To sales figures at least remained at the same level, the product or service offered by you must be relevant. In order to see the concept continued to interest potential customers, you need to understand who is your target audience, determine its needs and desires and, of course, to speak her language.
The marketer must determine when a brand begins to lose relevance. But ideally it is desirable to know how to keep it on the same level.
The following are examples of four brands of the 50-ies of the last century who had to change his concept.
1. The change in social mores
Some things or ideas become popular accidentally. Sooner or later there comes a time when the public suddenly realizes that in Vogue something is is not quite appropriate. So, for example, occurred with the positioning of the football match Georgia – Florida as the largest cocktail party in the open air. In the 50s, the said editor of the sports magazine, seeing a crowd of drunken fans. Thrown the phrase was used to promote the event.
But after many incidents caused by alcoholic intoxication in 1984, CBS Sports was asked to stop promoting this controversial image of the “cocktail party”, which has been secured for football matches in the area. The loss of support of the target audience has forced the publication to abandon such language.
2. Change the target audience
Company MetLife has decided to change the orientation and is now offering services to insurance companies, not individuals. Classic, advertising-50s, with the characters of the comic are not suitable for the B2B sector.
To introduce their services to new categories of customers had to abandon old concepts. MetLife came to the conclusion that if you focus on the business, such advertising would be ineffective.
3. Changes in interaction with media
The Playboy magazine has existed for more than half a century. In 2015, his turnover dropped to 800,000 copies. The reason lies in the fact that from March 2015 the magazine stopped publishing images of naked women. The leadership decided that this is no longer needed, as any man may now find these photos on the Internet.
Now the magazine began to compare themselves with such publications as Esquire and GQ. Let’s see how successful will such a move.
4. Changes in lifestyle
1950 Tony the tiger became the face of a cooked Breakfast Frosted Flakes from Kellogg. Because of the high sugar content of the cereals from this company gained a bad reputation among nutritionists. Parents were less likely to give them the preference is increasingly leaning to a less sweet Breakfast.
The company decided not to abandon the already well-known image of the tiger on the packaging, but changed the flow. Now tiger is telling parents about the benefits of a balanced, nutritious Breakfast.
In order to stay afloat, marketers need to constantly monitor all changes that occur in the world, with the habits of the target audience and consumer behavior. Those who are confident that once the chosen concept will always be relevant, will inevitably be on the margins of history.
