It’s 3 a.m., do you know what your Distinctive Brand Assets are?
Can you identify some of these brands? Why are some of them so easy to recognize?
Can you identify some of these brands? Why are some of them so easy to recognize?
Whether you are a baby boomer or a millennial, you likely know who Colonel Sanders is. The image of the Colonel is likely etched deep within your memory, and thinking of him may trigger a variety of different associations from fried chicken to buckets with stripes on them. These mental associations have been built and reinforced through years of advertising, purchasing, and consumption. Repeated exposure to the Colonel has been fairly consistent over the years. Well, that is until recently, when Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) decided to change things up a bit.
KFC’s strategy to leverage its most Distinctive Brand Asset – the Colonel
In what is being dubbed the “recolonialization”, KFC has put a renewed focus on its founder, the Colonel, to make up ground against its competitor Chic Fil A. KFC is likely hoping to utilize the halo effect of a man that was known to be a notorious stickler for quality to increase the perceived quality of its food. In a category where functional differentiation is challenging, KFC may be trying to leverage its most distinctive brand asset, the Colonel, to trigger associations of heritage as a point of distinction over competitors with less of a legacy.
Correctly activated, brand assets strengthen memory structures in consumers’ minds in a unique and powerful way. KFC may be using the Colonel to automatically activate appetite appeal through associations with the old-school, honest goodness of Southern cooking.
Canadian families have a new delicious way to add vegetables into their diets, thanks to 2 new product innovations: Catelli Smart Veggie™ and Catelli SuperGreens ™. Hotspex is proud to be one of Catelli’s insights & innovation partners on these delicious and innovative new products.
Catelli Smart Veggie™ sneaks the goodness of carrots and cauliflower into our Catelli Smart® white pasta. In addition to fibre, it provides half a serving of vegetables in every 85 gram portion*. It’s the perfect solution for a nutritious, yet great tasting meal.
*Made from dried vegetables.
Catelli SuperGreens™ is the ultimate veggie pasta. Made from 100% Canadian wheat and the super-goodness of spinach, zucchini, broccoli and kale*, it’s big on nutrients like vitamin A, potassium, fibre, iron and calcium. It’s the perfect way to introduce a little green into your meal ideas.
*Made from dried vegetables.
Unless you have young children, you probably hadn’t heard from Pokémon for a while, but that all changed with the buzz surrounding Pokémon GO, a mobile game that uses GPS to engage fans to play the game out in the real world.
In an astonishing fact, Pokémon GO has been downloaded more times in one week than the very popular relationship app Tinder has been in the past 4 years and according to some sources, it could surpass Twitter in terms of its daily active users!
Avid Pokémon GO players uncovered that a McDonald’s logo was hidden in the app data and hours later the Pokémon Company confirmed that there would be a branded tie in with the QSR. Some small businesses had already been capitalizing on the global game craze with fun signs or promotions, but this announcement marks the game’s first foray into official brand partnerships.
How does getting the attention of these Pokémon crazed smartphone wielders benefit McDonald’s?
Physical Availability
Early details seem to indicate that all McDonald’s locations in at least one country, rumored to be Japan, will be turned into “PokéStops” or “Pokémon Gyms”, which means players will follow their GPS and congregate at these locations to engage in certain geographically tied in game activities.
In How Brands Grow, Byron Sharpe describes how physical availability drives brand growth. Simply put, brands that are more readily available, are more likely to fulfill consumer need states. When it comes to QSRs, brands can increase their physical availability by increasing the number and accessibility of their locations. Providing more reasons to attend their stores or locations creates new consumer entry points.
In this case, the game itself will drive traffic to these locations by making them desirable destinations for anyone playing. Given that these consumers will have likely been walking around for hours glued to their phones while playing, the Golden Arch labelled “PokéStop” are likely to trigger and satisfy hunger and thirst need states. It will be interesting to see how the potential washroom lineups impact paying, yet non-playing consumers.
A relatable example from Byron Sharpe’s book is how Sainsbury’s in the U.K. demonstrated sales growth over its competitors during the busy Christmas period of 2010 by simply purchasing 12,000 tons of salt and ensuring that their parking lots were always free of snow, making their retail locations more desirable and accessible.
The Halo Effect
In simple terms, the halo effect is the tendency for an impression created in one area or by one brand to influence opinion in another area or for another brand. McDonald’s has had a long standing partnership with Nintendo, previously supporting the company’s DS and 3DS systems with Wi-Fi enabled beacons and having strong brand ties with the Pokémon franchise through promotions and Happy Meal toys.
By highlighting this partnership, the positive associations consumers have towards Pokémon GO create a mental halo that McDonald’s can position itself to take advantage of. The partnership may also dial up new associations that further strengthen equity in the brand.
Brand Growth
McDonald’s is making a bet that this partnership will drive significant traffic and positive associations for the brand. Time will tell whether the game continues to garner the attention that it has so far , but in any event, we applaud McDonald’s for trying new things to build physical availability by making its retail sites more desirable and accessible. It is also a smart brand move to drive additional associations through the halo effect with the excitement surrounding Pokémon GO. If interest in the game and the overall popularity of Pokémon continues to grow, imagine the impact this partnership could have, especially if McDonald’s chooses to leverage its 30,000 global locations.
Whether you are trying to get in contact with us because of the rare Pokémon hidden in our office or are interested in learning more about how your team and other key stakeholders can leverage recent findings in the field of marketing or behavioral sciences, let us know.
Authors: Craig Herbert, Jonathan La Greca
Contributors: Gera Nevolovich, Ian Dalley
We’re so proud to have had our Senior Vice President Michael Dorr deliver an insightful presentation on disruption in the market research industry at the 2016 MRIA Annual Conference last week in Montréal. Thank you to the MRIA for being such gracious hosts and thank you to everyone who attended our session on the disruptions that our industry is facing.
View Michael Dorr’s Presentation “Danger Ahead… or is it Opportunity?”
If you have any questions, or would like to discuss the challenges and changes facing market research in 2016 and beyond you can contact Michael Dorr at Michael.Dorr@hotspex.com, or on Twitter @MichaelJDorr.
Or to discover how your brand can grow in 2016 and beyond contact Hotspex
Authors: Michael Dorr
How do you exude authenticity, while at the same time selling $2.5 billion worth of product a year? This is the question Anheuser-Busch InBev is hoping to answer this spring with the rebrand of Budweiser and Bud Light.
Let’s take an in depth look into the rebranding of an American icon.
ARF Study on Diversifying Media Spend
What if we told you that you could increase your advertising ROI by 19%? According to a recent article in Advertising Age which analyzed findings that the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) released at its Re!Think 2016 conference, all you need to do is increase your advertising channels from one platform to two.
Hotspex shares cutting edge research on how brand assets and brand identity accelerate brand growth at the 2016 European Insights Innovation Exchange (IIeX) in Amsterdam
Our SVP of Research, Luke Austin, and CEO, Shane Skillen, had the honor of running a brand building workshop in Amsterdam at this year’s Insight Innovation Exchange (IIeX), hosted by GreenBook. With the 2 key themes of the event being – ‘Getting Future Focused’ and ‘Delivering on the Promise’, Hotspex presented some in-depth insights about how brands can evolve and grow into the future, while ensuring that they stay relentlessly consistent to their purpose and promise.
If you weren’t able to make it to our workshop in Amsterdam this past week, no worries, we’re pleased to bring you up to speed…
The end of a chapter of one of “The Most Interesting Marketing Campaigns in the World”
Bless you, sir this world was never interesting enough for you.
As Dos Equis ejects its iconic pitch man into the stratosphere bound for Mars, the rest of us tragically uninteresting people are left behind wondering why?
Why replace the world’s most interesting pitch man? Perhaps a better question is how?
Could you launch a creative idea into market in 4 days or less?
Unless you are a marketing nerd, or happen to be driving through rural France, you may have missed a very agile and enjoyable marketing tactic.
McDonald’s, breaking a long standing non-aggressive stance, decided to humorously deride its somewhat more tongue in cheek competitor Burger King with the following billboard that highlighted the easily accessible nature of McDrive roadside amenities relative to Burger King’s drive-through.
McDonald’s Direction Billboard