ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

I was wondering how Coke wants to manage the Minute Maid brand when I see this launch of grape juice + aloe bits variant. When it launched the brand with major investment, it launched 果粒橙 and later on, 西柚橙. I thought it was intended to stand for pulpy juice. Now it launched grape juice + aloe bits. Does it want the brand to stand for juice with fruit bits or something else ? What a brand stands for would depend on the products launched under it. Let's keep track of what Coke will do to manage this brand which is still at the early stage. It could be a learning example of brand management.

Let's talk about another brand with long history. Over the past years, Quaker Oats has been successfully positioned as a health food with the scientific proof that it can help lower cholesterol level and promote heart health. This move must have increased its penetration, turning non-users into users. With such positioning in the minds of the consumers, the next logical step is to introduce more variants in terms of taste and form in order to expand business. So we have seen more choices on offer from Quaker Oats on the shelves of supermarkets. Suggesting different uses of the product is another way to increase consumption too. You may doubt whether people would use it for cooking rice but the strategy is obvious.

Over the years, we have seen the evolvement of what Lucozade stands for. In the long past, it was said to provide energy to who were sick and it had a strong association with recovery from illnesses. Later on, an attempt was made to go into the sports drink category with Lucozade Sport with the same energy replacement brand equity. Now it's positioned as a brain energy drink and Lucozade Extra is the variant that we can see its commitment to going into this market where I suppose Red Bull is the key competitor. Red Bull is a single product brand while Lucozade competes with brand extensions. Who will win ? Let's see.

Japanese companies like adopting corporate branding approach to branding their products. That is, their corporate brands are applied across different product categories. Like 岡本, we know this brand for condoms stressing on thinness. Over time we see it launch different variants of condoms like the latest 0.03 Aloe. Alongside with this launch of new condom, it launches a range of pain-relieving wraps as well. Condoms and pain-relieving wraps are rather unrelated and such branding approach is related to the Japanese culture where Japanese consumers trust companies rather than brands as the entities.

Vita has just launched a new variant of lemon tea called 維他錫籣檸檬茶. Is this an extension or a replacement for the existing 維他檸檬茶 ? If it's an extension, the packaging design is so similar to the original variant. Consumers will be confused. And if it's a replacement, should we really implement it in one go in order to avoid the confusion ? I guess there must be some kind of management dilemma going on ....

Panadol launches a new pain relief patch. 必理痛 stands for pain relief as a brand. It's quite logical to stick with the known pain relief positioning to extend products from internal intake to external application, thus providing a holistic range of pain relief products to consumers. With regard to the TVC, my comment is that it's just too similar to its other pain killer TVCs. It should deserve an ad that looks more different in order to make consumers notice that it's a new and different product from the Panadol they know. Also more explanation may be needed to elaborate on the action and benefits of the so called "藥用成份" as it seems to be the key differentiation from other pain relief patches.

The major weakness that deters 雞精 from being more widely-accepted is its taste. The taste is so weird like water down soy sauce and oyster sauce combined. Good thinking to come up with a 雞精 that tastes better to challenge the leader, 白蘭氏. However I wouldn't have launched it under the brand name, 官燕棧. The name is too associative with 燕窩 and it doesn't give credibility for 雞精. I would either go for a new brand name or use endorsement branding, i.e. a new name endorsed by the mother brand. The mother brand become secondary and acts as a quality assurance to consumers.

Health foods like Lingzhi, Cordyceps and Birdnest are getting less popular nowadays. What will be the next health food that is able to create another hype ? Spirulina 螺旋藻 ? Maybe. How about Spirulina under the Lo Hong Ka brand name ? Lo Hong Ka is a well-known and recognized name. Using the same name would save some bugs in communications. However, in the minds of most consumers, Lo Hong Ka is a brand name known for birdnest and this is very deep-rooted. It could have been better if it goes for endorsement branding.

I'm not a classic music fan. Neither am I trying to advertise for this concert. I pick this up as it's a case of brand stretching and dilution. Compared with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra or New York Philharmonic, it doesn't have the same history and international fame and is considered a second or third class orchestra by real classical music lovers. However, it does have some aspirational value of class and prestige to the general public as being a classical music ensemble. This kind of cross-over with pop singers would definitely help finance the orchestra but in the long run, it will lose its brand value and become just another adorning element in pop music concerts.

Good extension is not always easy. To be successful, the principle is the same as any marketing strategy : satisfying an unfulfilled need or satisfying an existing need better. For this 蒙牛早餐奶, we would appreciate the thinking that there is no other brand/product clearly positioned as the milk for breakfast, a positioning strategy of usage occasion. However, come to think of it, it's quite a silly idea. Milk is for breakfast anyway for most consumers. It's common sense and you don't need any market research to tell you that. Would it better if we put the new benefits upfront instead ? Something like 補腦奶 and 活力奶 with the added ingredients, 合桃 and 燕麥, as the supports ?

Taikoo is the leading brand in sugar. However, I'm sure consumption of sugar has been decreasing due to health and fitness concerns. And sugar is a generic product and there is literally no differentiation among different brands of sugar. This gives room for supermarket chains to launch house brands and private labels, eating up the share of Taikoo. One logical thing for Taikoo to do is extension : building differentiation with new products and pricing them at a premium level so that revenue can be maintained even with a declining volume. Will these new products sell ? I doubt it as they are quite niche indeed. Well, it's not easy to come up with winning new product ideas. What would you do if you were the marketer in Taikoo Sugar ?

Chinese herbal drinks are receiving growing popularity. Who doesn't want to share a spoonful of this growing market ? How about a Chinese herbal cereal drink ? East meets West, they call it. Red dates and green tea are added. It has a point and it's unique but it doesn't mean it will sell. To many consumers in HK, West is West, East is East. A mix like this is not going to work as you just can't beat the perception of weird taste. There are too many Chinese herbal products that are tasty and said to be good for our health. Why should consumers take the risk of trying a potentially yucky product ?

Ribena is a brand with long history. It's a blackcurrant syrup with very single-minded selling point : more vitamin C than orange. Sustaining a brand long term is never easy. Once on decline, it has managed to turn around with smart marketing. One turning point was its launch of the squeeze foil pack offering convenience and targeting at the younger generation. Another smart initiative, I must say, is its market extension to the tea meal house market with Ribena with Lemon. It's a marketing initiative that takes insights, commitment from the management and a lot of hard works by the sales people. Originally sold at supermarkets and convenience store, you can imagine the amount of effort and resources that are required to get into a new arena . It's about risk taking and it takes all the guts to go for it. If we ever have a HK FMCG marketing casebook, I think it should be on the top of the list.

Nescafe is an instant coffee brand. It's logical to use the same brand for canned coffee. I suppose it is the biggest canned coffee brand in Hong Kong. Then it extends to tea. Nestea is the brand name. Clever for them to use a hybrid naming appraoach, Nes cafe --> Nes tea and launch lemon tea as the prototype product to pick a head-on competition with Vita previously unchallenged by anyone else. It has managed to get some good business with better tasting, less sweet products. Now it extends to bottled Chinese tea using Nestea to endorse a new brand called 淳茶 舍 . I doubt whether this will be successful. First it's all too late as the bottled Chinese tea market is already flooded with too many brands. Second, the whole leaf and no-additive proposition is just too weak to cut through. Third, Nestea as a brand name is more associated with western teas and it doesn't have the power to endorse a Chinese tea brand. Without the brand value transfer from the mother brand, 淳茶 舍 ...

Not quite interested in the wet toilet tissue paper I mentioned yesterday ? How about tissues with stylish box deigns ? There are Disney cartoon designs by Kleenex and now that its extends the concept to make tissue box like a home decoration item. "The tissues that decorate your home" is not a bad proposition at all. However, I wonder whether these new designs are more expensive than the normal. If yes, are consumer willing to pay the extra bugs for the design of the tissue boxes ? If the price is the same, it may cannibalize the normal. Will both add together to expand market share ? Time will tell.

Back to Vitasoy. In recent years, it has been very aggressive in line extensions. Mocha, melon and jasmine flavoured Vitasoy, packaged bean curds and so on. Now we are spoiled by the different choices of product from Vitasoy. Here is a series of 3 鈣思寶 variants. Health is a big thing and I guess it tries to capture the health trend. These three variants have different health benefits : for healthy bones, intestines and heart. Will these be successful ? There are many alternative products said to have similar health benefits. The key success factors are therefore price and taste. One clever thing is that it uses breakfast to clearly define the positioning with usage occasion. That could be a good way to cut through.

Pak Fook was the market-first in packaged bean curd and now that Vitasoy has launched its version. A very late comer, by more than a decade. I really wonder why it would pick a head-on competition where Pak Fook means nothing but packaged bean curd in the mind of consumers. It will remain in the top of mind of the consumers except that Vitasoy is able to come up with a very innovative bean curd products and invest heavily enough in A&P. In terms of innovation, Vitasoy bean curd is made from organic soy beans and it has a scallop-flavoured variant. It's not quite big a deal to make real impact. In terms of A&P, it flashed some TVC spots for a while and vanished. My fair guess is that it could be yet another failure of extension.

Delifrance was set up as a "grab and go" shop for coffee, pastries and sandwiches but now that it is extended to restaurant business, BistroDelifrance. Never try it and don't know whether it 's good or not. It's not in my consideration set as the brand hasn't got any credentials in "real" cooked food in my mind as a consumer. The food they promote, as in this print ad, is not quite unique. There are quite many restaurants offering similar food at similar price. Coming back to the print ad itself, doesn't it look familiar ? It reminds me of a McDonald's ad I mentioned before.

Guess Yakult isn't as popular as before. There are simply so many products coming with lactic bacteria and saying they are good for intestinal health. In the past, Yakult means intestinal health for the whole family especially for kids. This TVC is an attempt to give it some more new benefits, beauty and anti-ageing. Creative wise, it goes along the same line of humour and fun but the message is different from the past, targeting at the young adult segment. We can see the objective is obviously to expand usage by giving new reasons for consumption. As a consumer, I just feel that it is not the Yakult we used to know anymore. The intestinal health positioning is so deep-rooted in our mind. If it is to go into the beauty and anti-ageing arena, I think product extension could be the way to go.

The war is still on. Cafe De Coral is really into the fight for more business during dinner time. It launched make-to-order 小菜 in May and now it has another gimmick : chocolate fountain. HK people like trying new things and there is nothing wrong with adding new products, new menus and new gimmicks to attract consumers. But my concern is with the frequency. Fast food business is about fast turnover and efficient operations with standard menus. Whenever new items are added, disruptions are inevitable : IT system errors, staff confusion, stock-outs and so on are common. The more frequently new products are added and changed, the higher the chance for all these errors to happen, ending up with consumer disappointment. Extensions will drive business growth but too many and too frequent would be a potential threat to the image.