How to Determine Whether to Resuscitate a Tired Brand
An article in Booz Allen’s strategy + business, takes a look at resuscitating old brands. The article uses the example of Ford Motor Company’s (NYSE: F) effort to revive the Taurus brand after the failure of the Ford Five Hundred, which was introduced to replace the Taurus, which Ford believed had become a “tired brand.”
The article’s authors suggest subjecting such tired brands to a “Brand Vitality Assessment” to determine whether it can be resuscitated. The assessment should answer several questions, such as:
Does the brand suffer from poor awareness or from poor opinion? The Taurus had high awareness, but consumer opinion of the brand had slowly eroded.
Does the brand have any equity left with its target customer segment and how loyal are those customers to the brand? Were the Taurus’s original brand values still attainable, or had its ho-hum image overtaken the brand?
Which competitors are taking away market share, why, and how easily can the problems be rectified. By the mid-1990s the Taurus had lost its position atop the field of family sedans to the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord.
Does the brand have a compelling value proposition? In the case of the Taurus, it’s clear that the value proposition diminished over time. At the end of its first life cycle, it was difficult for consumers to justify buying the higher-priced Taurus when competitors’ cars had matched, or surpassed, the brand’s core features.
The article notes that the new Taurus brand, may still have to work on providing a more compelling value proposition if it is to be a true competitor in the family sedan marketplace. Current advertising pushes the message that the Taurus is “rated the safest full-size family car in America.”
Although safety is an important attribute to many car buyers — and a common claim among carmakers — it is not what turned the old Taurus into an icon, and it will do little to add vitality to the brand or differentiate it from the competition.
The article also looks at other brands that have tried to reinvent themselves, such as V8 and Kodak. It comments on the efforts of Pinnacle Foods Corporation, of Mountain Lakes, N.J., which has purchased Vlasic Pickles, Lender’s Bagels, and Swanson TV dinners and is updating them in an effort to attract new consumers.
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