If you take a careful inventory of the pharmaceutical industry, you will find that most pharmaceutical companies in the industry have this situation: a large number of products or brands are idle or inactive. For a pharmaceutical company with dozens or even hundreds of product batches, there may be only one or a few products that can maintain the daily operation of the company or bring huge profits to the company, and only one or a few brands can be well-known in the market. Which well-known pharmaceutical companies, such as Harbin Pharmaceutical, Xi 'an Janssen and Wutai Group, are not? In fact, this kind of multi-brand idle or inaction industry appears not only in the pharmaceutical industry, but also in a more special, serious and representative way. This also verifies the 80/20 rule that 80% of the profits of enterprises are created by 20% of products or brands. Business performance seems to be out of proportion to the number of products and brands owned by enterprises. The excessive development of products or brands may not be the icing on the cake for enterprises, especially the multi-brand operation has brought huge costs, pressures and risks to many enterprises. It is common for many varieties and brands to go hand in hand, but not every product and brand can be "a radish and a pit" in the market, and not every brand is big and famous. This is almost an absolute law. Therefore, enterprises must distinguish which brands and products can bring benefits to enterprises, which are immediate benefits and which are long-term benefits. This should be a strategic and overall thinking. Sadly, there are still many enterprises in the brand operation, regardless of primary and secondary, provincial brands, provincial varieties, making enterprises exhausted. It is definitely a wise enterprise to spend 80% of its resources on the construction of 20% of its superior brands and products, and "grasping with eyebrows and beards" makes the allocation of resources of enterprises average, making it impossible for superior brands and products to tilt and losing opportunities for rapid growth. So, how should enterprises know the multi-brand strategy? What operating rules should be followed in operating multi-brand strategy? Enterprises with many children may not have the blessing of multi-brand and adopt multi-brand strategy. At first, they faced huge brand management costs, but also great brand risks, as well as family brand strategy. More precisely, the family brand strategy belongs to the category of multi-brands, and its composition mode is "enterprise name (parent brand)+brand (sub-brand)+product name", such as Haier Miracle Washing Machine, Haier Health Marshal Air Conditioning and Haier Prince Refrigerator. The product brand family consists of Miracle, Health Marshal and Prince. A brand is like the son of an enterprise. It is not uncommon for companies to get tired of brands because their sons have more tired mothers. This is called "many children are unfilial". If we simply think that increasing brand reserves is accumulating wealth, we ignore that brands are only product names or trademarks before they become popular. The number of brands is not the embodiment of the competitive advantage of enterprises, especially those brands without "quality", although brands are the constituent factors of the core competitiveness of enterprises. For the formation of multi-brand strategic situation of enterprises, there are mainly several situations: First, enterprises form "brand addiction" and are keen to launch new brands. Many enterprises like to constantly introduce new products and brands, which is an irrational brand operation. The original intention and desire of the enterprise may be good, but it is easy to make the simple and popular mistake of "biting off more than one can chew". At the same time, it will also make the mistake of "gilding the lily", so that the existing brand resources can not be excavated, integrated and utilized; The second is the multi-brand pattern formed in the expansion of enterprise mergers and acquisitions. Sometimes multi-brand is a helpless choice for enterprises to face the market. Take New Hope Group as an example. Since 200 1 1 held Sichuan Yangping Dairy, it has held a total of11dairy enterprises, and now it has more than 10 brands, but most of them are regional brands, and the number of brands is in. This is extremely unfavorable to the overall operation of the national market, and it is difficult to integrate brand resources and product resources; The third is the multi-brand pattern formed under the background of market segmentation. Multi-brand strategy or family brand strategy is sometimes a brand strategy formulated by enterprises to actively adapt to the market. The basis of brand existence is market segmentation, or target group, or regional market, or channel type ... For example, Kelon Air Conditioning, in 2002 there were two brands, Kelon and Huabao. Kelon brand is responsible for focusing on the mid-to-high-end air-conditioning market, while Warburg is guarding the entrance of the mid-end market and blocking the third-line brands. As a brand strategy, Kelon achieved good sales performance in 2002. After entering 2003, it launched the "Keben" brand for the low-end market with low income and built a multi-level brand pyramid. Therefore, it is easy to "incubate" multi-brand strategy under subjective or objective conditions. As for the "disadvantages" of multi-brand strategy, it is not terrible. The terrible thing is how to manage brands and how to add and subtract brands according to the market. To illustrate the problem, we might as well divide brands into several categories: high-profit brands, profitable brands, low-profit brands, zero-profit brands, loss-making brands, idle brands and so on. These constitute the width of enterprise brand line, and the extension of these brands (family brand, joint brand, etc.). ) constitutes the depth of the brand line, too wide and too deep to manage. In fact, brands in enterprises that adopt multi-brand strategy can "sit in the right place" according to the above classification, and each brand will find its own position, as long as the enterprise is willing to fully study, evaluate and measure the brand. There is nothing wrong with multi-brand strategy itself, but the mistake may lie in the concept and method of brand management, and there is no dynamic and hierarchical management of brands, which may be the "source of disease" of multi-brand management. For multi-brand management, please refer to the following management suggestions: adopting multi-brand strategy requires enterprises to reach a certain level of strength and have sufficient resources, and the rumored "must have assets of 200 million yuan" can be ignored;

Multi-brand emphasizes positioning differentiation and tries to prevent and avoid brand conflicts as much as possible;

Need to set up a special brand management organization, such as brand management team;

Distinguish sub-key brands, grasp the main brands and adopt hierarchical management;

Properly handle brand crisis, avoid chain effect and overcome multi-brand disadvantages;

Don't prolong the brand life subjectively, but respect the brand market rules. It means that enterprises will have higher brand management costs and expenses, but it depends on whether these costs and expenses can be exchanged for greater output. Of course, this output should serve the long-term development strategy of the enterprise and the micro-benefits (market share and profit) of the enterprise. When an enterprise has considerable strength and needs to complete product outsourcing or brand outsourcing to meet objective market segmentation, it needs to increase brands and brands. At the same time, we don't object to the "brand" reserve, which can be a derivative "brand" (mainly for safeguarding rights) or a "brand" that is considered valuable for the future operation of the enterprise, which can not only prevent competitors from stealing, but also meet the urgent needs of the enterprise in the future. It should be emphasized that the "brand" here is not a real brand, nor a registered trademark, nor a product name. Only when the brand is combined with specific products and promoted in the market can it have practical significance.

Increasing brand is also an aspect of enterprise brand expansion, which is different from brand extension. Brand expansion is a level of market expansion strategy, and adding brands is an important operational level of brand expansion strategy. Under what circumstances do you need to increase your brand? First, launch new brands to compete with competitors (such as responding to price wars), that is, launch low-end brands to maintain the original brand image; The second is to launch specific channel brands for specific sales channels; Third, regional brands launched according to different regional markets; The fourth is to launch brands for different target consumers; The fifth is to launch brands for new industries and new products; Sixth, the product still has vitality, and the brand is over age. The key to brand addition is to find the weak position in the brand camp and confirm that this weak position really needs new brands to support it. Let's take a look at the multi-brand strategy of multinational companies: In 2003, L 'Oré al acquired two well-known domestic brands, Little Nurse and Yuxi, which perfectly supplemented L 'Oré al's product range and accelerated the process of entering the mass skin care market in China. This time, paolo gasparrini, President of L 'Oré al China, finally implemented the "pyramid strategy" in China for eight years. Unlike many cosmetic groups, L 'Oré al has a full range of brands and product structures, even in China. Paolo gasparrini called this strategy "pyramid strategy". At present, L 'Oré al's products and brands in China are from bottom to top: Lancome and biotherm are the top ones; There are Weizi and la roche-posay in the middle and high end; Mass consumer goods include L 'Oré al Paris, Maybelline and Canil. But for China, a market with low consumption capacity, L 'Oré al's low-end brand is only the choice of some women in China. What really occupies most of the low-end market are local dabao and little nurses. For L 'Oré al, a little nurse is really a shortcut for L 'Oré al to quickly enter the mass skin care market in China. Since 1997 entered China, L 'Oré al Group has exported the brand 10 to the China market, with Lancome, biotherm and Corona at the top, Vichy, la roche-posay, L 'Oré al and Tass in the middle, and L 'Oré al Paris, Maybelline and Canil at the bottom. Now, at the bottom is the newly acquired little nurse. At the same time, Yuxi, which it acquired, is a brand with a slightly higher positioning than Little Nurse, but it is also one of the main brands in the low-end market. L 'Oré al Group acquired, aiming at the mass consumer goods market. Up to now, L 'Oré al has 65,438+02 brands in China, building a brand pyramid. For adding new brands, it is suggested to refer to the "law" of brand increase: how to increase brands should be combined with the development strategy of enterprises;

Tap the potential of existing brands, and don't increase them easily if existing brands can solve problems;

Don't add new brands easily under the premise that the existing brands are not well done;

The new brand added should be different from the original brand and have good complementarity;

Joining with excellent brands to become a "joint brand" sometimes gets twice the result with half the effort;

Brand culture is a difficult question, whether it is cheap or easy to bring other people's brands;

When the number of enterprise brands reaches 6-8, it reaches the warning line of brand number. We know that there are three main strategies for enterprise development: low-cost strategy, differentiated strategy and centralized strategy. For the centralization strategy, including the "centralization" of industry, brand and product, how to understand these three "centralization"? Enterprise development focuses on advantageous industries, brand management focuses on advantageous brands and product marketing focuses on advantageous products. This means that those brands with low commercial value and limited potential will face the fate of being "cut" out of the corporate brand camp. It is inevitable for enterprises to tilt resources to the dominant brands within enterprises, and resource concentration is the booster of brand concentration. As an enterprise asset, brand should also abide by market rules and survive the fittest. Wuliangye, a liquor giant, excessively diversified its sub-brands through self-production and OEM for other enterprises, resulting in more than 200 sub-brands. After encountering the negative impact brought by individual sub-brands, we began to cut off sub-brands that may affect the overall situation; Furthermore, the operation of China Unicom's branches has produced many regional local brands. In 2004, China Unicom took reducing local brands as a key point of brand management. Multinational companies have also begun to cut brands. In 2003, Panasonic stopped being a "national" on a global scale, leaving only one brand "Panasonic". The main reason is that there is not much difference between the two brands. If they continue to maintain, the competition between the two brands will occur, and it will also bring great waste of resources. Reducing brands in multi-brand enterprises is a good sign and an important embodiment of rationalization of enterprise management. Brand contraction strategy is a level of market contraction strategy, and brand contraction is an important operational level of brand contraction strategy. Let's analyze the composition of the market contraction strategy through diagrams: in fact, many large enterprises have been troubled by multi-brand management. For example, APP (Guangjin Paper), as an internationally renowned paper company, has 5 factories and 25 brands in China, with an average of 5 brands for each enterprise, all of which are local brands in China, and have nothing to do with the overall brand of APP. The company realized that the repeated construction of the same product brand increased the marketing expenses and costs, failed to give full play to the brand advantages of the group, and even caused internal strife of its own brand. Brand management problems make the leadership miserable. It seems that after playing enough brand management and suffering from the negative impact of multi-brands, brand "layoffs" have become an urgent problem for many enterprises. So, under what circumstances should we do brand subtraction? First, as a brand carrier, the product has no market competitiveness, and the brand has no superior product support; Second, when the brand encounters a serious crisis, the brand image enterprise has no ability to rebuild or reshape; Third, the internal brands of enterprises are over-positioned, and internal products collide with each other to grab the market; Fourth, when one brand in the brand camp affects the survival and development of other brands in the brand camp ... how can the brand camp "lay off employees"? First, indirectly transfer brands through transferring enterprises; Second, the enterprise directly announced that the brand had withdrawn from the market; Third, enterprises give up using a brand and rent it out; The fourth is to auction or conditionally transfer the brand as an asset; Fifth, integrate existing brands to form more competitive brands. Although brand reduction may have a negative impact, we should know that this negative impact is temporary and can be eliminated, and the burden of weak brands on enterprises is fatal. Therefore, brand subtraction should be bold, don't hesitate and don't abandon this intangible asset. For brand subtraction, it is suggested to refer to the following brand subtraction rules: to conform to the market trend, a lifeless brand must be withdrawn from the market.

Brand is an enterprise asset, which should be evaluated (including value and potential) before exiting the market.

In more cases, it is not simply cutting brands, but integrating brands;

The restored brand should consider its "destination" (such as renting, transferring and selling);

For the "black sheep" in the brand, we must resolutely make a clean break with it and repel the team;

Find a good opportunity, a suitable excuse, cut the brand and make a natural transition. Brands are like "sheep", enterprises are like "shepherds" of brands, and enterprises are like herding sheep. However, if there are sick people in this group of "sheep", it will affect the journey of the "sheep" group, or the overall process of the enterprise. At this time, the best way is to sell or kill those "sheep" who are sick and slow to move, so as to go into battle lightly and catch up with the "sheep" to reach their destination quickly. Of course, there are more such cases. The market demand is not a kind of sheep, because some sheep focus on producing meat, some focus on producing wool ... and other kinds of sheep are needed, so shepherds have to constantly meet the market demand by cultivating or buying new sheep themselves. "One sheep was driven away and two sheep were released." It seems that the Book of Shepherd and the Book of Brand Management are not unrelated. Regarding the assurance of "addition" and "subtraction", being a shepherd and being a brand manager are similar in appearance and spirit and have similar laws.