Personal marketing is key to brand growth July 2, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , trackbackPersonal marketing is key to brand growth
Britain’s retail brands are amongst the most powerful in the world, according to this year’s BrandZ brand valuation study from Millward Brown.
Of the eight British brands in the ranking of the world’s 100 most powerful, three were retailers (Tesco, Marks & Spencer and Asda) and three were banks (HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays) with Vodafone and BP making up the group.
This appears to be a good performance for a relatively small country and marks an increase from the seven home brands that appeared last year. Asda’s inclusion as an independent British listing, despite its US parent Wal-Mart, is justified because of its ’strong heritage’.
This latest report confirms the strength of the UK’s powerhouse retailers and signals that their presence is increasingly being felt on an international scale. In addition, two British brands ranked among the 10 fastest-rising global brands in terms of value – Marks & Spencer came top, with growth of 192% over the year, while Shell came 10th with 38%.
Despite this impressive headline reading, closer analysis reveals that overall Britain’s biggest brands are losing ground to their overseas rivals. Despite the success of companies including Marks & Spencer, the value of Britain’s leading brands is growing at a slower pace than those in France and Germany.
The six UK brands that ranked in both the 2006 and 2007 lists grew 6.7% in value. The French brands in both lists grew by 18.8%, and the comparable figure for German brands was 10.6%. Asian brands grew by 26.8% (admittedly from a lower base), US brands by 8.7% and Japanese by 8.5%. The global average is 10.7% – so whilst a few of the UK’s retail brands are particularly strong this growth isn’t reflected across the board, and even lags global trends. What can the retail brands do to up their momentum?
Marketing is the central driving force of brand equity and as such plays a chief role in overall growth. Marks & Spencer’s resurgence, for example, was led through a strong marketing campaign. Following the initial ‘Not just food, M&S food’ advertising campaign, sales of roast potatoes increased by 454%, sales of reserve parma ham increased by 249% and sales of that infamous chocolate pudding nearly tripled, up by 288%.
Behind the scenes increasingly consumers are demanding more timely and relevant communications, which capture their imagination, even those that improve their lives in some way, be it entertain, inform, and so on. This is causing the performance of ‘push’ campaigns to tangibly decline across all most all market segments. The rise of ‘continuous partial attention’ and ‘privacy Britain’ only serves to further reinforce this trend.
As a result, effective marketing is increasingly becoming reliant on a greater understanding of the consumer – key insights into their behavior, needs and wants – through analysing customer data which, in turn, informs the most productive approach to take.
In addition a combination of personal media channels, such as SMS, direct mail, telephone and the internet, has opened up the ability for retailers to engage in direct two-ways communication with their customers. This paves the way for personal marketing at all stages of their brand patronage cycle, which, if delivered correctly serves to greatly enhance their experience for a mutually profitable outcome. This activity can work with, or independently of the big budget advertising campaigns.
In this way retailers, like never before, have the ability to find out what their customers really want and to develop a meaningful, timely and personal dialogue with them. It is this ability, to cut through the daily barrage of impersonal, commercial messages and deliver a relevant, engaging message that is certain to play a key role in the future health of retail brands. Listening to your customers has long been the secret of success, now the key is to communicate directly with them with information that is pertinent at the right time.
Caroline Worboys is chief executive, Broadsystem
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