Building and evolving brands in this fragmented age can be daunting. It is necessary because our marketing targets age and the brand benefits grow stale. It is difficult because it requires balance. Stretch the brand to better align with faster growing targets and emerging benefits and we can engage new consumers. Stretch the brand too far and we violate the essence of the brand, and alienate core consumers. Having a richer understanding of the brand architecture in the competitive context, and what elements can be leveraged – will have impact in the market and offer the opportunity to differentiate – is step one. Linking these leverageable brand elements to micro targets and their media is the second challenge.

The picture on the left is the primary target, interested in purposeful health, and multiple media are used.

The picture on the right is a secondary target, interested in purposeful health, but delivered in a very natural way, and there is dedicated digital media. 

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In some cases, re-launching or re-positioning a brand can yield significant benefits. If two client brands compete with and cannibalize each other, moving one brand to another segment of the market may reduce steal and benefit the bottom line. In other instances, re-launching or re-positioning may be justified for portfolio reasons. It may be more cost effective to re-launch an existing brand into a faster growing segment of the market, than it is to launch a new product. In both cases, the key to success is to understand the brand profiles for competing brands in the different market segments, and to understand which elements of the brand profile are most profitable to leverage.