Brand life cycle is undergoing a drastic change, since brands are faced with interesting paradoxes. Products are lasting longer and the time in which they are being outmoded is growing shorter. Thus brands are wanting to capitalize on the initial bang which leads to faster fatigue & obsoleteness. To negate this, it is important that we revitalize brands through revolutionary changes, not evolutionary changes. Is your brand ready for a Spa treatment?

1. Brands
need spas
too
Exploring
brand revitalization
across categories

2. “Buildings age and become dilapidated. Machines wear out. People die.
But what live on are the brands.”
Sir Hector Laing, CEO, United Biscuits, UK

3. Why are brand ageing faster today?
Brands are like human beings in a lot of ways. In many
customer researches, a common question is “If this
brand were a person, who would it be?”
Customers are always able to personify the brand with
such detail that you could clearly visualize him/her

4. Why are brand ageing faster today?
Apart from having a personality link, brands behave
like human beings even when it comes to their
lifecycles.
Much like people, brands are born, they
grow, and they mature, go through a decline phase
and eventually die.
Re-birth of brands is the key to success today.

5. Human lifecycle is getting accelerated?
Used to be, we merely wished to become younger or postpone old age.

7. Guess what?
Brands are going through
the same seismic shifts.

8. Brands are mere dominos,
deeply affected by these cultural shifts.

9. More often than not,
brands react in a knee-jerk fashion.
With promotions and price undercuts.
And too much attention to short-term metrics.

10. Shortening the product lifecycle…
• The PLC curve is steeper than ever before indicating that
an increasingly large proportion of sales occur soon after
the introduction of the product
• A narrow window of opportunity exists to earn profits on a
new product before competition catches up and margins
begin to shrink
• Companies cannot afford to miss out on the initial bang,
and stock-out becomes an expensive proposition
• Marketers are faced with an interesting paradox
– Products are lasting longer; the time in which they are being
outmoded is growing shorter
Life cycle in its purest form, does not exist

11. The Changing Product Life Cycle
Traditional S-Curve
The “New” S-Curve

12. The question is:
How can brands make
the product life cycle theory irrelevant?
What strategies are available
for us to revitalize brands?

13. #1. Reinvent to become a contemporary classic

14. #2. Take on multiple avatars to cater to shorter attention spans
One brand, many lives Develop future versions to restart lifecycle
Design for a shorter life (Apple)

15. #3. Be different things to different people. Or to the same person.
Keeping creating “new” news
Sometimes useful to make your own product obsolete before competition

16. Brand X
#4. The Bowling Alley strategy: Pick up different market segments one at a time
Different brand lifecycles for different target segments
Build critical mass and focus resources

17. #5. Reinvent to make the competition obsolete

18. #6. Engage in
conversation and
creation
Buzz marketing
Co-creation
Social marketing
Experimentational budget

19. The key lesson in all this is that brand
vitalization calls for revolutionary
changes, not evolutionary changes.

20. A brand vitalization scorecard
• Can you say yes to at least 3 of the following 5 questions?
– It has always been moderate or premium-priced (never discounted).
– It has been under-advertised / under-promoted.
– It has a strong, wide distribution network.
– It has a long-held heritage.
– It has a distinct point of differentiation.
If you did say yes to at least 3 of the above, then your brand is ready
for vitalization.