Blog entry number 13 from MBA – www.mba-marketing.co.uk
Traditional marketing thinking – both theoretical and practical – has always told us that the default mode for any brand or business is to ‘act like the brand leader’. Academic texts and trade magazines alike study the actions of leading brands, and generate theory and rules for the rest of us to follow.
The reality is that acting like brand leader is an option best suited to - yes -- the brand leader. Brand leaders have the marketing metrics to ensure a disproportionately high return on marketing investment. For ‘follower’ and ‘challenger’ brands, acting like brand leader is simply unaffordable – even if ‘me too’ were a viable strategy (which is rarely is).
Instead, it is necessary to sacrifice certain activities, to over-commit to others, and generally to do things differently to the brand leader. Adam Morgan, in his classic text ‘Eating the Big Fish’, makes these points extremely well, based on a study of around 100 ‘challenger brands’ – an early example being Avis (when you’re number two, you try harder – or else’).
I was reminded of this on a recent trip to the Champagne region. Imagine you were planning to launch a new brand into the champagne market – a challenging assignment, n’est ce pas? As I know only too well from recent experience, it’s difficult enough launching any new wine product, let alone a late entrant to such an established market as champagne. So I was more than a little impressed to learn about the Mercier brand, which did just that – in the 19th century.
By the mid-19th century, the champagne market was well established and the leading brand, Moet, had been around for a century. When Eugene Mercier formed his own business – Mercier - at the age of 20, he had no advertising or marketing experts to help him. Instead, he trusted his own instincts and anticipated the lessons of Adam Morgan by a century.
For the 1889 World Exhibition held in Paris, Mercier built a 20 tonne barrel, which was towed to Paris by 24 oxen and 18 horses, taking 8 days and requiring major construction work en route. For the 1900 World Exhibition, he not only commissioned the first-ever promotional film (from Lumiére), but also organised a branded hot air balloon to take people (10,000 in all) 300 feet above the city to sample the product.
Call these publicity stunts, or (as Morgan does) ‘using publicity as a High-Leverage asset’ – either way, they worked, and Mercier became a successful business, fast. It’s hard to imagine a so-called ‘experiental marketing’ agency thinking of anything better today – although I shall otherwise avoid any obvious remarks along the lines of ‘plus ça change’. Instead, I shall act like a cheesy TV travel show host, and simply raise a glass in your general direction, accompanied by the word 'salut'.