Why mass marketing is still vital

Stuart Anderson, Alpha Public Relations

Book review: How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp and How Brands Grow Part 2 by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp

I love these two books. Over the last decade or so I’ve heard enough to last me a lifetime about how the key to growth is to focus tightly on a precise customer type, eschewing mass marketing and targeting those customers directly to the exclusion of all others. The consultants who propound this idea never seem to notice the irony that they themselves live on Twitter and would sell their own kidneys for a three-inch quote in a low-circulation business mag.

Hurrah and huzzah, therefore, for Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute at the University of South Australia. They are proper, serious researchers and their findings, published in these two books between 2010 and 2016 should make every public relations practitioner’s heart leap with joy.

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University of South Australia expert Jenni Romaniuk says brand is all important, but missteps are easy

Building a brand is an ongoing challenge, whether your budget is small or large. Brands with big budgets can afford a few misses, but for small and medium businesses, wasting money is particularly damaging. Strategic errors lead to tactical mistakes, and leave your business vulnerable in the long run.

Fortunately, new R & D into brands and buyers give us robust evidence-based knowledge that we can use to create smarter brand strategies. However this knowledge is not yet widely known — which means avoidable mistakes are still common. Here are three common branding mistakes, and how to stop making them:

Mistake #1: Paying too much attention to too few customers

Think about your customers — do you focus on a special few, sending them offers, worry if they don’t buy from you for a while? This is a mistake, because while you are stalking these special few, you neglect many others who do or could buy from you. Neglected customers won’t hate you, they will just stop turning up. You won’t even know they are gone until you look at the bottom line at the end of the quarter and wonder why sales are down. Many customers stop buying from you for reasons out of your control, such as moving. If you are not looking for the next customer to acquire, your brand will slowly wither away. Don’t spend too much time on a select few customers, it’s smarter to have a broad acquisition strategy.

Mistake #2: Forgetting the fundamentals

Do you worry about how you are different from your competitors? What you can offer that they don’t? Are you constantly tweaking your products or services to offer that extra special new thing that will lure customers to your door? This is a mistake because when you focus on being different from competitors, you can easily forget that buyers want the whole chocolate sundae — not just the cherry on top. Remember every day you battle for buyer attention, when you win that battle, use that time well. Buyers have busy lives and easily forget, so remember to focus on the fundamentals — such as the range of services you offer — these help make it easier for the buyer to remember to buy from you.

Mistake #3: Getting bored too easily with the brand’s identity

When was the last time you were tempted to change your logo? When you live and breathe your brand, it’s easy to get bored and feel like a change — but your world is not your buyers’ world. Your buyers’ world is one of constant clutter, distraction and a desire to make buying as easy as possible. Your (current and potential) buyers remember things like your logo to make your brand easier to find in the future. Each time buyers use this knowledge it is reinforced, it gets stronger. Don’t ruin all their (and your) hard work by changing your brand’s identity. It’s like inviting someone to dinner and then moving house (without telling them). If you are bored, don’t change your logo, change your thinking.

Book review: How brands grow: part two, by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp

Peter Mouncey

This book review looks at 'How brands grow: part 2' by Jenni Romaniuk and Byron Sharp, the 2015 follow up to Byron Sharp's 2010 'How brands grow'. Like the first book, it attempts to challenge the reader to recognise the fundamental errors in contemporary marketing thought. The first two chapters reiterate material from the first book and throughout the work there is reused material. The third and fourth chapters, 'Building mental availability' and 'Leveraging distinctive assets', are the most valuable, compared to some of the more basic later chapters. The reviewer's reaction to the book was mixed, while some of it was insightful it didn't live up to the first book though some readers of the first book may find more detail on its key concepts.

The stupidly simple truth about branding

One of the most influential and controversial books of the past decade has recently launched a line extension: ‘How Brands Grow: Part 2’.

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The Love Issue of ‘Marketing’ - MarketingMag

The Love Issue of Marketing, for June-July 2016, is out now! We think you’re going to really like it.

There’s an interview with Mark Earls, who says stealing ideas is the smart way to market, and an exclusive extract of Byron Sharp’s new book How Brands Grow Part 2, which expands on his seminal first book to include emerging markets, services, durables, luxury and new brands.

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Only 4% Of Aussie Men ‘Love’ Their Beer Brand (So What Hope For Other Brands?)

bant.com.au, May 2016

According to Professor Jenni Romaniuk too many marketers want their customers to love their brands when the stark reality is most couldn’t give a stuff.

According to Romaniuk, this idea that customers should love a brand is “romantic by nature” but adds, “romance doesn’t pay the bills”.

Recent Ehrenberg-Bass research found that only four per cent of Australian males said they “loved” their favourite beer brand and “if you can’t get Aussie men to love their beer, what hope do our shampoo, canned tomatoes or toilet cleaner manufacturers have?” adds Romaniuk. >> read more

Is word-of-mouth more powerful in China?

blog.oup.com.au, April 2016

The sheer size and increasing wealth of the Chinese population makes China an attractive target market. There is no doubt that Chinese culture and history differs from the western world, but how do these differences translate into differences in Chinese buyer behaviour? And are there differences that should affect a brand’s growth strategy? This is a question we examine in How Brands Grow Part 2: Including Emerging Markets, Services and  Durables, New Brands and Luxury Brands. Here I briefly discuss a topical area: word-of-mouth (WOM). >> read more

Slaying marketing myths

www.contagious.com, April 2016

This article was published in issue 46 of Contagious magazine. Contagious equips companies across the globe to achieve the top 1% of marketing creativity through its research platform, consultancy, quarterly publication and live events.

by Raakhi Chotai

Byron Sharp’s seminal 2010 book How Brands Grow is one of the most influential marketing texts of recent years. In it, Sharp put fact before faith, using empirical data to contest the industry’s long-held belief in seemingly deeply flawed principles.

While the first instalment provided a critique of targeting (less is better) and differentiation (it doesn’t really exist), the second, How Brands Grow: Part 2, lays out practical commandments designed to help its readers achieve the holy grail of growth. Sharp’s co-author, Jenni Romaniuk, research professor at the University of South Australia and associate director at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, talks to Contagious about her quest to provide actionable insights for converts, and even more empirical proof to persuade the non-believers…. >> read more

Read This First

www.mediapost.com, January 2016

Back in 2010, two of the brightest CPG marketers I have ever worked with brought to my attention a new marketing book, How Brands Grow, by Byron Sharp, professor of marketing science at the University of South Australia.  Sharp's book took an evidence-based look at the question posed in the title and, more specifically, whether marketers should invest in driving penetration (acquiring new customers) or driving purchase frequency (loyalty). >> read more

Global marketing guru shares trends and insights

themediaonline.co.za, December 2015

Marketing guru, Professor Jenni Romaniuk, is in South Africa. Hosted by SPARK Media, the academic, whose research concentrates on understanding consumer behaviour and marketing trends, is in the country to launch her new book, How brands grow part 2 and pass on some of its insights to media professionals. Michael Bratt attended the launch and sat down with her to find out what the latest marketing research is telling advertisers.  >> read more

How to grow brands

bizcommunity.com, November 2015

Prof. Jenni Romaniuk, Associate Director (International) at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, the world's largest centre for research into marketing, will be in South Africa early next week to launch the sequel to her best-selling marketing book 'How Brands Grow'. She will be sharing a few insights from it and will be hosted by Spark Media, to offer clients and partners 'insights that ignite'.  >> read more

Marketing science expert tells brands to forget focus groups as ‘no good will come of it’

mumbrella.com.au, July 2015

Marketers must stop asking consumers to help shape key elements of the brand as they will risk losing “distinctive assets” that can make the product stand out in a cluttered market, a conference has heard.

Jenni Romaniuk, research professor and associate director at marketing institute Ehrenberg-Bass, said brands must not get hung up on what a colour means to people, or what is popular, as she argued that “uniqueness” is a critical element of marketing. >> read more

One Product, Many Markets: The Secret of Pan-Asian Success

CMO.com, September 2015

Asia offers enormous potential to both established and start-up brands. To succeed, however, marketers must carefully navigate the broad array of Asia’s nations and regions, which encompass radically different levels of sophistication and are studded with cultural nuances that can easily trip unwary marketers. >> read more

Product placement taking centre stage at the movies

The Advertiser, 02 November 2012.

NEW Bond film Skyfall has attracted plenty of hype, much of it centred on the growing number of commercial brands on and around 007

This has made some who have seen the film to rename the spy James Brand.

But it is big business with the latest Bond movie Skyfall's producers reportedly having raised a third of the film's budget about $43 million from product-placement deals. >> read more.

'Adelaide - just north of Kangaroo Island'

The Advertiser, 11 May 2012.

Creating a state brand is easier than it sounds, Callie Watson and Katrina Stokes find.

"Adelaide is just the beginning" and "Adelaide - just north of Kangaroo Island".

These are two slogans marketing experts say should be used to rebrand South Australia internationally, putting the focus on our capital city but not neglecting the rest of the state. >> read more.

Labor could learn from Qantas dispute

The Advertiser, 02 March 2012.

When Alan Joyce made the shock decision to ground Qantas's planes last October, one of the first to criticise him was Julia Gillard.

Now, just over four months on, it appears the Prime Minister, left, could learn something from the feisty airline boss when it comes to turning the tide of public discontent. >> read more

My ATM owes Port Adelaide $350k

The Advertiser, 06 December 2011.

Port Adelaide insists it is not on shaky ground, despite losing its major sponsors.

It is understood the club - which took its players on an expensive, tortuous training camp to New Zealand last week - is still owed $350,000 by struggling Adelaide company My ATM, which lost $15.7 million last financial year. >> read more. 

David Jones dumps its old branding slogan for 'Was. Is. Always. David Jones'

The Australian Business Review, 15 August 2011.

Recently David Jones announced that to help "get the cash registers ringing" it had, among other things, dumped its old slogan "There's no other store like David Jones" for the new "Was. Is. Always. David Jones".

This is a classic example of marketers forgeting why distinctive assets are of value to the brand. >> read more.