Bite-size Case Study

How to neglect a strong brand and lose a market: three cases

Published on October 31, 2018 Originally recorded 2014   2 min
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0:04
"How do you lose a strong brand? "
0:08
Forget who you are, and follow the latest trends and fads. Pander to random customers' needs and wants. You know, the essence of positioning is sacrifice. If you try to be all things to all people, you will be nothing to anyone. Remember who you are. In your customer's mind, remember not you who you think you are, who are you in your customer's mind? Blackberry. Blackberry's great mistake. Blackberry had a wonderful position among businesses and governments. They knew exactly who they were, they knew exactly what they were, and they started to follow the trend. They decided, "Oh I guess we're going to try to look at what Apple has done. Let's follow Apple." Wrong, they were not Apple, they were Blackberry. Blackberry had a strong brand, the strongest brand in their customer's mind, and they flat out blew it.
1:07
Forget what you own in your customer's mind. You have a place, that's what your position is, it's a place in your customer's mind. Know what that is, and be true to it. Polaroid. You know Polaroid was about instant pictures, and they thought they were about the Polaroid camera. They lost their entire business, because they focused on this thing that they made, instead of understanding the position that they had in somebody's mind. Polaroid owned a position of instant photography, instant results. Take a picture. There it is. You see it. Why? If they understood that that's what it was they did, it wasn't making those funny cameras, they might not have lost their brand and their business. Sony. Equally a disaster. What Sony owned? Sony invented the Walkman. So, why in the world doesn't Sony owned everything else that happened. The iPhone. Why didn't Sony own these things? The iPod, how did the iPod happened? That should've been Sony, but Sony thought it made little tape recorders. It didn't understand what it own in its customer's mind.
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How to neglect a strong brand and lose a market: three cases

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