What Other Untapped Brand Opportunities Are Out There?

Posted May 02 in Uncategorized tagged , , ,

Brand’s exist because a) brands make consumers life easier and make them feel good – consequently they are willing to pay over the odds for the privilege, and b) companies therefore make more money as people are prepared to pay more or use the same thing more often.

A useful strategy is to look for categories with an emotional story where brands don’t exist and brand them – it can change a companies financial fortunes.

Macquarie Infrastructure Group, for example is the part of Mac Bank responsible for Toll Roads (one of the largest Toll road owners in the world). There shares have dropped from around $40.00 a share to around $3.00 a share in 4 years. Now lets examine how they have branded their greatest asset – their Toll Roads:

How do people feel as a result of using these twice a day, every day year in and year out? Possibly bored, depressed, and pissed off.

Now lets imagine we can’t change the product, but we can change the packaging and re-brand Toll Roads.

The nature of the relationship people have with you will change instantly. Just make it fun, or interesting, or status orientated and people will feel much better about using them. And why do you want to do this Mr Macquarie? Well from a company perspective Nicolas Moore would not have to take a $26 million paycut, instead you could harness the goodwill created and focus on top line wealth creating growth. From a consumer perspective you may make life a little more interesting or fun.

Any category that has high emotional engagement, but no established brands can be completely overhauled. For example, Naked’s consumer research found people loved their pools (they act as a magnet for street socialisation) but, no pool salt had ever bothered to brand itself. So we created a premium pool salt. It made people feel good about their pool salt, and massively improved the financial performance of the company.

Just go for a walk in any supermarket isle and you’ll find many categories still ripe for reinvention. Further, Macquarie should start to look at how it can begin to brand the many wonderful assets it still owns.

I would be interested to know what other categories exist (on or offline) that have as yet not branded themselves? Any thoughts?

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  1. Daniel Oyston

    May 2nd, 2009

    I think Government departments are a prime target. Better branding of the departments as a whole as well as their high profile projects would potentially make their work better received (and in turn contribute to potential re-election).

    Instead, public servants seem hell bent on making sure that the department name ends up making some acronym that is memorable. Take the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs … know as FaHCSIA.

    Now, ask the average person if they know what FaHCSIA stands for and they will look at you like you just asked them for the answer to the financial crisis. Don’t even get me started about how the lower case ‘a’ is squeezed into the acronym just so people have a condensed ‘word’ to call the department!

    Surely that just indicates that the name is to long and almost irrelevant?

    And where is the D for Department in the acronym? Other departments, such as the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) us the ‘D’.

    Instead, name the Dept. something uplifting and engaging like “The Department for Better Lifestyles” … at least that is an aspirational name and one that people can connect with.

  2. Fritz Bachen

    May 6th, 2009

    Agree – Govt work is very executional / advertising led (a lot like how many car manufacturers think they are building brands by showing glossy ads – they are not.

    I’m surprised there is only one comment here – I love this subject. Perhaps its the picture of Macquaries infrastructure that put people off. I also guess not that many people google ‘toll roads’.

  3. Todd Alchin

    May 13th, 2009

    Good topic. You raised an issue about the importance of language and I’m fascinated by how easily products can undermine the brand that birthed them.

    A few examples …

    Microsoft’s error messages are delivered with far greater frequency than probably anything they could achieve through comms. Yet the language they use is technical and unfriendly. (Think “Fatal error”). I can’t think of any other brand that fails so consistently, yet it so unapologetic and unhelpful about it. And the ad budget for Vista was reportedly $300 million.

    The naming of phones and cars just blows me away.

    Automotive brands spend a lot of time trying to be evocative. Then they go ahead and name their car Epica. Something that means nothing … unless homage to a Dutch symphonic metal band was what they were going for.

    Not as many Mustangs or Trans Ams around these days. Arguably their names contributed enormously to their identity and appeal. Look at this way, do you really want to get laid in a Yaris? How do you even say Touareg? Even internally at VW they argued over it. (A post on this subject here: http://www.snarkhunting.com/2003/02/car-brands-naming-strategy-names/).

    Nokia products used to confuse me, even though I’ve worked on the business. For a brand touting “Human Technology” they miss the point when it comes to naming their phones. Do I want a 7110 or an 8220? Hmm, do I want vanilla or another type of vanilla?

    Is there an inverse relationship between the cost of products and the imagination and power of the language they use? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

  4. Fritz Bachen

    May 17th, 2009

    Hi Todd,

    Thanks for taking the time to write. The point you make about language is indeed perplexing. Ive never known why brands (especially car brands) throw away one of the best opportunities they have to communciate something about the brand with a completlely made up name that does not even allude to some for of promise emotional or functional.

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