Individual brands refer to different brands used by different products of an enterprise. This multi-brand strategy is mainly used in the following two situations: first, when a company operates high, medium and low-end products at the same time, this strategy is adopted to avoid the poor reputation of a certain product of the company from affecting the reputation of the entire company; second, It is the company's original products that have a negative impact on society. In order to avoid consumers' resentment, the company deliberately adopts multi-brand naming when developing new products, instead of using the original successful brand, and deliberately does not let consumers in the company's Associations are created between traditional brands and new brands, and the name of the company is even hidden to prevent the traditional brand and company name from having a negative impact on the sales of new products.
When people mention the Philip Morris Company in the United States, they will immediately think of cigarettes. The famous "Marlboro" brand cigarettes are the company's flagship product. However, if someone asks you which company produces "Kraft" yogurt and Miracle Sauce, "Guozhen" drinks, "Maxwell" coffee and "Miller" beer, many Chinese people may be stunned. In fact, they are stunned. Not only the Chinese, but also American consumers were either stunned or thought it was a product of the American General Foods Company. In fact, these products are all produced by the American tobacco giant Philip Morris.
Whether to highlight the brand image or the company image has always been the key to marketing. It is obviously a wise move for Morris to highlight the brand and downplay the company image. After the company bought brands such as "Kraft" and "Maxwell" from General Foods, it has been highlighting the images of these brands in advertising. In addition to the consideration that these trademarks have formed huge intangible assets, it has also made the company The concern is that today, when the global anti-smoking movement is raging one after another, it is inappropriate to use the same brand strategy, that is, using the "Marlboro" brand. How to prevent the image of "tobacco" companies from intimidating consumers who support smoking bans and avoid adverse social effects? The best way to choose is to prevent the companies themselves from appearing in advertisements for these products.
This brand strategy of Philip Morris was a huge success. When countless anti-smoking activists around the world purchase the above-mentioned brands, they do not know that the tobacco king behind them is Philip Morris.
Individual brand strategies have further evolved and expanded into brand expansion strategies and multiple brand strategies.
The so-called brand extension strategy is to expand individual brands to represent the continuous improvement of the product. Panasonic Electric Company of Japan often adopts this branding strategy for its televisions, video recorders and other audio-visual home appliances, thereby conveying to consumers a concept of the company being innovative, young and energetic, and winning consumers' approval of the company's products. recognition and dependence. What is important to note here is the multiple brand strategy. This strategy refers to the establishment of two or more competing brands in the same product. Although this will slightly reduce the sales volume of the original brand, the total sales volume of several brands combined is greater than that of the original brand. Therefore, this strategy is also called the "1+1>1.5" strategy by the business community.
The multi-brand strategy was pioneered by Procter & Gamble. P&G believes that a single brand is not a foolproof solution. Because after a brand is established, it is easy to form a fixed impression among consumers, which is not conducive to product extension, especially for a company like P&G that spans multiple industries and has multiple products. As a result, Procter & Gamble continues to launch new brands. The company has launched nearly 10 beauty and skin care brands in China, accounting for one-third of the country's major beauty brands. The three major shampoo and hair care brands that Chinese consumers are familiar with, namely Pantene, Rejoice, and Head & Shoulders, are all P&G products. These three brands attract three types of consumers with different needs, thus making it the leading brand of shampoo and conditioner in China. The hair liquid market share rose to No. 1, reaching more than 50%. This is obviously the result of P&G's successful use of multiple brand strategies.
This method has been widely used in beauty products, cleaning products and other industries. Shanghai Household Chemical Products Company has also launched "Lumei Johnson", "Qingfei", "White Collar Beauty", "Ya Shuang", "Mr. Bao", "Bolong", "Youwei", "Youyi" and "Liu Shen". , "Goff" and many other brands in order to occupy different market segments.
The reason why the multi-brand strategy is so attractive to enterprises is mainly because: first, retailers’ product display locations are limited, and the enterprise’s multiple different brands can be used as long as they are accepted by retail stores. Taking up more shelf area, the shelf area occupied by competitors will of course be reduced accordingly; secondly, many consumers are brand switchers, have a novelty mentality, and like to try new products, so we must capture these types of consumers. , the best way to increase product market share is to launch multiple brands; third, developing a variety of different brands helps to compete among various departments within the company and between product managers and improve efficiency; fourth, different Brands are positioned in different market segments, and their advertising demands and interests are different, which allows companies to penetrate into different market segments and occupy a larger market.
Multi-brand strategy If the differences between the various types of products operated by the company are very large, then the company must adopt a multi-brand strategy based on the different classifications of the products, that is, naming each type of product separately, products use one brand.
Sears, the largest retailer in the United States, adopts this strategy. It uses different brands for its home appliances, women's clothing, furniture and other products. This strategy is especially suitable for large companies that produce and operate a wide variety of products. Since they are involved in food, clothing, and household appliances, if there is a big gap between the two types of products, they must not use the same brand.
Just imagine, if a company produces both food and fertilizers, cosmetics and pesticides, what kind of reaction will consumers have if they use the same brand? Therefore, when the American company Procter & Gamble sells its products in China, it uses the "Radar" brand for insecticides, the "Red Bird" brand for shoe polish, and a large number of cosmetics using other brands. China's Haier Group uses the "Haier" brand when selling its home appliances such as refrigerators, color TVs, washing machines and other products, but when its product line extends to the health care products industry, it uses the "Caili" brand. The purpose is also to Maintain the consistent main image of Haier Group in the minds of consumers. When companies take into account the relative identity and independence between products, a typical approach is to add the name of individual brands after the company's name.
Before each brand, the company name is used to indicate the source of the product, and the brand is used to indicate the characteristics of the product. The main benefit of this strategy is: putting the company name in front of the brand names of various new products can make the new products enjoy the credibility of the company, and using different brand names for different products can also make various different products The products maintain their own characteristics and are relatively independent.
This approach is often seen in the business policies of some well-known large companies, because their companies are huge intangible assets that can provide support for individual brands. For example, Kodak's films are named "Kodak Vanni" film, "Kodak Gold Medal" film, "Kodak Supreme" film, etc. due to their different properties. Obviously, these brands all contain the name of the company. In China, the refrigerators of the Haier Group are named "Haier Double Prince", "Haier Little Prince", "Haier Handsome Prince", etc. according to their target market positioning. The washing machine also has the "Haier Little Prodigy" washing machine, which is a multi-brand product. The huge benefits that the strategy has brought to Haier Group are obvious to all.
The American Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo launched low-sugar diet drinks to the market almost simultaneously. Pepsi named it "Diet Pepsi," while Coca-Cola named it "Tyson." As a result, "Tyson" was defeated by the similar product "Diet Pepsi". Because although "Tyson" can cater to consumers' tastes, it fails to extend Coca-Cola's name. The Coca-Cola Company learned its lesson, renamed the product and launched "Diet Coca-Cola", which was immediately accepted by consumers. "Diet Coca-Cola" soon became the third largest beverage product in the United States. The success of "Diet Coca-Cola" is the result of the correct use of the corporate name and individual brand strategies.