Technology Can Lose Sight of the Goal
By Tom Dougherty

No Sacred Cows Allowed

Some “branding firms” and companies, for that matter, believe that branding is all about changing a logo, name, website, or collateral material. However, developing brand strategies for companies that are designed to significantly grow market share requires our strategists to dig deeply into the business model as well other marketing disciplines. Clients who engage our services, come to us because they want to win by doing more than changing their “corporate appearance” and it is our pledge to them that we will find a way for them to do exactly that.

This means that everything MUST be on the table. “Sacred cows” are the enemy of stealing market share. They represent a passion for the past and an unwillingness to seize the present…let alone the future.

A major manufacturer of box fans that relied on distribution rather than strategic execution of their brand to build share had as its only advertisement on the very boxes in which they shipped their fans. Regardless of any brand insight we might bring, we were told in no uncertain terms that “made in the America” was to remain the prominent feature of those boxes. After conducting a nationwide, quantitative research study, the findings indicated that such a claim was of major importance to only 3% of their target market and of minor importance to an additional 5%.

For 92% of their market, the country of manufacturing origin did not factor at all in their purchase decisions. In other words, a box emblazoned with an American flag and festooned with “made in America” did not influence preference equation. It was a sacred cow important only to the manufacturer — what we call an inside-out view of the marketplace. Although the research clearly showed that this “sacred cow” was only “sacred” to those executives within fan manufacturer, the company has continued their strategy of building their brand through distribution and competing solely by being economy priced. Their own sacred cow is aggressively feeding on their own margins and ultimate success.