Causes for Brands Losing their Image
Brands are created through positioning strategies and take on the designed attributes. Over a period of time, the brand personality is developed and it attains a certain character in the customer’s mind and heart. However, the brand may lose momentum after sometime leading to the need for brand revitalization.
But why do the brands fail to maintain their image?
Some of the important causes are :
1) Positioning Loses Relevance :
The attribute on which the positioning has been undertaken may have lost relevance owing to changing customer needs, attitude, changing technology, etc.
For example, in the IT Sector, Mobile Communication plays a very important role to remain connected with the management and work force. Until now, Organizations were dependent on PC and laptops for communication of information. But with the rapid advancement in mobile technology, top level officials of a corporate house were given Blackberry or other high end mobile phone for accessing and other services on the mobile phone. But with the advent of various mobile email solutions like Email@mobile , the general trend towards Blackberry suffered a set back as the entire mobile workforce of an organization could avail the benefits of accessing corporate email on their basic mobile hand sets.
2) Core values become Redundant :
The core values of the brand represent the brand’s basic attributes and need to have strong synergy with those or the target segment. If the target segment’s psyche undergoes a change and its attitudes and aspirations no longer remain the same, the core values become redundant.
3) Hackneyed Imagery:
The imagery that represents the brand image when used over a along period of time becomes hackneyed and loses its appeal. Since customers become tired of seeing the same imagery over the years, it does not help the cause of brand.
4) Positioning of Competing Brands:
The failure of a brand can also be caused by the strong positioning of a competing brand. If the valus of proposition offered by a competing brand is greater and enables better customer acceptance, then the brand looses its appeal for customers. This happened in the case of google and yahoo mail when several other email clients cropped in the industry like email@mobile providing better services like accessing corporate emails on the ordinary mobile phones.
When a brand looses its appeal for what ever reason, the brand manager needs to get down to the task of brand revitalizing. This is indeed a challenging task since the brand carries a certain baggage, thanks to previous positioning.
Brand Revitalization
As discussed earlier a brand may loose its popular image due to a variety of reasons such as loss of relevance, hackneyed imagery and better positioning by competing brands. If a product looses its popularity and becomes outdated but the positioning and the core values are the same, the strategy called “Back to Basics” can be used.
The image needs to be updated through the use of more contemporary imagery to ensure appropriate appeal. When a category has matured, and the brand has become outdated owing to snazzy new competitors, a back to the basics” revitalization strategy can help to put things back to track.
Another revitalization strategy involves the use of a new association that will help the brand acquire new attributes and enhance its equity through new associations. This becomes important when the brand has lost due to new intrepid competitors. Associations need not necessarily be using celebrities. They could be using something whose knowledge is already possessed by the customers.
Secondly revitalization of a brand can also involve the introduction of new elements that help to communicate a better value proposition. This may be due to changing customer attitudes and enhanced expectations of the customer.
The most rigorous method of revitalization is perhaps repositioning. This is required when the brand has reached the decline stage of its lifecycle. And mere changing of elements or new associations cannot help any more. The repositioning should help the brand to get new lease of life.
Brand revitalization will gain more importance as consumer tastes and the attitude undergoes rapd changes with increased globalization, penetration of internet into remote areas, political & social changes, cultural transformations, etc. And new methods of brand revitalization will have to be implemented by brand managers to live upto the challenges of the modern era .
Monika is vetran in the field of teaching and is also a consummate writer. She loves writing articles on the technological development. She has greatly benefited from mobile email likes to share her views with her readers. For more information on
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