Brand Revitalisation

Given that the global pharma industry is going through a period of significant upheaval, I thought its appropriate to provide a definition of brand revitalisation. Quite a few blockbuster brands are in a period where their marketers try and infuse a bit of extra life into their pedigree creations - to garner some extra revenues and to flog a few extra miles out of a dead / dying horse :)

Here is an excellent summary, courtesy The Value Engineers (http://www.thevalueengineers.com/tve/uploads/40/40_Document_1.pdf)

Brand revitalisation: the business of taking a brand that is losing consumer
resonance and relevance, and re-energising it via a compelling new proposition or
idea.

Key points:

1. Its big business – as the pace of change and weight of competition threatens
longstanding brands with marginisation.

2. It’s generally a cheaper and less risky process than building new brands from
scratch.

3. It can be the first step in a program of “brand turbo charging” – the elevation of a
brand from product–brand to cross–category power-brand status.

4. It’s a complex process involving up to 5 stages: problem diagnosis, startpoint
definition, development option creation, proposition selection/ refinement and
marketplace execution – and then there’s product innovation…

5. Insight is a sine qua non - to get to the heart of the brand and what it stands for,
and to identify new market-led opportunities that the brand can tap into.

6. “Connectivity” is crucial – even when a brand re-orientates to meet a new need,
there should be a line of connection back to the original brand construct.

7. Target markets change with the revitalisation program – this can be either
“modification” or “clean break”.

8. Brand architecture – the structure of brand/sub-brands/products – will probably
require reorganising.

9. Build business assessments into the process – new proposition concepts may
look exciting, but how wide is its appeal and how much volume will it generate?

10. Early steps in market executions are critical – mistakes at a later stage can be
tolerated, but at an early stage they can prove terminal.

- oRiOn