Anti-brand Strategy: marketing practice of European and American enterprises

Many enterprises are unwilling to easily hand over some specific target consumer groups to their competitors. As a result, they are starting to adopt an "anti-branding" strategy: introducing new brands that are completely different from the parent brand in the target audience, product pricing, brand style, or some other feature, effectively stopping the competitor's position while expanding the corporate branding portfolio.

The origin of

There is no one brand in the world that people love, like the Truth, "universal", even if the "fans" can not do everyone fan. In the face of a specific brand, someone always love it, someone always hate it, there is always someone indifferent to him. Take the BMW sedan, for example, and not everyone wants a BMW. For some, this is not necessarily because of the shyness, but in their view, the BMW sedan is more a symbol-status symbol, and this is precisely they do not want to have it even close to it will feel uncomfortable reasons.

BMW is seen as a very bipolar brand: On the one hand is obsessed with the brand, the lasting loyalty of the owners, on the other hand, there are many people stubbornly think "this is a very good car, unfortunately not what I want."

The difference between a consumer's attitude towards a particular brand can easily give the brand's rivals a good chance to fight, and rivals will launch a rival brand. In the United States, there is a chain discount store called Target, with fashionable but not noble, low-priced and low-quality products, and careful design and humility, in the retail industry this has been Wal-Mart's Uncle Sam and Causco wholesale stores such a firm control of the industry to kill a road, Become a new leader in the retail business model.

Of course, in many cases, many companies do not want to easily hand over such a certain target consumer groups to their competitors. As a result, they are starting to adopt an "anti-branding" strategy: introducing new brands that are completely different from the parent brand in the target audience, product pricing, brand style, or some other feature, effectively stopping the competitor's position while expanding the corporate branding portfolio. Of course, this strategy is very different from the brand extension. The conventional brand extension is to make full use of the brand characteristics of the parent brand to extend outward, therefore, after the extension of the brand will reflect a certain brand characteristics, and anti-brand strategy requires a completely different staff, or even a completely different office environment, so that they can keep away from the mother brand free growth. As we have seen many of the failures of brand extension, the anti-brand strategy also has a great risk, a little careless, such an anti-brand is likely to drag themselves and the parent brand together. BMW launched the Mini with an anti brand strategy, the world famous hotel chain Starwood launched the W Hotel, and Delta Airlines launched song, from their stories we can see the anti-brand strategy in the use of a series of lessons encountered.

Anti-branding strategies, if applied properly, can help companies move into new areas. Companies often worry that entering a new field will dilute the original brand power, and therefore hesitate, unwilling to tread lightly. BMW took full advantage of the market repercussions of the anti-brand, embarking on a road that few car brands have tried, selling the mini to consumers who would never buy a BMW.

So, what kind of person is the mini owner? Psychologically, they always feel that they are different from the BMW owner of another kind of people, life is full of self-confidence, happiness is the main theme of their lives. In their hearts, heaven and earth will always be clear boundless, the future will always have unimaginable hope. They are like children, life has just begun in front of them, a picture of a brighter sky. Indeed, every mini owner is always different from the BMW owners who are chasing the ultimate driving machine in every detail. You can't casually say that they're driving a small BMW, and they can't think of their car as a substitute for BMW. The Mini is miniature, very cute, and very unique, sometimes even confusing. And the mini owners don't object to people describing themselves in terms that describe their cars. Dunne, president and CEO of Prophet brand consultancy, said the Mini is anti-BMW. Mini has a strong ability to fight idol what it faces is the most creative of the aestheticism, attracted by a group of people: they think of their own life as a canvas, can be on the top of the painting, paint scraping, scraping and painting.

of Delta Airlines

Many companies began to implement their own anti-brand strategy. One of the key factors in the success of these companies in implementing the anti-branding strategy is that they are not so generous about the differences between the brand and the parent brand. And within song, this is precisely the topic that management has been jittery about not being overly willing to discuss. Song is an anti-brand launched by Delta Airlines to attract consumers who are different from Delta Airlines ' passengers. However, Delta Airlines in the implementation of the anti-brand strategy soon encountered a great challenge, the effect is not significant, so that Delta Airlines finally announced that the song brand to be reclaimed into the group, no longer independent operation. Before Delta Airlines announced the news, song had always stressed its differences with all the big American Airlines in its outreach, claiming that the song brand was about to blow some fresh air into an industry that was considered by most consumers to be very rigorous and a bit stale. However, the fate of the song brand is precisely one of the potential risks of anti brand strategy, that is, the use of improper, but will highlight the shortcomings and weaknesses of the mother brand. Of course, if the parent brand operation is good, then its risk is relatively small, but for song brand, from a poorly run of the matrix, it can be said that the inherent lack of confidence, it is not surprising that the operation is unsustainable.

Crucially, Delta Airlines executives have never given enough support to the brand strategy adopted by song, let alone leave song's operations entirely out of the group's hands. The key to creating a successful anti brand is to build a well-organized organization. Starwood's W Hotel, for example, is away from its parent company headquarters. One of the benefits of this approach is that W can focus more on a consistent consumer-centric strategy when it comes to forming its own corporate culture, rather than trying to stay in line with the parent company Starwood.

In the adoption of the anti-branding strategy, it is also necessary to create a new brand culture and awareness of the anti-brand, so it is also important to differentiate the architecture and operation of two enterprises. A similar enterprise architecture or operation, although not too much dissent, will eventually bring a similar feeling to consumers, which is the most taboo of the anti-branding strategy. If the brand is the same as the parent brand, then there is no need to exist.

At the beginning of the

Song company wanted to create a brand recognition that was completely different from Delta Airlines. According to song company, in the design of Song brand, is based on the purpose of the non-aviation brand to assume that the song brand to create a lifestyle brand rather than an airline brand, so more consideration of the brand represents the attitude and feeling. In order to capture this attitude and feeling, song company deliberately virtual a name "Kerry Schuwarz Russell" characters, to help marketers see their clients as a living person, not just some demographic data. Russell represents the song brand's target audience, she is a 35-year-old woman, family income of more than 150,000 dollars, married and have two or three children, living in Boston or New York suburbs of the town. Song's portrayal of Russell as a woman also shows that the song brand's target consumers are different from those served by the traditional airline industry. To better demonstrate the difference with Delta Airlines, not to compete with it, song is more focused on routes that Delta Airlines have never dabbled in, and wants to attract female consumers like Russell, such as Resorts like Florida, Las Vegas and the Caribbean coast. Song also added a brand element that attracts Russell to its brand, which is mature, sensual and self styled. These elements are fully reflected in the various customer touches: from the interior of the cabin to the dedicated designer Kate Sch design attendant uniform. Also, song companies are always reminding themselves that fashion is fashionable, but not too expensive. Price is a very important strategic factor for anti brand, it's not that the target customers can't afford to pay a little bit more than usual, but for these people, they're not willing to waste their money on a ticket, they're trying to spend it on things and services that are more emotionally resonant with them, like staying at a luxury hotel. , or let your child enjoy skiing, or even an extra spa experience. The
Song Company's plan seems logical and worthwhile, but the huge difference between song and Delta two brands brings sharp contradictions and intense nervousness to two companies. Song company director Meipu said: "We in obsessed to build an independent, distinctive brand, but also forget their borders." We have not been able to make people feel that song's success is Delta Airlines success. "Song Company's advanced equipment and exquisite attendant uniforms have created an unfair feeling in the workforce of the two companies." Many executives and employees complain that since Delta is poorly managed, why invest so much money and resources in the new brand.

Finally, Delta Airlines decided to give up the strategy of running two brands at the same time. Song company was withdrawn to Delta Airlines in May 2006.

In fact, for a car manufacturer, an airline or a hotel, it is not easy to make your brand unique to each target customer, which is the key to adopting an anti brand strategy. In the short life of the song brand, it has been trying to create a unique experience, so it offers services not available to other airlines on the voyage, such as organic food, martinis with a real martini glass, and a TV screen in front of each passenger to allow the passengers to watch TV, movies or play games freely. Song Company's ultimate goal is to have 199 seats on the plane, while 199 passengers can enjoy 199 different experiences.

Of course, it is basically impossible for an airline to tailor its service to a car company's custom of making cars. The product line of the automobile is more easily adjusted and customized production. For example, the mini owner can choose Paint Color, you can choose the whole car sprayed on a color, you can choose the car body and the roof spray different colors, and even can be sprayed with stripes or patterns.

When it comes to fees, many people mistakenly think that adopting an anti brand strategy is to introduce some products that are slightly cheaper than the parent brand, but in fact the anti brand and the discount brand are two completely different concepts. Just introducing products that are cheaper than the parent brand does not attract new customers, but only the potential customers of those parent brands spend less money. Anti-branding is not for customers who are obsessed with buying a parent brand but are too shy to afford it. Although song and mini products do have a lower price than the parent brand, they do not make people feel that they are discount brands because they emphasize their unique design. As industry experts have pointed out, many mini car owners are very rich, and they spend no less money on mini cars than BMW owners.

Compared with song and Mini, The W Hotel reflects the essential difference between anti brand and discount brand. W is a brand new hotel Starwood launched by the people who are not willing to be mistaken for the rich of their grandparents. The new brand of hotel industry giant Starwood has 20 hotels and is quite luxurious. If you go to the hot central city of Chicago in August, staying at the W Hotel will cost you 300 dollars a night, while the Pacific Hotel, which belongs to Starwood, is only 240 dollars and Sheraton is 180 dollars. Of course, the W Hotel is not the most luxurious hotel in Starwood's St.regis hotel.

The W Hotel brand, launched in 1998, was originally designed in accordance with the concept of "beyond the emotional boundaries of traditional hotels and 23451.html" standard features of > Hotel products. All of the W hotels are decorated by different designers and architects, and 20 W hotels are not copied in the same standard as the regular hotel chains, but they have different styles. For the customers of the W hotel, each of the W Hotel is always looking forward to a new visual discovery, only this psychological feeling has been very attractive. W Hotel hopes that each guest can get a semi customized experience and feel based on his own expectations of the W hotel, instead of staying in a regular hotel and experiencing nothing more than a typical hotel life. Of course, the W Hotel has not been so obsessed, the hotel operators want their brand to reflect a cool fashion sense, but not out of the hotel's root-for people traveling to provide a warm and comfortable living environment. W Hotel brand slogan is "Cool in warm", let people feel all its design is to make guests live comfortably.

In fact, when it comes to anti brand, I'm afraid there is a brand can not be ignored, that is seven hi, the seven-Hi was fame by "non-Cola" products, and later it gave up "non cola" because it realized that for a brand it was more important to support a particular kind of thing than to constantly claim that it wasn't part of something. For W, Mini and song brands, the same applies. These three brands are created for those who can really appreciate a certain design and fashion, are demonstrating some of the characteristics of these people, is a way of life embodiment and recognition, is a symbol of social status.

Those who are attracted to the anti-brand seem to prefer companies with these brands to promote their products in a relatively low-key way that W, Mini and song would like to see. The marketing strategies they use are essentially the same, and they don't tell potential customers outright how the brand wants to react, what the brand wants to say, but how it wants the customer to guess the brand's meaning and personality. As one analyst said: "I don't think a lot of people would dream of having a mini one day and people don't really know the brand until they see it, and they can't help but be attracted to it and love it and want to have it." ”

As a result, these three brands are acutely aware that the best way to promote marketing is not a large outdoor or television advertising, but the product itself. They do everything they can to make sure that every customer experience is unique and consistent, whether it's getting your mini serviced or the hotel you're staying in to change a sheet. They all follow a business philosophy that allows you to reach them, and the next thing depends entirely on their own products. Also, they are sure that you will tell your friends about your experience, and that your friends will tell their friends about their experiences. So word of mouth may be the charm and essence of anti brand strategy.

Article: Gu Jie
Source: New Marketing