ROAD AMERICA ANNOUNCES SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH OF LOCATEME® UPGRADE TO ROADSIDE ASSISTANCE TECHNOLOGY
MIAMI – APRIL 21, 2011 In an exclusive partnership with researchers at AT&T, Miami, Florida-based Road America has developed, tested and now successfully launched a GPS technology solution for pinpointing breakdown locations in seconds. This development dramatically improves the speed, accuracy and efficiency of locating the customer’s disabled vehicle through the very same telecommunications device they are using to contact the Road America 24-hour Response Centers. (more…)
Simone I. Smith teamed up with the American Cancer Society to introduce “a sweet touch of hope.” Simone designed a stylish lollipop charm to help raise funds and awareness to help save more lives from cancer, a disease that affects everyone in some way. In 2004, Simone was diagnosed with stage III Chondorosarcoma-a rare form of cancer. Her treatment required invasive surgery that altered the appearance of her lollipop tattoo. ”It literally looked like someone took a bite out of it,” says Simone. Insprired by her experience, the lollipop now represents Simone’s journey to getting well and staying well, and has sparked a desire to help other cancer survivors. Ten percent of the purchase price is donated to the American Cancer Society.
Building a successful small business is about making the fewest mistakes
One of the principles of new media and marketing is a strategy called “Launch and learn.” This method is used to quickly launch products, websites and marketing campaigns to establish brand loyalty and customer communication before the product or website has actually reached perfection. Launching campaigns and websites sooner rather than later allows for consumer response to show you what works, and what doesn’t. Setting up metrics such as open rates, conversion rates and analytics allows you to inexpensively launch several initiatives at the same time using different vehicles to reach end users. After analyzing the results you can then allocate monies and resources to what works the best. If you are involved in e-commerce, the numbers will always tell the truth.
Another basic tenet of strategic marketing and planning is transparency. When promoting products or services, it is absolutely imperative to clearly articulate what it is you are offering. We believe in advertising as a tool to provide the information necessary for consumers to make intelligent choices. People want the facts and the research behind a product before making purchases, whereas 5-10 years ago a spectacular image of a product or the promise of a feeling the product or service might provide, was enough to sell it. Promoting marketing integrity from the start provides a strong foundation by building customer loyalty and satisfaction and also helps the “launch and learn” technique distinguish between product and delivery feedback and a lack of solid information provided to the consumer. When testing initiatives, the less variables involved the better.
Its okay to make mistakes, and every new business should be prepared to make them. By setting up metrics you can launch initiatives and analytics to see what works, and what doesn’t. The key is to make the fewest mistakes possible in terms of time and money. Because each product will take a different marketing approach, there is no way to know exactly what will work best without first testing the waters. Steer clear of any marketing firm that claims to have a successful marketing approach upfront for your product or service, because this may end up costing you more than just money in the long run. If you would like to learn more, please contact Kompani Group at (786) 594-0435 for a free consultation.
The value of a strong brand is indisputable and often accounts for at least 50 percent of the total market valuation
While being remembered is essential, it is becoming harder every day. A strong brand stands out in a densely crowded marketplace. Translating the brand into action has become an employee mantra. There is substantial evidence that companies whose employees understand and embrace the brand are more successful. What began as corporate culture under the auspices of human resources is fast becoming branding, and the marketing department runs the show.
At Kompani Group we believe in empowerment. Whether it is our clients or our own team, we view it the same way. We always strive to arm all of our stakeholders with the best tools and the best information. As B2B marketing evolves at break-neck speed it becomes increasingly evident that CMO’s are buying into this philosophy. The game is not about jazzy ads, but about delivering meaningful information to the marketplace. Our good friends at Desantis Breindel have written a spot-on white paper on this topic. In keeping with their philosophy that “content is the gift that keeps on giving,” we are sharing it with you.
The economic strains are causing your end-users to trade down, resulting in that the mid-tier and premium brands are losing share to low-price rivals. You face a classic strategic conundrum: Do you tackle the threat head-on by reducing prices, knowing that will destroy profits in the short term and brand equity in the long term? Or do you hold the line, hope for better times to return, and in the meantime lose customers who might never come back? Given how unpalatable both of those alternatives are, you now must make a decision of how to combat manufacturers and distributors of lower priced and inferior products, to avoid losing additional market share and eroding margins.
There are four ways to battle your competition. 1) Launching a true fighter brand, 2) Launching an endorsed sub-brand, 3) Launching a co-driver sub-brand or, 4) Launching a driver sub-brand
Driver sub-brand
Definition:
The parent brand retains its primary influence as a driver, and the sub-brand can act as a descriptor-a word or phrase that tells end-users that the company is offering a slight variation on the same product or service they have come to know.
Note: Of the three types of relationships, a driver brand with a descriptor sub-brand is the most risky. The parent brand is vulnerable to cannibalization because very little distinguishes one brand from the other. The risk of cannibalization is greatest when a descriptor signifies merely a lower-quality offering. The risk is minimized when the descriptor signals a different application.
Examples:
Mercedes provides a good illustration of a driver brand that has successfully accessed a downscale market with a descriptor sub-brand. In the early 1980s, Mercedes introduced that is now it’s C Class, a small car to compete with the BMW 3 series, as well as with Acura and Lexus.
Now priced around $30,000, the line sells nearly 30,000 cars annually in the United States (around one-third of all Mercedes sales in the United States).
How could a brand that has historically been identified with prestige and that offers a car selling for more than $100,000 pull off this kind of downscale move?
First, Mercedes delivered a quality product.
Second, the C Class introduction was accompanied by an intensive effort to reposition the core brand’s message from prestige to performance.
Third, marketing for the C class aggressively targeted young buyers. The C Class name creates a distinction that allows the sub-brand to attract a slightly different consumer, but it does not drive that consumer’s decision to buy the car. The Mercedes brand retains that power.
Celeron – B to B (Intel) 1997
To combat AMD’s $260.00 K6 processor chip, and to avoid having to lower prices on its Pentium processor, Intel launched a sub-brand dubbed Celeron.
Despite a couple of early pricing mistakes and mishaps in expectations management, Intel succeed in combating and keeping AMD from creating a strong foothold in the low-end market. With a share of 80% of the overall processor market and their ability to roll out new processors frequently, Intel proved to be a testament to both the power of fighter brands to open up lower-tier market opportunities and their unequaled ability to keep competitors at bay.
Note: The EU have recently been successful in winning a ruling against Intel regarding antitrust issues and pricing manipulation resulting in a fine of $1.5 billion dollars. We wonder whether the costs of the now 5 year old lawsuit brought by AMD, the fine and the distractions for Intel’s senior management team, would justify the launch of another Celeron value sub-brand when you already have more than 80 percent of the total market share.
We have always thought that most companies are missing the boat in terms of how much their brands are really worth, because they don’t understand how much a small investment in their brand quickly multiplies the perceived value when going public or when attracting growth capital. In most cases a small investment in their brands immediately translates into a competitive edge for products sold off/on the shelf or on the web.
Since all businesses have a number of case studies that are relevant to their target audience, we suggest that you establish a CSS style web site, with a blog and content management backend where posting a new page or new blog is as easy as writing a word document or an e-mail. If you take a closer look at your competition, you will also realize that they aren’t effectively using the social media and other means of SEO friendly web sites, which in turn will send you scores of inquiries from new prospects.
Building a well designed and professional site, writing content and educating you on how to maintain or update the site is fairly inexpensive, and can be done for about $7,500 – $10,000.
Even though our own site www.KompaniGroup.com and www.ActiveServe.com are more complex than what you may need, they represent the web 2.0 CSS type of web site we are talking about. Both of these sites are receiving new hits and leads every week, mainly because they both are optimized for SEO and because we are active in posting blogs.
This is the second of 4 posts about how to combat manufactures and distributors of inferior products that are being reverse engineered and produced in China and sold at much lower prices to your existing clients. You are losing market share fast, and it is time to do something about it.
The economic strains are causing your end-users to trade down, resulting in that the mid-tier and premium brands are losing share to low-price rivals. You face a classic strategic conundrum: Do you tackle the threat head-on by reducing prices, knowing that will destroy profits in the short term and brand equity in the long term? Or do you hold the line, hope for better times to return, and in the meantime lose customers who might never come back? Given how unpalatable both of those alternatives are, you now must make a decision of how to combat manufacturers and distributors of lower priced and inferior products, to avoid losing additional market share and eroding margins.
There are four ways to battle your competition. 1) Launching a true fighter brand, 2) Launching an endorsed sub-brand, 3) Launching a co-driver sub-brand or, 4) Launching a driver sub-brand
Option Two – Endorsed Sub-Brand
Definition:
A sub-brand is a brand with its own name that uses the name of its parent brand in some capacity to bolster equity.
In the case of downscale offerings, the role of sub-brands is to help managers differentiate new offerings from the parent brand while using the parent’s equity to influence consumers.
The idea is both to maintain the parent’s credibility and prestige regardless of how the sub-brand performs and to protect the original brand from cannibalization.
Endorser
Definition: The parent brand acts as the endorser of the sub-brand. In this case, the sub-brand is the more dominant of the two, and drives end-users’ decisions to purchase the product as well as their perceptions of the experience of using the product.
When a company offers an endorsed sub-brand, there are three brands at work. The parent brand itself is split into two: a product brand and an organizational brand. The product brand remains as it was, a premium brand delivering a certain image and associated benefits.
The endorser strategy provides an excellent chance to minimize damage and reduce the threat of cannibalization to the parent brand. Keep in mind that all three brands need to be managed actively.
Examples:
Sabre B to C (John Deere)
John Deere’s foray into value lawn tractors provides a good illustration of an endorser relationship. John Deere was well known for making a lawn tractor that sold for approximately $2,000 through full-service specialty dealers.
Although the manufacturer was still able to command that price in the specialty market, volume retailers such as Sears and Home Depot had begun to serve a growing portion (around 30%) of that market, selling products at half John Deere’s prices.
So the company introduced an endorsed sub-brand for the value retailers: a low-cost tractor, Sabre from John Deere, that featured an inexpensive design and a different color and feel that John Deere’s other products
Medalist B to B (Hobart)
The Hobart Company, which makes an industrial-grade mixer for use in bakeries and restaurants.
Managers decided to create an inexpensive mixer for us in commercial and industrial kitchens to compete with offshore entries without damaging its flagship “gold standard” Hobart mixer line.
In 1996 the company introduced Medalist from the Hobart Company. Medalist mixers were lighter than Hobart mixers.
In addition, they were made with less costly materials and construction processes; and they had a color and logo distinct from those of the flagship Hobart.
In this example, The Hobart Company, has become an organizational brand that endorses the sub-brand, Medalist. Medalist itself is a new product brand. Thus the parent brand, Hobart, is separated from the sub-brand, Medalist, by the organizational brand, The Hobart Company.
For the 2009 American Le Mans Series, Louis Moinet became the official timepiece for the racing team Primetime Race Group’s #11 Dodge Viper. The racing team entered its second full season in the American Le Mans Series with owner and driver Joel Feinberg and his teammate Chris Hall at the wheel. The car it the only Dodge Viper Competition Coupe in the Grand Touring (GT2) class of the competition. Visit www.primetimeracegroup.comfor additional schedule on upcoming races. Louis Moinet timepieces have been worn by distinctive figures the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Napoleon and King George IV. The company limts its production to only a thousand watches every year, ensuring its exclusivity.
Kompani Group is proud to announce that we have added Primetime Race Group and Joel Feinberg to our client roster.
Most will find Joel to be a young, athletic, handsome man with a with a passion for success which is most certainly enviable if not contagious. Some might view him as quiet, shy, possibly aloof. But once he begins to open up about his life, you quickly find a more passionate and enthusiastic entrepreneur. Joel is what some refer to as a modern day “mover and shaker.”
Coming out of high school, Joel decided to embark on a career playing golf professionally. After six years on the circuit, he hung up his clubs to give significant time and energy to various business endeavors including Capital Real Estate Group, followed by the startup of SPORTS TALK 790 AM – THE TICKET, Primetime Media Group and Primetime Race Group.
Joel took on mountain biking, becoming a nationally ranked cross-country biker. Rising to the pinnacle of the sport Joel competed in what was known as, “The toughest mountain bike race on the planet,” a three day, three hundred mile race through the mountains and rainforest of Costa Rica. Joel also played ice hockey on a men’s league based in South Florida.
Primetime Race Group is Joel’s most recent business venture, a Florida based company specializing in professional motorsports as well as sports marketing. Primetime currently campaigns a Dodge Viper in the GT2 class of the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) which is the most prominent road race series in North America and an Elan DP02 in the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) Lites Series, a support series to the ALMS. With 10 trips to the IMSA Lites podium, 11 top 5 finishes in 2008, and 2 first and 3 other podium finishes through June of 2009 it is clear to see that Primetime is a top contender.
Joel’s passion for winning has become the foundation of his success!
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