Managers of strong brands appreciate the totality of their brand’s image–that is, all the different perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors customers associate with their brand, whether created intentionally by the company or not. As a result, managers are able to make decisions regarding the brand with confidence.

If it’s clear what customers like and don’t like about a brand, and what core associations are linked to the brand, then it should also be clear whether any given action will dovetail nicely with the brand or create friction.

The Bic brand illustrates the kinds of problems that can arise when managers don’t fully understand their brand’s meaning. By emphasizing the convenience of inexpensive, disposable products, the French company Société Bic was able to create a market for nonrefillable ball- point pens in the late 1950s, disposable cigarette lighters in the early 1970s, and disposable razors in the early 1980s.

But in 1989, when Bic tried the same strategy with perfumes in the United States and Europe, the effort bombed. The perfumes– two for women (“Nuit” and “Jour”) and two for men (“Bic for Men” and “Bic Sport for Men”)– were packaged in quarter- ounce glass spray bottles that looked like fat cigarette lighters and sold for about $5 each.

They were displayed in plastic packages on racks at checkout counters throughout Bic’s extensive distribution channels, which included 100,000 or so drug- stores, supermarkets, and other mass merchandisers.

At the time of the launch, a Bic spokesperson described the products as logical extensions of the Bic heritage: “High quality at affordable prices, convenient to purchase and convenient to use.”

The company spent $20 million on an advertising and promotion blitz that featured images of stylish people enjoying the perfumes and used the tag line “Paris in your pocket.” What went wrong?

Although their other products did stand for convenience and for good quality at low prices, Bic’s managers didn’t understand that the overall brand image lacked a certain cachet with customers – a critical element when marketing something as tied to emotions as perfume.

The marketers knew that customers understood the message they were sending with their earlier products. But they didn’t have a handle on the associations that the customers had added to the brand image– a utilitarian, impersonal essence– which didn’t at all lend itself to perfume.

By contrast, Gillette has been careful not to fall into the Bic trap. While all of its products benefit from a similarly extensive distribution system, it is very protective of the name carried by its razors, blades, and associated toiletries. The company’s electric razors, for example, use the entirely separate Braun name, and its oral care products are marketed under the Oral B name.

Your company, brand, or product’s marketing perfomance can live and die by how your management decides to portray the good or service you provide to the customer.

Tags: advertising failures, bic lighters, management, marketing grader, working with marketing performance

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Great Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.