Lego, building it’s way up to the future

Lego, building it’s way up to the future

Nowadays, Lego is the fourth biggest player on the toy market worldwide. However, in Belgium, it’s even bigger: sales have doubled in the last 5 years! It’s hard to believe, that almost 6 years ago The Lego Company actually thought of closing down.

Lego lost their identity throughout the years and they only way of retrieving it was with a new strategy. After examining the problem, it wasn’t so hard to find out what was going wrong: they should listen more to their target audience (=young children) for the design of their products. This makes sense. After all, they’re the ones who’re playing with Lego.

Also, they were looking for some new dynamics in product design. They wanted toys like in ‘the good old days’: timeless and technical. Luckily for them, not everything changed. Throughout the years, they hadn’t lost their original idea; which made them go worldwide: their striving for innovation, and that’s a good thing.

In conclusion, Lego isn’t dead at all. By updating classic games as well as inventing new ones (such as recently ‘Creationary’), Lego succeeded in her attempt of introducing the famous squared building blocks into the 21st century. Even today, kids are still convinced that Lego is exciting and fun, which was their aim all along.

Michiel De Witte

A united world?

We  all know Benetton as a brand that likes to shock instead of taking the lead with special designs for their clothes. But what shocks the most at this moment is that the brand isn’t that popular anymore.

Why? I think it’s because of the changing brand personality. When people buy clothes of a certain brand, they want to feel united with the brand, the brand has to make them feel individual. It seems to me that Benetton isn’t  able anymore to fulfill this need.

At this moment of time the marketers and designers of Benetton are confused. They don’t know what their target consumers want. They weren’t able to stagnate the great sales figures. They figured that it’s not possible to keep on stretching the shock…

Now the management has to come up with something new, something that makes the consumers feel attracted to the brand and something that makes them feel individual again. I’m very excited and curious about the way it will turn out. Maybe next season we all want to wear Benetton again!!

source: United Colors of Benettn :case Study part 3 buyer & maret evaluation
Eloïse Lecluyse

What Ben and Jerry’s Can Teach Professional Marketers About Branding?

Ben and Jerry’s, founded by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield with just the information of a $5 correspondence course in ice cream making, is known as one of the most popular ice cream companies of the world. What secret do they have to make this ice cream so desirable?  Each rational mind would say: ‘No, don’t buy it, it’s too expensive!’, but you must have it anyway. Why? Brand personality.

The 2 founders managed getting around all those business strategies by infusing their own personality to make this brand authentic. The unique story behind this succes differentiate Ben and Jerry’s from other multinationals like Häagen-Dazs. Another secret is the fact of having fun while you start up your bussiness. The names of their ice       creams are fun, the facility is painted in fun colors and their website is full of games. Another important point is that an entrepreneur must not forget to

.

 take action regularly and stay up-to-date with the newest trends and technologies. Ben and Jerry’s  strive for a climate neutral and fairtrade image.

It’s clear that building your brand requires the right story behind your activities. With the upcoming of the social media and larger transparency obligations it’s not done to fake your identity! But we all know that Ben and Jerry’s succeeded in this job!

Peace, love and ice cream,

Laura Goeminne

How to find the perfect celebrity match....

As I already said, brand personality is the personification of a brand. Unfortunately, it is not easy to give human characteristics to something abstract like a brand. That is why a lot of brands search for a famous person with the same traits as the brand to become “the face” of the brand. Finding the right celebrity to represent the brand personality can result in growing brand awareness and better financial results.  Research has proven that one in four people buy a product because a celebrity is promoting it. Millward Brown and his research agency  acknowledge the many advantages of celebrity endorsement. That is why they’ve developed a study tool called “Cebra” (celebrity+brand) to help brands find their perfect celebrity match faster, easier and with less risks. The “search engine” is based on consumer opinions, which means it reflects what consumers think about celebrities.  In this way, the risk of misunderstanding the reputation/image of a celebrity is minimized. Although this technique seems to be very promising, a lot of people wonder if a tool can help a brand choose the most fitting star for their strategy...  


Vienna Deschrijver

Source : http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/in-depth-analysis/cover-stories/finding-the-perfect-match/3011731.article

Starbucks drops identikit stores

You are waiting at the airport, to kill time you will search for some food and booze. The destination: Starbucks. When you ask Belgians or Americans their opinion about Starbucks, nobody will complain, but their succes is inhibitted by one enormeous groupe, the English.

As a result, the coffee-chain has decided to change their decade-long policy where they start identikit stores all over the world. Actually,  the fundamentals of this company are perfectly puzzled out, small shops at busy places where people with not much time buy a quick drink or a sandwich. But the very fast increase of this brand resulted in a boring brand personality that included millions of homogeneous shops. The answer was simple: no uniforme furniture anymore and out will go with those boring colours beige and green! Instead, they will introduce bold colours, second-hand furniture and a local touch! The managing directors only want to sell the basic coffees and something locally relevant for each area in the UK that attracts the customers immediately!

Starbucks underlines that this change in personality  will be a long-term process, it is necessary that they achieve a deeper connection with the customers by those changes, especially in the UK. In Belgium there is for the moment no criticism on their brand personality, but for how long?

Laura Goeminne

Source : http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/starbucks-chief-admits-our-shops-are-all-wrong-1789418.html

Belgian beer in the US, it’s a way for success!

Belgian beer in the US, it’s a way for success!

Belgium is, as we all know, very famous for chocolate but also for his beer; and now after many efforts to export the Belgian top beers, it finally pays off in the states, where a dream came true for our brewers. But what makes Belgian beer so different from those on the American market? Well, our beers are more than just a beer because it gives the consumer a special feeling when he drinks it. They experience it as top class: each type of beer tells a story because of the authenticity. At first, the local American wasn’t familiar with our fruit beers, but now thanks to the advertising and a local distributor, they just love it instead of e.g. wine. Belgian beer became so popular thanks to the marketing, which made it a higher ranked product than in it’s home country. Moreover, they’re building some ‘Belgian Beer Cafés’ to support the growth and the reputation. What was first a niche market grew now up to an important outlet, it felt exclusive: everyone wants to taste it and be a part of it.

Source : http://www.nieuwsblad.be/article/detail.aspx?articleid=3S2UTHV8

Michiel De Witte

Gap goes back in the box ...

Gap’s attempt to “pimp up” its brand personality by changing the logo has come to nothing due to the reaction of the public. Brand personality is nothing but assigning specific human characteristics to a brand. These characteristics can be expressed through individuals representing the brand, advertising, packaging,… but also through the logo for instance. This means that when Gap changes the logo, in a way, the brand personality would change too.  That’s why Gap received a lot of criticism from its costumers after the introduction of the new logo. The costumers feel passionate about the original logo, they recognize themselves in the personality it represents. Gap simply betrayed their passion and their relationship with the brand while changing the logo. Luckily, the high street retailer solved the problem quickly by scrapping the new logo and bringing the old blue box logo back. The company learned from its mistake and will handle differently in the future.

Vienna Deschrijver

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/12/gap-logo-redesign