MarketingProfs Know-How Exchange : Brand Life Cycle

Great question ... there is a debate in branding circles as to whether or not a brand can have a "life cycle" on its own, or whether its peaks and troughs and just a symptom of managing the brand elements (logo, personality, positioning etc)

For one, I can see that a brand CAN rise, then FALL out of favour, to be superceeded by a new and improved brand.
The only issue I have with viewing a brand as having a lifecycle is that the branding process can take many years to develop (unless you have an overnight success on your hand).

Products do have a lifecycle, but their peaks and troughs can come in a quicker timeframe, so the cycle is more obvious.
You can provide a quick fix to most products or solution out there to improve sales and prolong the lifecycle, not so easy with a brand.

Sorry, just to clarify my thoughts on this ... think of a big international brand right now ... my guess is that its brand appeal has been rising and rising since it was launched to the buying public ... wheres the cycle ?

My view is that a brand can have a lifecycle in much the same way that a product can. This may consist of a number of phases from inception to launch, growth, maturing, decline, revitalization, and retirement.

From http://www.allaboutbranding.com/index.lasso?article=377:

1) The Brand Definition
2) The Awareness Experience
3) The Buying Experience
4) The Using and Service Experience
5) The Membership Experience

Other articles that may be of interest include
http://www.throughtheloop.com/knowledge/brand10.html

A brand generally has four phases of growth - based on the product life cycle concept:

Introduction
Growth
Maturity
Decline

And that for each phase particular brand management strategies are necessary.

If you charted the progress it would start at the bottom (that's the intro) and go up for a certain period of time (growth), then level off (maturity) and then go back down (decline.)

All brands generally go through this, and it's how they manage the decline that makes the difference. Ergo the constant state of reinvention for many brands. I actually think that Madonna is the greatest example of this.

Cheryl Waters

Cheryl Waters

I think that one thing to remember is that lifecycles don't need to follow a waterfall. they can be iterative, or sub-lifecycles. Many big name brands constantly refine their brands using iterative lifecycles.

http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/case_study.php?cID=6&csID=189 gives a simply overview of the brand lifecycle associated with Kelloggs.

"I think that one thing to remember is that lifecycles don't need to follow a waterfall. they can be iterative, or sub-lifecycles. Many big name brands constantly refine their brands using iterative lifecycles."

Yeah, but is that a lifecycle in the classic way we all know the term or brand management ?

And the problem I have with looking at a lifecycle for branding in the same way that we do for products is that branding si surely there to stop the rot with the product lifecycle in the first place!

I agree that brands change and evolve, I have a problem thinking about it as a lifecycle.

Hi, me again!

I have thought about it some more, I can see that brands have an improvement lifecycle, which would go something like:

o interaction - between customers and the brand (product, company, employees etc)
o brand promise - what the customer expects to get from the brand
o brand delivery - customers experience of the brand
o learning - for both brand and customer

Then back to the start again

Think of a brand like a business, a well managed business grows, improves and develops, a poorly managed one declines. Any branded business survives because of its brand. It's recognised, accepted by customers and should be there to command a premium.

A brand is built up from a series of interactions with it. I break these down into 4 areas. 1 product, 2 service, 3 relationships/communication 4 Word of mouth (viral).

Manage elements 1-3 well and 4 will naturally follow.

Our core brand has been around for 260 years and is still relevant to our target customers, we've just managed elements 1-3 reasonably succesfully.

Exception to this might be product specific brands e.g. Mars, Coca Cola where the brand and the product are one of the same or brands that fail to change as peoples tastes, attitudes and behaviour change. e.g. McDonalds are struggling to be taken credibly as a healthy eatery rather than supersize me.

Being deeply cynical about most agencies, there is more money in it for them to create and retire brands than managing one on an ongoing basis.

Hope this helps,

DT

I agree with DT. There is more money in creating new brands. But, more important, for a company to survive today there must be innovation in their products and services.

The brand cycle is a model, not a mode. And companies use the model (along with other indicators) to avoid falling into the decline phase.

Apple, for example, since their intro of the iPod, rolls out products, and services, on a fairly regular basis. IBM, well, they saw the signs, and the diminishing sales. While the brand remains very much intact, the business has changed completely. They no longer sell "machines." and are restructuring the giant to sell "management." The results remain to be seen, but I suspect they'll come out on top.

An example of a brand that didn't understand probably is Timberland. Remember... they were hot in the seventies, and then virtually disappeared for I would say 10-15 years. They mananged to make a comback - and boy do their shoes look different today!

Anyway, I think the brand cycle is good to understand as it does relate to the way a company innovates and introduces new products and services to market.

Cheryl Waters

Hi,

I think brand have life cycle like Prodocts but t may be defferent from product life cycle.

One product from one company have a life cycle that is some of one or two or more brands of the brands life cycle.
Any brand for one product may have its own life cycle.
I have a post about it here: http://alirezamojahedi.blogspot.com/2007/01/blog-post_09.html
but it is in Persian and I will write it in English soon but if you visit the graphs you will get my idea.
The Red lines are PLC and Blue and Green are BLC (Brand Life Cycle)

Regards,
Alirea Mojahedi, MBA