Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

Most Unexpected Strategy

Posted by Anonymous on 9/29/2005 at 9:53 AM ET 250 Points
Do you know case studies in which the advertising agency and the advertiser/client decided to built a brand's strategy which was opposite to the statistic researches and indexes, and even though decided to do so the brand became a success?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Mushfique Manzoor on 9/29/2005 at 10:35 AM Accepted
    Hi inbals

    just from the top of my head....

    Virgin Atlantic Airways did exactly the opposite what the entire airline industry doing at the time of its launch. (I am not sure whether Richard Branson had used any agency or not)

    on 2nd thought, have a copy of the "Ogilvy on Advertising", it has quite a number of examples of some of the "Opposite Success stories".

    hope this helps.

    cheers!!
  • Posted on 9/29/2005 at 11:38 AM Member
    I have never seen a successful example of people ignoring market research and being successful. I have seen plenty go through the research presentation, and then say, "Invalid! I question the methodolgy! The findings disagree with my view of the market situation, which I know is valid because a sales rep told me so last week!" Then they go off and do what they wanted anyway, then fail, then blame some hapless person who had nothing to do with the decision.

    Better to find out what customers want to buy and sell that to them. If your market is fed up with "business as usual" and you have a transformational product or technology, then build a little maverick into your brand positioning platform. If you have the capability to shake things up, go for it and capture a profitable piece of the market's top end.

    A company can go against the prevailing wisdom and standards of the market to great success. Think Southwest Airlines. Think I-Pod. Think carefully.
  • Posted by TILO on 9/29/2005 at 12:14 PM Member
    Hi

    As I live in Spain I will use an example of a home grown company. ZARA

    Zara ( https://www.zara.com) is a producer of fashion clothes and is still privately owned. It started life as a factory who made garments which were exported to Germany. Then out of the blue their major customer in GErmany went bankrupt and they were left with a warehouse full of inventory that, if not sold, would drive them out of business. To overcome this they created a small factory shop just outside the factory and have grown from there into a multi country fashion house.

    Zara is a good example because it's strategy is opposite to business norms.

    - As opposed to mass producing garments it keeps runs small. This ensures that the buyers have a sense of selectivity whilst loss producing garments don't have a major impact.

    - Because of the above they need to have more transport replenishing the outlets. This creates an air of excitement as the customers get to know what days new designs arrive.

    - Normally transport is packed with garments which need to be ironed before putting on the shelf. Zara's products are ironed in the Factory and stored on coat hangers. When they arrive at the store the store owners don't need much store room as the garments go straight our on display.

    To summarises, Zara goes against the flow of "stack em high, and sell em cheap". They offer good quality clothes with an air of exclusivity and at a comparably good price. Their shops are always full and my wife, like many other buyers, make the effort to visit them most weeks.

    I hope this helps

    Tim M
  • Posted on 9/29/2005 at 1:59 PM Accepted
    Consider also the GOT MILK? campaign, FedEx and CNN.

    Fred Smith's FedEx business plan got an F grade in B-school. He still pursued it, and after 10-20 years, many tries, many incarnations, made FedEx what it is today. When Turner thought of CNN, the prevailing industry thought was, "Who needs yet another news source?"

    Lets examine in more detail the situation when the then Goodby, Silverstein (a San Francisco Ad/Branding firm) company and Jeff Manning (of the California Milk Processor Board) did to make people consume more MILK.

    Every Milk Company (Dean Foods, etc) and ever Milk Processor in the US (hundreds of them) had tried to sell more milk for decades, but the COLA manufactureres had a leg-up and superior marketing.

    Test after test showed that while people knew the importance of milk, they consumed something else! So much so that they found in the eighties and nineties that younger people were actually reaching out for a Cola as their FIRST drink of the day in the morning!!!

    Throughout the eighties and nineties, studies showed that as people drank more Cola, their bones weakened and that is ONE of the reasons why the number of sports injuries increased. (The other reason is people started participating in risky sports and aggressive behaviour).

    Large and small Ad agencies tried to help Milk Processors but to no real or large or sustained effect. Almost all gave up when they saw little returns for their efforts at promoting milk.

    Beverage Insiders, Analysts and Manufacturers had expected a continued rise in the consumption of Cola and other soft drinks (water, flavored water, isotonics sports drinks, juices - basically drinks where more sugar was *added*).

    Jeff Manning and Goodby Silverstein REVERSED that expected trend their GOT MILK? campaign. (I recommend reading the book by that name authored by Jeff Manning if you want to understand what they did).

    They made Milk not only an acceptable Beverage, but made it Cool to consume it more. The rest is history. Today CAGR for Milk, Flavored Milk and other Milk products is shows continued growth, while the growth of Cola consumption is closer to zero.

    Also, today, all states have mandated their K-12 schools to remove their Cola vending machines by 2007 - another WATERSHED Event in Milk history.


    - RAJ DOSHI -
  • Posted by mgoodman on 9/29/2005 at 6:26 PM Member
    I always tell my clients that when the market research leads them somewhere that's different from their intuition, question the market research. Look for why it is that the research came back saying something so different from what a knowledgeable, intuitive person would have expected.

    Often the question was asked in a strange way, or the sample of respondents was atypical, or something like that. Market research is helpful -- even mandatory, in most cases -- but it isn't supposed to overrule intelligent management. It's supposed to answer key questions that might affect management's decisions.

    If there really are cases where management ignored the research and went ahead in a manner counter to what the research said, I'd bet there was some glitch in the research, or it wasn't properly understood/analyzed.

    Well conceived research, conducted and analyzed properly, shouldn't be so counter to informed intution that you'd actually go against what it said. If that were the case, you'd never really need to conduct the market research to begin with, right?

  • Posted on 9/29/2005 at 11:39 PM Member
    Mgoodman, you are correct in all you say, but sometimes the person looking at the research is not as smart as they think they are. That's all I have to say about that. :)
  • Posted by mgoodman on 10/1/2005 at 7:00 PM Member
    "We are so busy measuring public opinion that we forget we can mold it. We are so busy listening to statistics that we forget we can create them."

    William Bernbach
    Doyle, Dane Bernbach Advertising Agency
  • Posted by TILO on 10/1/2005 at 10:35 PM Member
    After reading Mr Goodman's input I had to take a couple of days to think on what he said and the idea of group think comes to mind. Maybe there is an inherent risk of looking at market research in such a way that it enforces our own mental models. The secret here maybe not those companies that have gone against market research, but companies that are intuitive enough to join the dots in such a way that it redefines the market.

    Let us look at the Circus industry.

    The Circus concept was created hundreds of years before the advent of the television. This idea of travelling showman showing both human and animal spectacles to an expectant audience was a huge success. Troops would move from town to town showing a mixture of humour, daring and exotic animals to an expectant and willing crowd, who would normally never have the chance to see such marvels.

    So what happened? With the advent of the television and animal rights the market begun to decline. People could see wild animals on the TV in their own habitat, greater acrobatic feats and humours on the regular TV show.

    So the market research and all of the closed data said that this was not the market to be in. However one company redefined the concept of the Circus....

    Cirque Du Soleil ( https://www.cirquedusoleil.com/CirqueDuSoleil/en/default.htm )

    Cirque Du Soleil shifted the circus paradigm, it change the concept from a sawdust, filled ring with elephants standing on their heads and clowns throwing pies at each other, back to the concept of a spectacular. The company mixes art, fantastic displays, theater and online marketing. They redefined the Circus idea and brought it up to date.

    In summary maybe it is not unexpected strategies that we see, but correct strategies looking outside of the box..

    Regards
    Tim
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