Turnaround strategy

What are the main characteristics of a Turnaround strategy?

Strategic Change is required when an Organisation´s decline is anticipated. For a Business symptoms of decline are falling profitability, losing market share and deteriorating liquidity. According to Doyle these symptoms can occur because of industry Transformations e.g.new Distribution channels, new Technologies or competitors.

A Turnaround strategy should halt this Erosion and lead to revitalisation.

A Turnaround strategy can be divided into two phases:

Consolidation

The aim of consolidation to set measures to restore profitability and cash flow. These consist of policies to cut costs, increase margins, remove redundant assets and control cash. Consolidation focus on short-term profits.

Transformation

Transformation is the understanding how the industry is changing and forming a Vision by which the Business can be revitalised to regain leadership.Such a Vision means deciding where the new market opportunities will be and what new supply Networks and Distribution channels will be best to create and deliver the new value that the Company will provide.



Source: Peter Doyle,Philip Stern - Marketing Management and Strategy



Most large turnarounds have several things in common. First, most new CEOs cut staff sharply to reduce costs and exit non-core businesses. Second, most turnarounds begin with a sharpened focus on core skills and products. Troubled companies often move back to their roots.  New CEOs in successful turnarounds often come from outside the corporation’s industry. This may be because outsiders can bring a fresh perspective and the very best CEOs can manage companies in many industries.

Examples

1. Apple: nearly failed in the latest 1990´s. Steve Jobs took over in 1997 for a second time. At the latest 1990´s Microsoft with Windows increasingly dominated the market. . To cut costs he Jobs eliminated a number of floundering products. He pushed until apple invented ipod, iphone MacBook.

2. Ebay: The Problem was not if Ebay will survive or not. But People tend to buy things on Amazon.com rather Ebay. John Donahoe, eBay’s chief executive, responded by trying to remake the site into more of an outlet mall for retailers to unload out-of-season Merchandise.

Source: http://fortune.com/2013/02/07/5-tech-turnarounds-that-actually-worked/

3. Yahoo: Terry Semel came to Yahoo from Warner Bros. when Yahoo's ad sales were dropping and company morale was low. Semel shifted the company's focus to distributing media and user-generated content through channels that included Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance and Flickr.Yahoo increased its revenue nearly nine-fold and created $30 billion in shareholder value.

4. Harley Davidson: When Richard Teerlink joined Harley Davidson in 1981  the company had U.S. market share of 15% and had reported a loss of $15 million. The U.S. icon was facing steep competition from Japanese motorcycle manufacturers. Teerlink returned the company's focus to increasing quality, improving service to customers and dealers, and producing world-class heavyweight motorcycles.Harley Davidson recovered its U.S. market share to 50 percent and posted annual sales of more than $1.7 Billion.
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225890

 

Advert message and target group

Advertising Message

An Advertising message purpose is to convey a message  to a target audience in order to convince them to purchase a product or service, investigate the brand further, and make the audience remember the brand name.

Structure

The Appeal - This refers to the underlying idea which should gain Attention of the Receiver - it can be emotional, fearful, sexual and humours

Value Proposition - this part will describe what benefits has the product or how it can help consumers in their life. It also contains the reason why the target Group should buy it

Slogan - helps that the ad stays in mind of the target Group, it should also distinguish from competitors, it is a word or a Phrase which is repeated through all media channels

Hook- is a statement, image, video, or other type of media that grabs the audience's Attention

http://www.knowthis.com/managing-the-advertising-campaign/advertising-message-structure

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-an-advertising-message.htm

Selecting Media for Message Delivery

After determining Budget and objectives of the ad, marketers are thinking through which media channels the message should be delivered.  The choice of media outlets guides the type of message that can be created and how frequently the message will be delivered.

http://www.knowthis.com/managing-the-advertising-campaign/selecting-media-for-message-delivery

Testing

Before a campaign will be really launched marketers normally test the Advertising message. Normally the message will be shown to the potential target Group which should provide Feedback. The most effective strategy is to conduct focus groups where several advertising messages are presented. After this the Response from the audience will be measured.

http://www.knowthis.com/managing-the-advertising-campaign/advertising-message-testing

 

 

Creating an effective Advertising message

Common ground: The best advertising campaigns focus on finding common ground with the consumer. BEfore selling some products to your customers you have to build trust with your would-be- consumer. Think about some similarities your Company and the consumer have and build the ad around them.


Fulfill a Need: Consumers would rather buy things they "Need" than they "want". Therefore you have to establish a Need in your consumers mind with your Advertising message.

Offer a solution: While creating the message you should also establish a Problem for the consumer and of course offer directly the best solution for him in one ad. Normally the solution is the product or the Service

Clear Benefit:  By focusing on the direct benefit that your consumer will receive by purchasing your product or service, you are creating a powerful message in his mind

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/effective-advertising-messages-10751.html

Social media

What is social media ?

Some notes about Social media:

Social media has become a Primary tool for higher Levels of fan Engagement, directly driving lead Generation through interaction and Content sharing that is especially relevant to media companies.
- Johni Fischer, CEO, Loopa

Social Media, Social Web or also called Web 2.0 make it easy for People to create and publish Content, to share ideas, to vote on them and to recommend things to other. Customers share trough Social web their own experiences with brands, products and Services to provide a more credible view.


Examples:

yelp.com- Rating Restaurants, Service Providers, Hotels etc.
tripadvisor - Rating Hotels, Airlines, sights
Facebook - has over 900 Million active user; 80% of US companies have a Facebook page
Twitter
Instagram


The social Feedback Cycle

Evans explained the classic purchase funnel with the social Feedback cycle. Nowadays conumser search for digital word of mouth to make smart choices.

How to implement social media strategy?

Evans says that Engagement of the Stakeholders and customers on the social web is important. This means that stakeholders and customers become participants instead of Viewers. Engagement means that your customers are willing to talk to you and as well about you. Engagement is really fundamental to succesful  social Marketing. Customers have taken a personal interest in what you are bringing to the market.


The Engagement Process
Evans describes the Engagement process as activities in which the customers, stakeholders and employees get connected with Company.

Consumption, as used in the context of social media, means downloading, reading, watching or listening to digital Content of the Company.

Curation is the act of sorting and filtering, Rating, reviewing and commenting. Curation make Content more useful to others. Reviews become truly important when they can be placed into the interest of the Person reading them. Reviews are likely to be more useful and as a result a better informed consumer and better  future Review which leads to better future decisions and increases future satisafaction.

Creation means that the user create something in Connection with the Company by themselves. For example when a Company publishes a photo contest where customers have to upload a Picture with the product of the Company and the best one wins something. People like to share what they are doing.

Collaboration
Blogging is a good example for collaboration.Bloggers often adapt their product based on the Inputs of the audience. A Company can easily Profit from Blogging: taking direct Input from a customer and using it in the design of your product. Nowadays Blogging is so important , every month 1 Million Blogs come online.

How can social media help your Business?

Facebook has 900 Million active users.
77% of consumers said that they interact with a brand via Facebook-.
77% of marketers acquire customers through Facebook
53% of users recommend products in their tweets.
90% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Only 14% trusts advertisment.
63% of businesses using social media Report improved Marketing results.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYedZth9ArM


81% of B2B companies have accounts on social media site.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDA864UskXc

Trigger 7: What is a media agency?

"A media agency makes sure a marketing message appeals to consumers, appears in the right place, at the right time and that the advertiser pays the best possible price."

When media agencies were first launched their purpose was to buy media space cheaper and more efficiently than Advertising agencies. Media agencies became a vital source of communication advice and understood very quickly how consumer behavior works.

The understanding what will motivate consumer to Change their behavior and where to appear an ad or message are the most important skills of medica agencies. Media agencies help their Clients to maximise the effectivness of their Marketing message.

Media agencies make a lot of researches to understand the consumers better and which channel the target Group may use and why.

" Media agencies ensure that marketers really understand the behaviour of their consumers; they make sure messages are targeted correctly; they ensure that marketers really understand the potential of the latest technology and that they have access to the latest offerings from key media owners."

Clients also benefit from the scale of media agencies. People working in media agencies know other People from TV, Radio, etc. and can mostly make a better deal.

http://www.mediacom.com/en/what-we-do/our-industry/media-agencies/what-is-a-media-
agency.aspx

Ultimately these types of media work best together but making the hard choices of what to include and what not to include is crucial - especially when budgets are tight.

Owned media: you can control this channel. You can distinguish between fully-owned media like your Website or partially - owned media like your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram fan page. You can extend you brand presence and raise awareness through your Website and fanpages through the whole world wide web.

Earned media: is an old PR term that  meant getting your brand into free media rather than having to pay for it through Advertising. Basically it is word - of - mouth which is created through social media. Like you know you can´t control word -of - mouth , so you have to be able to handle good as well as bad word - of - mouth and react on that.

paid media: Some People are prediction the end of paid media, which would be a Little premature because paid media can guarantee the immediacy and scale.

 

Latest Trends and media Habits

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EUcYXcA2YI  by Stanventures a media agency

A survey was taken on 500+ marketers about their goals and expectations on digital marketing. Here is what is working and what is not.

B2B:
41% wants to generate leads
27% to drive sales
17% improve awareness

B2C:
40% drive sales
27% improve awareness
18% generate leads

Marketers investing now 25% of their Budget in online advertising and 75% in offline advertising.
In 2014 50% of Search Marketing was outsourced by the companies compared to 2013.  75% of marketers are planning to spend more Money for moblie apps.

B2B: 1 in 5 have generated Revenue from Social media
B2C: 1 in 3 have generated Revenue from Social media

26% of marketers don´t know which channel delivers the best leads
33% of marketers don´t know which channel generates the most Revenue

In 2014 the most important priority is to increasing and improving brand awareness with 46%.
26% wants to collect, measure and use behavior based data.

The top5 Areas of increased spending are : Data and Analytics, Marketing Automation, E-Mail Marketing, social media Marketing and Content Management

Social Marketing Budget will double over the next 5 years. E-Mails with social sharing button will increase click trough rates by 158%. 67% of 2B Content marketers consider Event Marketing the most effective Marketing strategy.

Communication Plan

According to Chris Fill a marketing communication plan helps to minimise errors and to be more efficient and effective. The planś content is mostly the goals, resources, which communication tools will be used, the measures of control and how to evaluate.

The marketing communications planning framework according to Chris Fill

·         Who should receive the brand´s messages

·         What is to be achieved

·         What the message should say

·         How the messages are to be delivered

·         What actions the receivers should take

·         What images of the organization/brand receivers are expected to retain

·         How much is to be spent establishing this new image

·         How to control the whole process once it has been implemented

·         what was achieved

The figure represents a sequence of decisions that marketing managers has to consider when preparing, implementing and evaluating communication strategies and plans.

Elements of the plan according to Chris Fill

·         Context analysis:  the purpose of the context analysis is to understand the key market and communication drivers, which should be influenced by the marketing communication.  It one of the most crucial points. You analyze the marketing communication strategy from your competitors, attitudes, motivation and habits of your target group. Furthermore marketing research and data about your target group should also be considered.

• communication objectives: ideally, communication objectives should consists of 3 main elements:

1. Corporate objectives: it refers to the Mission of the Company
2. Marketing objectives: can be considered as market share, sales Revenue, ROI
3. Marketing communication objectives: considered as the current Content where the brand is and of the future Content where the brand should be. It is also about communicating a clear Position in the market

• marketing communication strategy: the strategy should always be customer-oriented. Therefore the strategy depends if the target audience is in the customer Segment, a Distributor or dealer Network.

• coordinated communication mix (tools, media and content): having justified the required Position, the next step is to clearify the main message that is to be conveyed . It should be a mix out of corporate strategy, Marketing strategy and communication strategy to reach the wider Array of stakeholders.

• resources: of course the resources which should Support the communication plan should be determined. This considers also financial issues, time, knowledge of Marketing Expertise. Important is the relative weighting of the costs.

• scheduling and implementation: if awareness is the Goal, it may be best to use Television or Posters first before sales Promotion, direct Marketing, personal selling

• evaluation and control: no communication plan is finisched when it is not evaluated. There are numerous methods of evaluating individual Performance of the Tools and media used.

• feedback : The planning process is just completed when feedback is provided. Even when the success of a campaign can not be measured the tools or needed resources and strategy should get a feedback and advices how to make it better in future.

Different Communication Plans - Examples Red Bull and Pringles

Facts about Red Bull

• Red Bull is available in 166 countries
• Over the 26 years 40 Billion cans have been consumed so far
• in 2013 Red Bull sold more than 5.3 Billion cans
• Red Bull holds about 50% of market share of sector energy drink (source : https://de.scribd.com/doc/2444837/Integrated-Marketing-Communications-Plan-for-Red-Bull-Energy-Drink)
• 9694 employees in 2013
• Red Bull is targeting the core markets of Western Europe and the USA and growth markets in the Far East. In spite of the still uncertain financial and global economic climate, our plans for growth and investment in 2014 remain very ambitious, envisage a continued upward trend, and – as always at Red Bull – will be financed from the operative cash flow.
• Regarding sponsorship and their marketing communication see blog before
• Failure : Red Bull should pay 13 million dollar to some consumer who sue them, that Red Bull does not increase your ability and your soul and stuff. Bad marketing communication

 

Brand strategy

Task 1: Brand strategy

Before building a brand you should create a brand identity and coordinate across organizational Units, media and markets. The Goal of a brand strategy is that someone is in Charge of the brand and an identity gets created. Firms, which are good in building brands have normally a strong brand - building culture with clearly defined values, norms and symbols. The top Management should Support the brand through visibly Actions through the whole organization.
By building brands you should be Aware of:

• Pressure to compete on Price
• profileration of competitors
• fragmenting markets and media
• complex brand strategies and relationships
• bias toward strategies
• bias against Innovation
• pressure to invest elsewhere

Accoring to Aaker making and Managing brands could be really difficult. Aaker mentioned a example with Coca Cola: There is Coke classic, coke Zero, coke light, coke Vanille, coke cherry and so on. Coke is a product brand and at sporting Events a Sponsoring brand. This is a huge complexity. The brand should understand his role in which he is involved.


Task 2: Brand hierarchies, Brand architecture, Brand Portfolio

According to Aaker brands fall into a hierarchy and every brand Level has his own System and strategy.

Corporate Brand: (e.g. General Motor): which identifies and represents the Company behind the brand

Rage brand: (e.g. Chevrolet): brand ranges over several products

Product line brand: (e.g. Chevrolet Lumina) brands associated with the organization´s specific products

Subbrand: (e.g. Chevrolet Lumina Sports Coupe) Basic product brands can be refined through subbranding

Every brand has his own identy. The Task is it to put those identies togehter to form a whole corporate brand.  Every brand has a own role in the System. These roles are:

Driver role: drives the purchase decision, it represents what the customer primarly expect to receive from the brand. Customers buy the value Proposition.

Endorser role: this role provides Support and credibility to the Driver role brand.the endorser brand respresents the values, organization and culture of the brand.


Strategic brand: is important for the future perfomance of the corporation and the brand. It should fit in the future Vision of the Company to gain more market share

Silver bullets: is a subbrand or branded benefit which should Change or Support the brand Image of a parent brand. e.g. Ford tauraus to create a innovated Image

Source: David Aaker - Building strong brands

Brand Identity vs. Image

What is the difference between brand identity and brand Image? Definition

Brand identity:

Thomas Gad in "4D - Branding" said, if you want to have a succesful brand and to live the brand you have to create the brand code. For creating a brand code you have to use the 4D-Model :

The functional Dimension
This Dimension is about the Name of the brand and the benefits of ist products. Furthermore it is about everything that has to do with physical Quality.

The social Dimension
In the social Dimension the brand creates a cult around itself. Annother Point of social Dimension is the logo of the brand,who should connect individuals, who has the same brand.

The mental Dimension
The mental Dimension should reflect what you think you are. You should identify your brand with yourself. It´s about what you think about yourself. It is mostly a Slogan with which you want that the customers also feel the same like you. The consumer wants to feel Special by using this product or brand. Example: BMW - "Freude am Fahren" (translated: joy of driving)" Other car manufacturer do not have such a Slogan.

The spiritual  Dimension
It is about the ethical approaches a Company Support and about the responsibility a Company wants to take.
According to Thomas Gad, a good example who got really famous just with the spiritual Dimension is BodyShop. Bodyshop was the first Company, who does not tested the cosmetics on animals and they market this Approach a lot. It revolutionized the cosmetic branch.


Examples in "4D-Branding" :

In the book "Building strong brands" Aaker desribes Brand identiy as : "Brand identity should help establish a relationship between the brand and the consumer by generating a value Proposition involving functional, emotional or self-expressive benefits.

According to Aaker creating a brand identity is more to find out what customers want and it should also reflect the values and Vision of the Company. Aaker´s Point is while Brand Image always Looks at the past and is passive, brand identity should be active, flexible and look in the future.


According to Aaker brand identity exists of core identity and Extended identity:
Core identity: represents the whole Approach or main values of the brand and Company. These values should even be after years simply the same. It is responsible for the meaning and success of the brand.
Extended Identity: According Aaker Extended identity includes elements that provide texture and completeness. It is about adding Details, which should Support the values of the core identity.

Brand Image

According to Johansson: Brand identity is what the Brand is. Brand Image is what the brand seems to be to consumers. Brand identity can be affected by the Marketing Managers, but Image is built by the consumers itself.But the brand identity is the foundation of what the Image is based.

Example for a succesful brand: Red Bull

As an Austrian I would definitley mention Red Bull. Red Bull itself is such a "normal" energy drink - nearly the same as the Discount energy Drinks in the Supermarket. Even when it tastes nearly the same and the Discount one is much cheaper , why does everybody wants Red Bull. Because of the Image of Red Bull. Everybody knows the logo of Red Bull and in Austria it is nearly everywhere. Also in Finland it has really good Image. Red Bull does not really get famous because of its advertisement in TV or Radio. Because they were until 2013 Kind of lousy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbtKAXaf9QA

Red Bull just get famous because of its Sponsoring. Red bull mostly sponors Sports. Not just anybody - it sponsors really good and famous athletics. And also a lot of extreme Sport. Red Bull´s Highlight was the jump of Felix Baumgartner from the stratosphere. So everybody in the world could see Red Bull. In my opinion Red Bull´s brand identity is that the drink and the brand is for People who loves to take risk, who loves sports and the extreme. And it is also the same Image. Therefore it is a successful brand.

Nowadays they have a better Commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoSVI7ovEIw