, many people in China may be speechless. In fact, not only domestic people are dumbfounded, but even American consumers are either dumbfounded or think it is the product of American General Food Company. In fact, all these products come from Philip Morris, the American tobacco king.
Highlighting brand image or company image has always been the key to marketing. It is obviously wise for Morip Morris to highlight the brand and downplay the image. After the company acquired Kraft, Maxwell and other brands from General Foods, it has been highlighting the images of these brands in advertisements. In addition to considering that these trademarks have formed huge intangible assets, it also makes the company worry that it is not appropriate to use the same brand strategy, namely Marlboro brand, in today's global anti-smoking campaign. How to prevent the image of "tobacco" companies from intimidating consumers who are in favor of smoking ban, so as to avoid adverse social impact, the best choice is not to let the company itself appear in the advertisements of these products.
Philip Morris's brand strategy has achieved great success. Countless anti-smoking activists around the world did not know that Philip Morris was the tobacco king behind these brands when they bought them.
The single brand strategy has further evolved and extended into brand expansion strategy and multi-brand strategy.
The so-called brand expansion strategy is to expand a single brand to show the continuous improvement of products. Matsushita Electric Co., Ltd. of Japan often adopts this brand strategy for its TV sets, video recorders and other audio-visual household appliances, thus conveying the company's innovative, young and energetic concept to consumers and winning consumers' recognition and dependence on its products. What matters here is the multi-brand strategy. This strategy refers to the establishment of two or more competitive brands in the same product. Although this will slightly reduce the sales of the original brand, the total sales of several brands together are more than the original brand, so this strategy is also called "1+1>; 1.5 "policy.
The multi-brand strategy was initiated by Procter & Gamble. P&G believes that a single brand is not everything. Because after a brand is established, it is easy to form a fixed impression among consumers, which is not conducive to the extension of products, especially for enterprises like Procter & Gamble that span various industries and have multiple products. Therefore, P&G constantly introduces new brands. The company launched nearly 65,438+00 beauty and skin care brands in China, accounting for one third of the major beauty products brands in China. Pan Ting, Rejoice and Head & Shoulders, which are familiar to consumers in China, are all products of P&G. These three brands have attracted consumers with different needs, thus making their shampoo market share in China rise to the first place, reaching more than 50%. This is obviously the result of Procter & Gamble's successful application of multi-brand strategy.
This method has been widely used in beauty products, washing products and other industries. Shanghai Daily Chemical Company has also launched many brands such as Mei Lu Chen Zhuang, Qingfei, Working Women, Ya Shuang, Nanbao, Bolong, Youwei, Friendship, Liushen and Gaofu to occupy different market segments.
The reason why multi-brand strategy is so attractive to enterprises is mainly due to the following reasons: first, retailers have limited display positions, and many enterprises with different brands can occupy more shelf area as long as they are accepted by retail stores, while the shelf area occupied by competitors will of course decrease accordingly; Second, many consumers are brand changers, have the psychology of seeking novelty and novelty, and like to try new products. The best way to seize such consumers and increase the market share of products is to launch multiple brands; Third, developing a variety of different brands will help the competition between various departments and product managers within the enterprise and improve efficiency; Fourth, different brands are located in different market segments, and their advertising demands and interests are different, which can enable enterprises to penetrate into different market segments and occupy a larger market. If there are great differences between the products operated by an enterprise, then the enterprise must adopt a multi-brand strategy according to the different classification of products, that is, each product is named separately, and each product uses a brand.
Sears, the largest retailer in the United States, adopts such a strategy, and its products such as home appliances, women's wear and furniture use different brands respectively. This strategy is especially suitable for large enterprises that produce and operate a variety of products. Because the fields they involve are eating, wearing and using, if there is a big gap between the two types of products, you must never use the same brand.
Imagine that enterprises produce both grain and fertilizer; Cosmetics and pesticides are produced. If you use the same brand, how will consumers react? Therefore, when Procter & Gamble Company sells its products in China, it uses the brand of "Radar" for pesticides, "Hong Niao" for shoe polish and other brands for a large number of cosmetics. China Haier Group uses "Haier" brand when selling household appliances such as refrigerators, color TVs and washing machines. However, when its product line extended to the health care industry, in order to maintain Haier Group's consistent main image in the eyes of consumers, it used the brand "Cai Li". Considering the relative identity and independence between products, the typical practice of enterprises is to add the name of a single brand after the enterprise name.
There is a company name in front of each brand, and the brand indicates the origin and characteristics of the product. The main advantages of this strategy are: taking the enterprise name as the prefix of brand names of different new products, so that new products can enjoy the reputation of enterprises, while different products use different brand names, so that different products can maintain their own characteristics and have relative independence.
This practice is not uncommon in the management policies of some famous large enterprises, just because their enterprises are a huge intangible asset that can support their personal brands. For example, Kodak films are named "Kodak Wanli" film, "Kodak Gold Award" film and "Kodak Supreme" film because of their different properties. Obviously, these brands all imply the name of the enterprise. In China, the refrigerators of Haier Group are named "Haier Double Prince", "Haier Little Prince", "Haier Handsome Prince" and "Haier Little Miracle" washing machines according to their different target market positioning. This multi-brand strategy has brought great benefits to Haier Group.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi introduced low-sugar diet drinks to the market almost at the same time. Pepsi named it "Diet Pepsi", while Coca-Cola named it "Tai Sen". As a result, "Tai Sen" was defeated by the similar product "Diet Pepsi". Because "Tai Sen" can cater to consumers' tastes, it fails to extend the name of Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company learned its lesson, renamed its products and launched "Diet Coca-Cola", which was immediately accepted by consumers and soon became the third largest beverage product in the United States. The success of "Diet Coca-Cola" is the result of the correct use of corporate name and personal brand strategy.