Research opportunity cost

Image source: Quintin Gellar on Pexels.com


Department of inconvenient questions*: The opportunity cost of research.

In the brave new world of simultaneously unlimited and often unbelieveable customer information I am reminded of a topic which proved to be a recurring pain point throughout my career in marketing...the opportunity cost of research.

So just how much of a security blanket is research and how much does one need before feeling the chances of success are confirmed ?

Can we afford the investment required to do the required research properly, or can we really afford to not do the research?

As others have said over the years by way of a paraphrase: 'consumers neither say,believe or act the way they say they do in a research environment' ...so why do we bother ?

Over the years working for various blue chip packaged goods companies across several cultures and continents it has in my experience been consistently harder to justify expenditure on market research internally than even media, despite the fact that no one would argue with the far greater cost of failure to both brand equity and business reputation of subsequent ,poor investment of much larger sums of money.

Equally perverse I have often been unable to afford the fees that classic research engenders, something which is felt hardest on the smaller,often exciting new brands struggling with little or no budget within a bigger brand portfolio.

Today's marketers have greater access to consumer and customer information than at any time ( whether willingly provided or not and whether of real or questionable value) thanks to the changes in access,interractivity ,direct contact and touchpoint measurability. Another major challenge businesses and marketers in particular face relates to the increasingly dynamic competitive environment with the pressure on speed to market and iterative development( fastest launch, improve on the go and fail fast), something not recommended in food in my opinion.... a further source of pressure on marketing teams is to demonstrate measurable returns on every penny spent in the form of short term results , thanks in part to the latest fashion for so called zero based budgetting, as if marketers never ever had to demonstrate ROI before....really? And please, don't get me started on how procurement are marketers Best Friend Forever.......

So a bit like the ad industry , marketers now have both the means and encouragement to bring some of their market research closer if not actually in house, to 'disrupt ' or 'disintermediate ' the research industry. My historic experiences have lead me to believe that there is a case for some shake up here, by which I mean something more fundamental than a race to the bottom for the cheapest research fees, matched only by ever poorer quality of research.

Good research information provides invaluable ,impartial guidance and feedback to brand stakeholders at every stage of business , and can also reduce the risks of consequential ,costly failures. A big part of what makes it invaluable is the calibre of human expertise within the agencies and in house to sort the gold from the stones, knowing where to look,what to look for and what to to toss back into the water.

As to the habit in some teams of using research as a blanket, my advice would be don't; use it as your honest broker or conscience so that it informs rather than governs your actions.A big part of brand authenticity comes from the authenticity of the people behind it.


All of the above leads me to the conclusion that the imperative of competitive advantage through better serving consumer needs is unchanged, still relies on a better understanding of unmet needs and beliefs, same as it always has...it's just become simultaneously easier and yet more complicated to find the gold amongst the fools gold.

*100% untainted by evidence

Finger in the frame and branding

Image source :pexels.com/ pixabay


First off apologies for the' Dad Rock 'reference to one of my very favourite bands of the 80's and 90's, Del Amitri. All will become clear if you read on....hopefully.

The title of this piece about branding makes and discusses an obscure connection between the effectiveness /desirability of the brand being ever present in say a piece of audio visual content eg a TV spot , by name checking ( but not word for word ) a typically bitter sweet song of theirs about a love affair that the singer hopes will linger on as a guilty secret ;and to the fact that someone always got their finger in the frame when they were taking a photo....

Over the years I have debated , argued and fallen out and in with ad agencies in Europe, Asia and beyond on the core issue of creating compelling creative work which is also strongly branded and ideally uniquely attributable to the brand making the ad..it is possible.

I have on occasion been challenged by frustrated account teams ' whether I just wanted to see the brand logo in every frame ?' ( finger in the frame reference...) rather than having a piece of great mini cinema with a logo hung like a soiled nappy on to the final frames ...special shout out for great debates on this topic over many years and brands to BMP /DDB London over time ( Sarah Carter , Vicki Holgate, Adrian Langford and especially Julian Calderara in this regards...) .

For the record I believe all branding and no creative story makes no sense at all.

There are brands today still happily embracing both ends of the now you see the brand now you don't spectrum , including as examples currently in the UK the Oral B brand which does manage in some TV copy at least to have a logo in EVERY SINGLE ' frame ,and the new rebrand for Waitrose and John lewis and partners , which saves all brand references for the final few seconds ...my favourite ' where's the brand?' category in the UK remains price comparison sites.

I have lost count of the number of times I have failed to 'get ' the latest and greatest eg fashionable in the bubble piece of work in recent times; I began to genuinely lose the plot about the time the Cadbury's drumming Gorilla campaign surfaced. Many Marketers loved it , many consumers talked about a gorilla drumming in a tv ad, but for me the branding was subliminal at best.

There is little doubt in my mind that 'boring& branded' is the least desirable outcome for both the brand , the bottom line and ,most importantly the consumer , as it is instantly forgettable and therefore needs higher spend to generate inferior impact and engagement.

Equally ,in my experience it is unrealistic to expect consumers to unpick some of the more entertaining constructs for branded advertising which demand both involvement and creativity far beyond the general level of ad appreciation I have witnessed across thirty years and two continents , which is almost always pretty literal.......and I do mean literal.

I wrote before about how in my mind finding brand and product truths and building creative around them is an effective bridge for ads to be both entertaining whilst building brand linkage and equity.

PS : message to the band..new songs please, and Manchester gig in July 18 too freakin loud and distorted

Pps: If any business would like my Brandbuilder(the clue is in the name)" fingers in the frame " get a bloody move on , it's almost closing time...

The Joy of ...creativity

Source of image:pexels.com



A great rhetorical question from Geoffrey Colon on Linkedin recently about 'proving the incremental benefit of creativity ' was the spark that got me thinking . The question may be a simple one ,but there are so many parts that feed in to the eventual answer it would require several pieces to fully get to grips with.

The context is in this instance a business one , as in how can businesses both nurture and demonstrate the incremental benefits of being more creative and less safe. It stands to reason after all that greater creativity will yield better results (effectiveness )with maybe less spend (efficiency )....but does that stand up to scrutiny ?

If it were true then surely creativity would be the default setting and not the exception it seems to be today.


One start point for this particular ramble is the much repeated sentiment amongst marketing and ad folk that too much marketing communications content nowadays is formulaic ,safe , boring and low impact, driven variously by either clients' short termism, decision and risk averse culture on the one hand ;or the agencies acquiescing to the demands of clients rather than making a stand for more creativity, and structurally undervaluing and failing to nurture creativity.


This piece is entirely subjective but not a polemic , so if you are looking for an evidence based or scholarly approach , or even a simple answer then best leave now.


I did however begin by looking online for definitions of creativity ,and according to the Oxford living dictionary the word is defined as:

"The use of imagination or original ideas to create something;inventiveness."

If you believe that any content created is by the above definiton creative then we are unlikely to work well together ; ditto if you believe that anything ' wacky' ,unconventional or otherwise extreme is creative . For me creativity untainted by consumer needs or beliefs is literally useless, as it is less likely to resonate with them, our audience.


For me the crux of the debate about the commercial value of creativity lies in understanding ,internalizing and acting on the simple assertion that the true and only appreciation and ultimately impact on purchase behaviour of any and all creative content lies in the hearts and minds of consumers .... who as we are increasingly told are not much bothered by brands anyway and certainly not in the excrutiating detail with which we" producers" pore over every aspect of our would be brand masterpieces. Coupled to low consumer ad recall rates there is seemingly little incentive to reject "good is good enough" and strive for great creative..


So maybe the first big step is philosophical rather than process or indeed dogma driven., how to understand and give consumers what they really want , not what we ,sat safe in our bubble think they want....
This for me means improving our skills and investment in finding those compelling consumer insights that truly if briefly connect our brands to our consumers on an emotional level.


Do not take this as an unconditional declaration of love for the market research and planning community , nor for co creation , nor as an apology to those who create entertainment with sometimes only a tenous ,fig leaf of attempted brand linkage or information consumers might welcome or have use of (take a bow my current,personal most "why did they do this?" ads :confused .com and moneysupermarket.com)


I have way too often felt the pain of failing epically in ad pre testing consumer research,watching from behind the glass what our team thought of as creative and compelling being wilfully ? torn to shreds by consumer indifference, literalism and utter incomprehension..whilst they carefully ate our egg sandwiches and crisps... but maybe that is the lesson. Maybe it is like the high school dance all over again..if the object of one's desire barely notices you and shows even less interest in getting to know you , then wearing an exceedingly loud outfit is unlikely to change the outcome...

All change in adland?

Department of inconvenient questions: All change in Adland ?

Image : Rene Asmussen on pexels.com

Am I alone in being bored by the debate around transparency in media cost and measurement metrics,fake consumers or "disrupted" business models ? As a consumer bored by the lack of originality of much of todays creative ?

Shouldn't we all be doing more about improving the quality of creative that's out there today rather than restructuring ? Just maybe , and yes this is a radical notion , better creative would yield better returns for all in the ecosystem....

A recent post by Alberto Brea talked about the development of the traditional advertising business model in the face of industry disruption ( ie increases in client side in-house creative teams ,or the entrance in force of management consultancies into adland) and suggested the likely new operating model would see the ad companies concentrating on either the creative or the production ends of the process, right around the time Sir Martin Sorrell did exactly that as the first step of his new venture.

As a client side marketer for over 30 years I have seen any number of versions of the agency model ,which has shown such flexibility as to make a Transformer character envious ... and I suspect somewhat cyncially this has rarely been driven by a desire to make better creative , with some notable exceptions ( the launch of BBH in London comes to mind).

The real agency :client tensions have consistently in my own experience had as much to do with money ,with clients looking( apparently surprisingly) for true transparency and measurability around costs and returns as they ever have about the creative product.

Oddly enough the consumer whose needs and desires we collectively strive to satisfy has not always come first in the discussion . Pinpointing my need state and likely choices is valuable science, but then hit me with great creative or I choose ad blocking...

The likes of Bob Hoffman have written most eloquently and persuasively about the issue of transparency in media costs and audience metrics ;others like Marc Pritchard at P&G and Keith Weed at Unilever have talked tough and followed through, with little or no impact on their brands.

There are those who say that consultants move into adland is doomed by the apparent contradiction between the necessary impartiality and objectivity demanded of a business consultancy , not to mention the working culture and environment which is deemed likely to be hostile if not fatal to the creative soul ....we shall see.

From my own perspective , now on the outside looking in, I would love to be seeing more debate about improving the creative product and delighting consumers....

Never mind agile...do the Hokey Cokey

(image source:pexels)

There is a great deal of corporate activity and musical chairs going on in both agency and client land ( both manufacturer and retailer side ) , as players large and small seek to find safer new ways to futureproof their current business models in the face of encroachment by new entrants with their new fangled ways and fancy dance steps :

In summary it seems everyone is trying several approaches to secure space in the new ecosystem whilst scaling up in their historic core areas , thereby covering all the bases.

Management consultancies are said to massing at the gates of Adland as I write these words; meanwhile clients are increasingly said to be bringing parts of the media and creative functions in house.


New,supposedly more ............( insert adjective of choice here : disruptive/ agile / ethical ) start ups are mushrooming in CPG/fmcg ,especially in plant based alternatives to meat ; or in subscription and direct to consumer based businesses such as Dollar Shave Club .


Major branded packaged goods companies are busy buying up or building stakes in these self same new wave/ startups (Danone buys non dairy specialist Whitewave , Nestle buys artisan Blue Bottle coffee, Unilever buys Dollar Shave, Tyson meat buys into plant based meat alternatives , Mars buys into pet health care etc.,) whilst also simultaneously seeking to consolidate with other large and similar businesses.


Meanwhile retailing is undergoing major shifts, with multiple profit warnings ,store closures and insolvency in the UK as traditional bricks and mortar based businesses seek to embrace omnichannel : Walmart buys Flipkart , Tesco and Carrefour cooperate to bulk up their buying clout , JSainsbury buys Asda from Walmart in the UK....just as Internet based competitors move into the bricks and mortar world(Amazon does or will do everything from food to fashion to pharma eventually,Alibaba in China entering partnerships with bricks and mortar stores Bailian and teaming up with 13 Chinese real estate developers and Chinese Hema supermarkets).


The pace of change is dizzying and accelerating ; the mass market middle ground is no longer considered strategically a safe place to be ... meaning going forward businesses need increasingly need to have a laser focus on their brand's true core ,differentiating competencies whilst planning for an amorphous and fluid approach on how they deliver them.

Department of inconvenient questions ...How often do you?

(Image source: Pexels)


Business today is all about multiple and frequent if not real time measurements of success and the efficient use of human and financial capital.

The business of reporting or indeed staying abreast of key metrics has become a business within a business and a badge of honour in its' own right....knowing your very latest numbers, the numbers talk.. right?


The Department of Inconvenient questions has recently completed the least thorough piece of research review ever into that sensitive area of marketing business called "How often do you spend quality time with your brand and wider business strategy? Do you regularly look at the strategic plan after it is written and hopefully signed off by head office ? How often is it used as a touchpoint to ensure alignment of daily activities? Ironically an enormous amount of time is spent creating strategic plans...which are then often underutilized .

My point is that more time needs to be spent regularly and systematically to stay in touch with and review the big picture strategic direction, as many markets today are subject to more significant and frequent game changing events than at any time in my almost 40 year career...this both in the board rooms, maybe especially in the boardrooms as well as in every brand or business unit.

You could stop here ...... but below is just a selection of typical number based events and frequency one might hypothetically need to navigate as a classical senior marketer:

Daily:sales dashboard, financials, research numbers, social media .

Weekly: sales ,s&op review,listings and customer updates , marketing activity,innovation and new launches project updates. Weekly call with head office

Monthly: sales , brand share and activities reporting, financials vs annual plan, action plans, listings , promotion and new products funnels and post launch tracking , sales forecasting,quality/ industrial reports.

Quarterly:detailed business updates for head office.

Annual: strategic plan followed by detailed budget for n+1 split to sku, month and customer.

Department of inconvenient questions

( Image title/source/ author: Crop triangle; Wikimedia common; author: Eddie Oosthuizen; user:AbdealiJK Travis)


As a food guy with extensive international brand and new product development marketing experience as well as unfortunately a failed restaurateur I enjoy reading Linkedin posts about amongst other things innovation and technology ( thanks LPK, Tom Goodwin and others)and various other food specific threads on hot food related topics such as plant based everything, alternative proteins( anyone for cricket?), lab grown meat and so on ( other soap boxes are available)...

This is all very stimulating intellectually , but then yesterday I read another food innovation/ tech story ( from "Food Navigator Asia "yesterday which I will try and append in the comments) which disturbed me in my own comfortable ,urban bubble.

So today this post from the newly created Department of inconvenient questions...staffed by completely unqualified people ie me , and with no commercial or other interest in this area, other than being a would be occasional world citizen, from the comfort of my armchair of course.
Why are people still starving in 2018 when the technology apparently exists to make important steps towards eradication ? Who,why and what are blocking the adoption/ commercialisation of things like Genetically modified crops , and now so called Golden rice aka vitamin enhanced rice, which is touted by its' proponents as a "life saver" ? I tried and failed to find some simple stats on global hunger to illustrate the scale of the problem , but need obviously to improve my search skills. Meanwhile just check your preferred news feed...


As this is a business blog I will try and stay away from making politically charged comments, but if the technology exists to make a meaningful impact in reducing starvation in places challenged by climate , know how or conflict then why isn't it happening? Do we need more private charitable initiatives by the likes of Bill Gates or, more action from eg the United Nations? Or is it a matter of freedom of choice , as some farmers fear being locked into particular seed suppliers.


This stuff is worthy of more debate and action than much of what gets debated around the conversation ecosystem..


ps: are some agribusinesses still routinely needing financially to throw away food in order to manage market prices or because their produce is deemed somehow not pretty enough ? Another committee maybe , or a working group?

Bunfight at Calorie Corral

Bunfight at Calorie Corral







The UK government has recently come out 'buns blazing' to call out the food industry once more , this time to reduce the calorie count in packaged and foodservice foods across some but not all food categories by 20 % by 2020... or else.

However well intentioned and however necessary , this is another example of a laudable but ultimately poorly constructed initiative to tackle the consequences to the individual and to society of the obesity crisis facing the UK and indeed many other countries.

The UK authorities have in recent years undertaken public health campaigns,including the usual threats to the food and drink industries, to tackle salt , fat and sugar reductions as well as promoting healthier a lifestyle and more excercise ; more recently we have had a public airing of the potential merits of tax based incentives including a so called "Latte levy" to discourage the use of non recyclable take away coffee cups.

The fundamental problem is that once more the latest foray , focussed single mindedly on reducing calorie intake ,is an overly simplistic approach to a complex problem which fails to tackle some of the other root causes and behaviours behind the nutritionally poor dietary habits of many in the UK.
The threat of sanctions to the food industry for instance simply reinforces the view already embraced by some interest groups that "Big Food" is intent on systematically damaging the health of consumers by enslaving them to "Ultra Processed " foods . This is not , as I have written before, a particularly good business model , even in the hopefully unlikely scenario it were to be true. Sadly the criminal and negligent actions of some in the food business have in fact opened the door to this type of conspiracy theory showing scant to insufficient regard for food safety and transparency standards, never mind consumer health.

So taking a broader look at this what strikes me most is the lack of focus on education : by educating young and old alike about the benefits of better nutrition , healthy eating , cooking and healthy lifestyles one might hope to see a change in consumer behaviour. It is not as if there are no healthier choices available ; in most cases, we are more spoilt for choice now with healthier food options than has probably ever been the case.

Of course there is also a positive contribution to be made by a more holistic approach ,including offering healthier options either by recipe reformulation or by the option of reduction of portion sizes , but fundamentally if the behaviours and attitudes of consumers don't change it may not change the bigger picture very much . I am also in favour of controlling content and access to advertising of unhealthy foods to children for instance... but at heart changes for the better come in a free society because it is consumers who wish to change...

What is the role of the food business in public health debates ? Utilize all that consumer insight, engage , be proactive, promote sensible consumption , balance and healthy lifestyles , be part of the solution.

Targetting, like dating but scarier

Targetting ..like dating ,but trickier?

Just like marketing as a whole has become more complex these days so it is with targetting., which is the business of brands looking to meet consumers to live happily ever after, or at least until the next purchase.

Pre internet there was a widely held school of thought in packaged consumer goods which promoted the notion of targetting precise consumer clusters with your branded offer, which often meant any given category might contain a multiplicity of brands targetting specific consumer profiles, segments , benefits and needs . Then as now there were different approaches to the resulting issue of selecting the most appropriate brand strategy,typically of either using one umbrella brand with sub brands to cover category wide opportunities ,all leveraging the core brand benefit, or launching multiple stand alone brands with the attendant additional marketing and organizational costs and complexity.

Today the "Evidence Based Marketing" doctrine holds and demonstrates that actually not only ( and here I exaggerate deliberately) are the old truths unfounded , but that evidentially it is broadly sufficient to have as a target anyone with a pulse and access to a wallet( which removes any biais towards cute puppies...) . The examples in "How Brands Grow" by Byron Sharp are startling. The book is pretty much a giant wrecking ball to previous marketing beliefs and operating systems in branded consumer goods , and had me on the edge of a minor existential crisis for a while...

And yet this new broad based mass market reality doesn't make targetting any easier for marketers today, the dating game of brand seeks consumer goes on and has become arguably more complex. Today the consumer always brings their today's best friend along , social media and their friend outrage.

Marketers must now navigate an increasingly complex series of potential gaffes :being seen as unauthentic by jumping on the fashionable bandwagons of the day ,showing a lack of respect and sensitivity towards topics such as Inclusivity ,diversity , cultural misappropriation, gender stereotyping, corporate social responsibility and respect for the environment.

The recent and public debate about the charity label for the Johhny Walker brand of whisky featuring a female icon is a timely example of the potential pitfalls . The sceptic in me wonders how many whisky drinkers actually select a whisky brand based on the number of women in the boardroom or the distillery. It is also way too easy for this initiative , as others have pointed out elsewhere, to be seen as patronising to women, which is surely the very opposite of the brand owner's intentions.

In retail by contrast consumer shopper behaviour has increasingly been to gravitate away from the mass middle market one concept fits all targetting model and towards dare I say it more targetted offerings, be it in grocery or fashion...

So from a Brandbuilder perspective what lessons can be drawn to help brands find their Happily ever after consumer partners?

Put simply,brands must show respect to consumers and be true to who they are and what they stand for. The better you know and respect your consumer , the more you discuss, listen, and ask for permission, like in any relationship, the less you are likely to offend .

A job-it' s tale:from zero to hero and back again

"A Job-it's tale: from zero to hero and back again "
or the fluctuating value of experience (apologies to the estate of JR Tolkien)

When you start your professional career, looking for an entry level graduate position is the likely first step and also the first hurdle. It seems experience is often valued above academic achievements, which is nuts. People looking for entry level professional positions are likely by definition to be inexperienced.

As your career develops, experience is still a valuable currency ,as increasingly it demonstrates accomplishments as well as serving as an indicator of development potential.

When you get to be very experienced however you generally find at a certain point that your accumulated experience becomes pretty much worthless, perhaps as it tends to come with accompanying years on the clock. There may be a few exceptions such as post acquisition ,where the acquiring company sucks up the experience and knowledge DNA of their acquisition , followed normally by disposal of those same people.

I think it is great to see so many successful young entrepreneurs ,often straight out of university, but I wonder about their lack of real life business experience and the impact on the advice they are selling... is experience not seen as either necessary or a benefit;or do they tap into it via mentors , non executive directors or external consultants ?

Before I reached 30 ( which was 6 years into my career/ experiential learning curve) ,I was told I was too old for a career in consulting . By the time I was 40 I was told I was too old to be considered for admission into an MBA course by a highly rated Business school...

Before I go for my afternoon nap I would like to clarify that I put talent above in post seniority in almost all cases. Experience without talent , application, relevance and a thirst for continuous learning and growth is of limited use in business,or in life generally .

So what about using that body of experience of the many people who like me are no longer necessarily looking to work full time ,but wish to leverage their experience and to continue to learn, to be challenged and rewarded? A previous employer of mine BESTFOODS had a great scheme ; it created a corps of retired colleagues who were drafted in to carry out temporary , ad hoc business projects globally wherever there was a specific skill and experience need that matched the profile of a particular person.

My business Brandbuilder consultancy Ltd was set up after I fell out of corporate life for the last time after 30 plus years , in order to give businesses of all sizes bespoke access to my strategic and operational brand marketing skill, experience and passion on a completely flexible basis. From facilitating one off strategic planning or ideation days , project work , helping new market entry , mergers and acquisitions ,or periodic strategic input .Check out my profile on Linkedin and contact me for an informal chat about your ideas and whether I might be able to make a difference.

Successful Brand equity development..in Atlantis

Successful brand equity development ( in Atlantis)

2018 has begun with a lively debate around the latest moves in the carbonated soft drinks arena by the the folks from Atlanta ( or should they be called Atlanteans?) as they seek to ride current market trends including reducing the intake of empty calories, sparkling flavoured waters and ,um ,Millenials, whatever that means...

This has raised questions about their strategy for managing brand equity on what is without doubt one of the most successful and well managed brands in the world, something which has assumed greater significance in the face of structural market changes which pose a real and growing threat to the long term future of the category and potentially this iconic brand itself.

A successful brand must have a compelling core benefit or reason for being , one which is easily and intuitively understood by consumers. I would also suggest that in some cases brands must and can succesfully adapt , abandon or even completely reimagine their brand ,including host product category on which it built it's name ..Lucozade being a great example.

The temptation which marketers face , especially those under pressure in the boardroom , is to try and stretch that core meaning through portfolio extensions beyond the owned sphere of core competence and consumer permission . Self evidently brand extension brings marketing investment synergies and lowers barriers to trial when the core benefit is fully transferable , and brands such as Dove have mangaged this incredibly well. The flipside ,when this is not properly orchestrated is brands which are famous in name only , appear across many loosely related categories but which are in effect Houses of brands, acting as generalist guarantors of quality without clear brand meaning or equity of their own in the minds and hearts of consumers.

People however ( bless them) rarely think the same way about brands as corporate or us marketing types when it comes to shopping across disparate categories, certainly not in my experience of so called umbrella brands in food, and promotional attempts to spur cross category buying never worked for me.

Muddying the water further is of course the retailer private label question. Just because my retailer of choice can and does put their name on items as diverse as underwear as well as fine wine and hand cream doesn't mean manufacturer brands can do the same; it merely confirms amongst other things the transactional nature of much shopper behaviour in everyday purchases like grocery shopping.

The trickier and more costly route for brand equity growth by contrast is to obey the first rule of strategy which is that it implies making choices about what your brand stands and does not stands for, its' Prime Directive if you will...stay true to the core brand truths.

My criticism of the the latest episode of the cola saga is that the previous "one brand to control all" ( sorry ) which aligns for me at least to the theory of the book "How Brands Grow" by Professor Byron Sharp has been replaced by a discordant ,double pivot outside aspects of the brand core ,targetting non cola flavored sparkling water(brand heresy surely, like syrups in coffee), ditching a sizeable amount of core brand design equity thereby weakening impact at point of sale in the process....
at the same time the corporation has seemingly lost potential first mover advantage in the increasingly high profile arena of environmentally friendly packaging to the Evian brand , something held especially dear we are told amongst the millenial audience supposedly being targetted by the newly launched fruit flavoured products.

But ultimately the biggest failing here is in not facing up to the possibility that the brand might need in the not too distant future to pull off a reimagining as epic as the Lucozade one in order to retain the colossal brand equity it enjoys today.

Exciting time to be a brandbuilder!