Gemma Monk-Hartley
Project Manager
- Loves: My horse, Traveling, Studying
- Hates: Exams, Shopping, Wet weather
- Inspired by:
- International travel
- Exploring different societies and cultures
- The Tate Modern
- Fear of failure
- My links:
Brand Strategy
Flicking through Marketing this week I stopped to read the article ‘Snapple is an object lesson in equity’. The brand, and article, highlighted two very important points; ‘a strategy that works for one brand will never work for another’, and strategies based on genuine brand equity are the only way survive and prosper.
Snapple resulted from three entrepreneurs who spotted a gap in the natural products market in 1972, and without any real marketing know-how decided to fill that gap. The business grew organically until they recruited a professional marketer who decided to build the brand using a strategy that was based on research, tailored for the brand and true to the brand. The business was sold in 1994 for $1.7bn to Quaker Oats showing that building genuine brand equity pays.
Quaker Oats bought Snapple hoping to apply the same proven approach it had taken with another drinks brand Gatorade. The result: selling Snapple for $300m less that it paid for it 3 years earlier and demonstrating that ‘a strategy that works for one brand will never work for another’.
But it’s not all bad for Snapple, they were bought by Triarc in 1997 who rebuilt the brand and its equity by going back to its roots. Within 3 years they managed to undo all the damage from bad brand management and sell for $1.4bn to Cadbury Schweppes. According to Mark Ritson, Marketing, this shows that ‘great brands can never be killed off by bad brand management’. I’d say it’s another example of how building a brand strategy based on genuine brand equity is the only way to survive.
So other than hearing a nice little story about the life of a brand, what has all this got to do with Playgroup? Well genuine brand equity is what we’re all about. We know that brands are unique and we tailor our strategies accordingly. We also believe that building genuine brand equity means staying true to your heritage and Snapple demonstrates how what we do works.
Posted by Gemma on 08 May 08, at 4:47 pm
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