Over Branding

The automotive world is a prime example of too many choices generating too many ad campaigns creating way too much confusion among consumers. Before the big bankruptcy of General Motors and Chrysler, GM shuttered its Oldsmobile brand, a product that had long since worn out its cache with consumers. When the big fall hit, GM eliminated Hummer and Pontiac as well. They couldn’t afford the overhead or the separate ad campaigns. Eliminating four brands (from eight) from the GM menu actually kicked sales up 16%.

Giving consumers too much choice can be as bad as giving them not enough. And in some cases, doing a few things exceptionally well is a perpetual home run. For example, at privately-held In-N-Out Burger, its burgers, fried, sodas and shakes… but the line for this West Coast fast food company, can stretch out the door. It’s always been this way for this wildly successful retailer that tends to generate four times the sales per shop of an average McDonald’s store, which offers multiple burgers, fries, chicken, ribs, a range of desserts, salads, breakfast variations of its basic products, etc.

Graham Button, writing for the May 23^rd FastCompany.com, tells it like it is: “There’s a point at which new product development can destroy more value than it creates. Innovation for the sake of revenue just degrades the equity that the core brand has built up. Marketers call it ‘overshooting.’ In the end, customers like you and me max out on ‘new and improved,. and we just stop buying… The average U.S. supermarket, one right down the road from you, sells as many as 50,000 products. There are 16 varieties of Tropicana Pure Premium juices alone, for example, and PepsiCo will probably up it to 30 before long. That’s over-service. We don’t need it.

“Recently, BlackBerry introduced Super Apps, apps that do what any app does, only a hair better. Here we go again. Another gold-platinum-titanium product cycle: Brands punching it out over incremental differences as if those tweaks were game changers. That’s branding a service to the customer that isn’t really a service at all; it’s just the natural evolution of things… Recently, when Procter and Gamble cut its Head and Shoulders product line from 25 to 16, profits rose 10%.” Consumers are looking for value, clarity and quality. Too many confusing choices and they just turn to a brand with simpler alternatives.

According to a recent Harris Interactive poll, 85% of those surveyed say that they would be willing to pay more in exchange for a better customer experience. There is a growing skepticism where a marginal “change” is touted as “new and improved” with some expected backlash when advertisers get too cute. How do you feel with this over-saturation of brand choices? How have your buying decisions changed as a result.

I’m Peter Dekom, and sometimes simply but good is more than enough.