In our Profit-Led Branding Framework, three elements drive a brand’s new positioning: Company, Customer, and Competition. Only the right insights from these 3C’s can make the new positioning obvious. In this article, we’ll dive into the first C: Company analysis. The others will follow in the upcoming weeks. – In 2003, the iconic toy brand…
Category: Business Strategy
Value Innovation: How To Win In Crowded Markets By Ignoring Competitors
In the 1960s, commercial aviation was booming. And aircraft engine manufacturers wanted to take advantage of this new industry. They had expertise and large production capacity coming from the Second World War. Rolls-Royce was one of them. But they were small compared with American giants like General Electric. And how do you grow in this…
Scissors-Rock-Paper: How To Turn Your Company’s Size Into a Competitive Advantage
In 1982, two employees at Xerox —John Warnock and Charles Geschke— decided to quit and start their own business. They were excited about developments in tech. So they wanted to ride the wave. Their idea was simple. As more people used computers, the world needed better ways to work with digital files. So they created…
Repositioning: How to Turn Your Strengths Into Profitable Growth (Without Spending More)
In the 80s, the Swiss watch industry was in an existential crisis. Japanese brands had flooded the market after quartz technology became accessible. Seiko, Casio, Citizen… It was like a revolution. Suddenly, Japanese brands could produce less expensive and more accurate watches. Put yourself in the shoes of the Swiss. You see mechanical watchmaking as…
Bowling Alley Strategy: How New Players Dominate Big Markets
In 2000, Marc Benioff decided to declare war. He founded Salesforce a year earlier and entered the competitive CRM market. And Siebel Systems was the market leader with a 45% market share. So Salesforce desperately needed to get known. Benioff worked with an agency to come up with a bold campaign. You know what was…
Circle Of Competence: How To Increase Your Odds Of Winning in Business
In 2003, things were going great for Robert Brooks. He bought the franchise rights for Hooters restaurant in the 80s and turned it into a successful restaurant chain with 430 branches worldwide. The media mostly paid attention to Hooters Girls. But restaurant businesses are tough. Behind the attention-grabbing ‘breastaurant’ concept, Brooks built a well-functioning system…
How to Make Your Business Antifragile With Redundancy
You saw it on the news. OceanGate’s Titan lost contact with its surface ship on the 18th of June, 2023. The company was organizing touristic visits to the wreckage of Titanic for a “Titanic experience.” A few days later the search and rescue teams found Titan’s wreckage. A tragic ending. People speculated about what caused…
Psychological Moonshots: Radical Product Improvements With Little Cost
Canadian police had a problem with rowdy clubbers in the early 2000s. They made a mess in the streets after the clubs got closed. Shouting, fights, vandalizing… Every single weekend. People who lived in those neighborhoods begged the authorities to find a solution. It wasn’t easy. They tried closing clubs earlier — hoping it’d make…
Blue Ocean Strategy: How To Make Your Competition Irrelevant
In 2001, Casella Wines decided to enter the American market. They were a wine producer from Australia. And CEO John Casella decided that it was time to expand into a bigger market. But the US wine market was as competitive as it gets. Hundreds of wine brands from France, Spain, and California filled the shelves…
Jobs-To-Be-Done: How to Discover The Real Insights That Increase Sales
About 10 years ago, McDonald’s marketing team received an objective from their management. Increase milkshake sales. How hard could it be? Especially for a sophisticated marketing team with an unlimited budget. So they created a focus group that fit the milkshake buyer persona, based on data of millions of customers. And made interviews with them…