A public message of support from your board when you are the chief executive of a big company is a bit like being told by your wife that she does not regret marrying you. It’s a reassuring message, until you start to consider why the statement was made in the first place.
Steve Sharp. Rarely has a marketer been so well named. Marks & Spencer’s marketing director is renowned as one of our nation’s best marketers but also for his incisive entrepreneurial instincts.
I witnessed another impressive demonstration of the commercial and strategic advantages of co-branding on a trip to the US this week.
Stella Artois is about to launch a cider. Last week the brand’s senior management team announced that British drinkers would get their first look at Stella Cidre in April. File it next to Levi’s suits, Pond’s toothpaste, Harley-Davidson cake decorations and Aston Martin’s economy car. It’s going to be a clunker.
To Regent Street in London, where I spent a fascinating 20 minutes in the Ferrari store on Saturday. It’s one of more than 30 stores and you can buy anything inside as long as it’s red and/ or features a prancing horse plastered across it. You name it, Ferrari has a version of it: mobile phones, moccasins, a laptop, skis, bathrobes, paperweights, bikes, hats, gamepad controllers and golf towels. It has got the lot.
Last week was the perfect occasion to reflect on the strategic advantages of killing brands, and also to highlight the likely trouble for those companies that have the temerity to launch new ones.
I was busted last week. The missus caught me, bang to rights, checking out the most gorgeous figure I’d ever laid eyes on. She had a stunning profile and the kind of derriere that makes men go weak at the knees. She was German, of course – it was unmistakably part of her feline assurance as she passed me.
Study a good bit of market research and it provides a veritable MBA in brand strategy. Last week, for example, uSwitch published the results from its May survey of 6,721 mobile phone users in the UK. The data presents some fascinating insights into the nature of brand extension and the dangers of supplying private label.
Alan Mulally turns 65 this week. You might not know the name, but you surely know the company he leads. Mulally is the CEO of Ford. That might sound a pretty unpleasant role with all the challenges of declining sales, government bail-outs and union action. But Ford is different. And it’s different because of Alan Mulally.
Last Sunday, GM announced plans to introduce a new car brand into the Chinese market. Baojun – which means “treasured horse” in Mandarin – will go on sale later this year.