Question

Topic: Branding

Should We Consolidate Our Publishing Brands?

Posted by Anonymous on 3/10/2006 at 8:02 AM ET 250 Points
I am the CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers. We have eighteen different publishing imprints: one for fiction, one for gardening, one for current events, one for gift books, etc. (An "imprint" is a publishing division that has its own logo that appears on a book's spine.) We are exploring the possibility of consolidating all of these into the one super-brand of Thomas Nelson. Why? Because ...

1. We also feel that we are diluting our impact in the marketplace.
2. We feel that we are spreading our resources over too many brand identities and messages.
3. We are creating brand confusion in the marketplace.

These imprints, because they are small and don't have much visibility, are not very important to consumers. They are only important to the employees within the divisions and our authors. However, this will result in a significant change for them, and we will have to manage it.

Question: does this sound like a good idea? And, can you provide a few cases studies where something simimlar has worked?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 3/10/2006 at 10:07 AM Member
    my question is: why not consolidate the marketing, order fulfilment, and synergistic departments and leave the rest alone. I don't believe that book buyers care about the publisher. Bookseller are, however, looking for ways to bring their costs under control. Combining the order fulfilment would make it the same as a single company (one order many different titles). Combining marketing would put the whole thing into the same "catalog".
    Hope this helps...
    Frank Hurtte
    www.riverheightsconsulting.com
  • Posted by bijlani.ritesh on 3/10/2006 at 11:51 AM Member
    Hi ,
    The question you have put forward sounds very relevant.But acc to my perception if i would have been the CEO of the company i would have never did that.The simple reason beyond that is "'suppose you are having 5 products , out of which 3 are exceptionally well in technology but 2 have got lot of competitors ,i would say fierce competition so ultimately its going to affect yor other 3 products as well."So it would be good that you just concentrate on producing quality products by different brand names and rest assured "YOUR ANNUAL REVENUE WILL INCREASE JUST LIKE MONKEY CLIMBING THE LADDER"
  • Posted by Corpcommer on 3/10/2006 at 11:38 PM Accepted
    Hi, mhyatt!

    Welcome to MarketingProfs.com. You have already gotten some solid advice from my colleagues and you now want useful case studies for concrete examples -- right? I've done some research for you and have pdfs I can send you that should be informative.

    One in particular, "Assessing B2B Brand Portfolio Strategies" by the Marketing Leadership Council, should be very useful to you. It contains case studies on several large companies, including McGraw-Hill.

    The Marketing Leadership Council makes its wonderful research reports available to members; very little of its work is available to nonmembers (www.marketingleadershipcouncil.com). If you want me to send you the pdfs, e-mail me offboard, since this Forum doesn't permit including e-mail addresses. You can get my e-mail from my profile.

    Good luck.

    MC - Corpcommer
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