McDonald's Rebranding strategy !!

                                        

In 2005 McDonald’s business performance and brand perceptions had reached a plateau. It seemed that the nation’s love affair with McDonald’s might be over. So the brand had to win back its place in customers’ affections by overhauling just about every aspect of the business that could affect its relationship with them, and finding the right way to express itself in communications. Over the next three years McDonald’s UK made record levels of investment to upgrade the experience for customers in the areas that mattered most to them: the food for both adults and children and the restaurants.  

                         
The food

Improving food perceptions was clearly absolutely critical to re-appraisal of the brand. A grown-up menu for adultsIn research, customers had already told McDonald’s they wanted more choice. In response, the brand had initiated a programme that made more changes to its menu in three years than it had done in the previous thirty. Innovations across the menu saw the introduction of products such as new chicken recipes, using only 100% chicken breast meat from approved poultry farms.Bagels and porridge were launched at breakfast and fat, salt and sugar content were reduced. Organic milk and Rainforest Alliance coffee were introduced and a 10-year programme for free-range eggs culminated in their exclusive use throughout the menu. To give an indication of the scale of the success of some of these recipes, McDonald’s UK sold 21 million Chicken Legends in 2008. 

Healthier Happy Meals for children

Parents wanted the Happy Meal to remain a treat for their kids — still to include a toy, for example — but were concerned about nutrition. Changes had already been made in 2004, adding choice with fruit bags and carrot sticks, but new moves included adding fibre to buns, serving fries unsalted if parents preferred and introducing semi-skimmed organic milk and fresh orange juice. Today McDonald’s is one of the biggest providers of cut fruit to children in the UK. This led to the share of family visits growing vs the market: in 2008, for example, 80% of families visited McDonald’s.

Makeover for the restaurants

The single most visible signal of change to consumers was the store re-imaging programme, which began in 2006 and which completely changed the look and feel of the outlets.By the end of 2008 80% of the high street restaurants had been refurbished, with consumer research showing increased consumer commitment to the brand and rising sales.

Encouraging a new attitude
The business made a significant structural change by increasing the number of franchisees. Entrusting more restaurants to local entrepreneurs was a huge success, based on the simple premise that if it is your own business you tend to run a better restaurant. At the same time, focus on improving operating standards led to cleaner, more efficient and friendlier restaurants, while investment in new kitchen equipment enabled the serving of fresher, hotter food. This was complemented by improved communication to stores. The result was distinctly improved customer satisfaction scores. In addition, extended opening hours to reflect changing lifestyles saw more stores trade for 24 hours at least once a week.

Engaging with advertising
McDonald’s had always been committed to using advertising to drive its business, but now was the right time to take the opportunity to use it more pro-actively to manage its brand image and perceptions. The intention was to signal to consumers and stakeholders that the company was talking to them in a new and engaging way to celebrate the truths about, and show pride in, the brand.

A prime opportunity for doing this was the Happy Meal, where the changes in the product offered the ideal platform for re-connection with mothers’ heads and hearts, through a combination of emotional storytelling and rational reassurance to shift attitudes and make a statement. This led to the ‘That’s What Makes McDonald’s’ campaign, in which the ‘Planting’ TV commercial told, charmingly and engagingly, the truth about the core ingredients of a Happy Meal, celebrating the food and connecting it back to its source  The campaign was carried through to restaurants via tray liners. And it was used as a key internal communications tool, signifying the brand’s new direction and attitude.

Savouring success From mid/late 2006, the business saw a marked improvement in sales, ‘guest counts’ and market share. Customer perceptions of the brand also improved significantly, especially on the ‘trust’ measure which represented a key objective for the brand.

                  

How Samsung beats the other phone handsets !!!

Until as recently as 2008, Nokia had an invincible lock on the mobile phone market in India. The Finnish giant was by far the strongest Richmond in the field, controlling a humongous 75% of the Indian mobile handset market by volume. But over the next couple of years, even as the handset market was going through a watershed technological change and churn, Nokia made the mistake of taking its eyes off the emerging market trends and has had to pay a heavy price for the lapse. By the time it realised its mistake, the South Korean major Samsung had already taken the market by storm, introducing a whole new dynamic to the Indian mobile phone market: smartphones, which have operating systems just like PCs (with Android being the most popular). From the staggering peak of its market leadership four years ago, Nokia has seen fall with its current market share declining to 31%. In comparison, Samsung’s share in the volume game has moved up from 5% to 28% over the past two years alone, according to a research report by Cyber Media.

The cardinal sin Nokia made was to forget that technology is ephemeral in nature. So when smartphones became the hottest flavour in the handset business, Nokia was caught napping. Its Symbian platform looked antediluvian and anachronistic in comparison to Samsung’s offerings on Google’s Android. Unlike Nokia, Samsung had abandoned the Symbian OS early on and succeeded in developing leading-edge handsets using multiple operating systems. At the same time, it developed its own operating system – called Bada – to push smartphones into the mid-market and cannibalize the feature-phone segment. It was also quick to launch several attractive models on Google’s Android platform, which helped it gain global market leadership in the smartphone segment.

Samsung’s strategy has been simple – waiting for the right moment to open up in the market and quickly moving in to seize the opportunity with both hands. Experts say Samsung’s success has come from spotting technology trends in the initial stages, in areas where the growth is rapid and development capital-intensive. It has invested heavily in such areas to make it harder for rivals to keep up.

In India, Samsung has succeeded by becoming a full range smart- phone player. It has 19 smartphone models available across varied OS platforms – across Android, Windows and Bada. The company has flooded the market with phones at every price point conceivable, making it easier for aspiring young consumers to jump to their next level of technology experience, as per their needs and affordability. It has priced its products extremely competitively, thus outsmarting the competition. It introduced multiple smartphones at quick intervals and varying price-points.So we have a Samsung Star and Champ models starting around Rs.6,000 to S3 and Note at Rs.35,000. Samsung offers consumers choices and value for money. It ensures a smooth path for consumers to jump to the next level of smartphones by having products at almost every price point.
The company hasn’t ignored the feature phone category, which has helped it increase its penetration and build brand awareness in tier 2 and tier 3 towns among consumers, who would become future smartphone users.
Samsung has ensured that the brand enjoys strong visibility albeit with lesser number of outlets. With 100,000 distribution centres that cover most parts of the country, Samsung is focused on better controlo n service quality and maintaining a ‘premium brand’ edge over Nokia. So even in smaller cities it runs better designed and illuminated outlets.
To cement its long-term trust and relationship with consumers, the company has invested heavily in setting upa strong after-sales service network with trained professionals and responsive call centers  which ensure customers have a good experience.These measures have helped Samsung gain strong ‘word of mouth’ publicity and get repeat buys from older customers, who feel the brand cares for them.

So this is how Samsung is today ruling the phone handset category !!!!

Revitalizing, Rejuvenating and Reformulating a Struggling Brand

Brand represents the intellectual and emotional associations that people make with a company, product or person. Brands are key to a company's long-term survival and market leadership. Accountants and auditors the world over calculate the value of brands when determining book values on the company balance sheets. In the case of strong brands, the brand can be 70% - 90% of the stock market value (intangible assets).

Brands do have life cycle which may consist of a number of phases from inception to launch, growth, maturing, decline, revitalization, and retirement. Brand Rejuvenation is a process wherein a brand which is on the verge of retirement, is brought back to life to regain markets. Revitalizing a once-popular dormant brand can be a highly profitable strategy under the right circumstances.

Rebranding is a complex process and should not be engaged lightly. Handled badly it can be damaging to business. Equally in the words of a Chinese proverb "if you do not plan for the future, you will get the one that shows up" and successful rebranding, relaunching and revitalisation adds significantly to a companys long term success. Brands are constantly evolving to ensure they keep abreast of changing needs in the market place. It's the level of change required that is the critical issue. A brand audit and market research will help assess the rate of change required amongst other things. Revitalisation maintains and celebrates the history and heritage of the brand but shows its target audience (current and future) that you are adaptive to change. Change is necessary to stay relevant to the times in which a brand exists and to ensure its future success.

The Old logo and new logo of British Airways

When a brand gets as battered, bruised and knocked out of shape as British Airways, the consequence is that it gradually and progressively loses its identity and its meaning particularly when the slings and arrows attack the brand from so many directions. The things it stood for become shadows of their former selves. But because the demise takes place over time and because the paint on the planes remains the same, it is easy not to grasp fully the extent of the damage. But the data told an alarming story. In 2010 the brand’s measure of marketing success, brand bonding, was at a third of the levels of 2002. Even more worryingly for a service brand, staff pride was at its lowest ever level.The story of how British Airways, amidst unprecedented market turbulence, re-­aimed for market leadership through the recommitment to its core ethos To Fly. To Serve. Of how this ethos re-­connected with staff, customers and culture, reigniting brand confidence and laying the foundations for the airline to fly forward through successive campaigns and once again reclaim a leadership position in the market.