Sound decisions are not based on gut feeling, intuition, or even pure judgment. It is because of this responsibility to good thought that ImagePatrol will post  studies that support or discourage positions within the marketplace.

We make numerous strategic and tactical decisions in the process of identifying and satisfying customer needs.  These decisions are complicated. Research helps remove some of the uncertainty by providing relevant information about the marketing variables, environment, and consumers.

When a brand goes into decline or a company purchases another company, older legacy brands often get lost or neglected, even when there is value and bankable goodwill. While some names are worth killing off, there is enormous value in many older legacy brands.

What is a company to do if they are faced with a legacy brand that is declining? What if they have a duplicate brand (Northwest and Delta) as a result of a merger?

Here are some tips:

1. Keep the old name. When a business buys another business, make every effort to keep the old name, using it anywhere that fits. Turn the old brand into a sub-brand, or non-consumer operating unit, preserving the brand equity in a legal sense. Do license it, but don’t license it on anything and everything. That’s called naked licensing, and it won’t in a legal sense to preserve the brand for you.

2. Turn it into a niche product. If you have a declining brand, scale back advertising and market it as a niche product. Niche products require no advertising, and carry high margins. Niche products, even if just barely breaking even, help hold market share. Use an old brand like a test lab that pays for itself. License it. Extend it. Have fun with it. Think Tab cola. Strange women in Kansas will buy it, we guess Anderson Cooper’s mom buys it, and hot sorority chicks in Atlanta will buy it, and all will pay $4.99 a six pack for it, no coupons. You will never have to worry about a sale or ad budget. They just sell. Proctor & Gamble licensed the production and marketing of Noxema Shave Cream to an outside company while it kept the main Noxema name for itself.

3. Keep a brand name alive any way you can. A brand is valued on a balance sheet as goodwill. If a brand is screwed up, you can close stores, or rethink. But whatever you do, keep the brand alive. Because if it is determined that there was another opportunity with the brand, you don’t want to be the one that hocked the family silver and lost the rights to the trademark. In families, siblings get angry about that. In publicly traded companies, raiders, accountants and attorneys get a bit pesky about losing assets.

4. License it. Chrysler keeps the AMC and Pacer brands alive by licensing them for remote control toys. Not a big market, but if 20 years from now, everyone decides they want an AMC or Pacer, you’re in business. Sell some T-shirts. Give away some mugs at trade shows. ANYTHING to keep the name in business and viable so it is not lost. Or even sell off the brand.

5. Time heals. Stupid brand names get less stupid with time. Scandals are forgotten. Stick with it for a long time, and folks will get used to it, even if it looks like a logo for Spacely Sprockets. While we’re all for great logos designed by great graphic artists, you want consistency.

6. Always make good products. The quality of the product trumps the price. In addition, the quality of the product also trumps the design. If it is good, it will sell.

7. Company brands are as important as product brands. Many products look strange without the master company brand. Life (the game), while made by Hasbro, has the Milton Bradley logo on boxes. Nabisco is a “Master” brand that “rules” its sub-brands, that include Triscuit, Chips Ahoy, Ritz, Uneeda, Fig Newton. Do not use a brand on its own, without a master brand. Once there was Ritz brand, made by Nabisco brand bakery, made by Nabisco company, that is no more. Now there is Ritz brand, of Nabisco Bakery, owned by Kraft. Kraft appears in small text on the back of the box. There is room for all brands. But don’t sell Ritz without the Nabisco, even if Kraft changes and some hedge fund comes through. It won’t work.

8. Keep old versions of the logo around. If there are tweaks and changes to the logo, don’t make all of your dealers change all the logos on small buildings. A bit of narrative is good. Cookie eaters are smart enough to understand that design evolves, and to have slightly different versions of the design around helps consumers know that the brand has been around for a long time and has the strength of history. Plus all the time enforcing brand standards on little guys or small offices sends the wrong message. It’s a freaking waste of time, this whole process of rooting out old stationary with the “old look” for some anal “consistency” program dreamed up in some not very good branding office in a faraway place. Any bank teller will laugh in the face of the sign guy, who comes through every year to change the brand with new signs.

9. Involve the founding family. If you want to legitimize a brand that has gone dormant and make it real again, involve someone from the founding family to participate. For instance, when Macy’s finally wakes up and revives the Marshall Field’s brand, it can gain extra attention by making the announcement, with the family, at the Field Museum, not at the State Street Store. This will indicate to patrons that Macy’s understands the role of the family’s philanthropy, and city of Chicago, as a primary part of the importance of the brand name.

10. Geography is important. Part of building the history of a brand is the story behind it. A brand must be rooted in a place (Life Savers=Chicago, Marlboro=Richmond, Camden=Campbell’s, Kellogg’s=Battle Creek). Even if a factory must move, keep a presence in the original location. But in reality, all this crap about moving production overseas has done nothing to help American brand names, and only tarnished their reputations.

From the Small Business Administration

This checklist is designed to help you get started. It has seven key components:

• Identify Your Reasons
• Self Analysis
• Personal Skills and Experience
• Finding a Niche
• Market Analysis
• Planning Your Startup; and
• Finances

Each component is comprehensive and is designed to prepare you for self employment. In addition, each component includes an analysis of you responses as well as a menu of supporting resources.

1. IDENTIFY YOUR REASONS
As a first and often overlooked step, ask yourself why you want to own your own business. Check the reasons that apply to you.

• Freedom from the 9-5 daily work routine
• Being your own boss
• Doing what you want when you want to do it
• Improving your standard of living
• Boredom with your present job
• Having a product or service for which you feel there is a demand
Analysis:

Some reasons are better than others, none are wrong; however, be aware that there are tradeoffs. For example, you can escape the 9-5 daily routine, but you may replace it with a 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

2. A SELF-ANALYSIS

Personal Characteristics
• Are you a leader?
• Do you like to make your own decisions?
• Do others turn to you for help in making decisions?
• Do you enjoy competition?
• Do you have will power and self discipline?
• Do you plan ahead?
• Do you like people?
• Do you get along well with others?
Personal Conditions
• Are you aware that running your own business may require working 12-16 hours a day six days a week and maybe even Sundays and holidays?
• Do you have the physical stamina to handle the workload and schedule?
• Do you have the emotional strength to withstand the strain?
• Are you prepared if needed to temporarily lower your standard of living until your business is firmly established?
• Is your family prepared to go along with the strains they too must bear?
• Are you prepared to lose your savings?
wning a business is the dream of many Americans … starting that business converts your dreams into reality. However, there is a gap between dreams and reality. Your dreams can only be achieved with careful planning. As an entrepreneur, you will need a plan to avoid pitfalls, to achieve your goals, and to build a profitable business.

3. PERSONAL SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
* Do you know what basic skills you will need in order to have a successful business?
* Do you possess those skills?
* When hiring personnel will you be able to determine if the applicants’ skills meet the requirements for the positions you are filling?
* Have you ever worked in a managerial or supervisory capacity?
* Have you ever worked in a business similar to the one you want to start?
* Have you had any business training in school?
* If you discover you don’t have the basic skills needed for your business will you be willing to delay your plans until you’ve acquired the necessary skills?
Analysis

Certain skills and experience are critical to the success of a business. Since it is unlikely that you possess all the skills and experience needed you’ll need to hire personnel to supply those you lack. There are some basic and special skills you will need for your particular business.

The questions you responded to are designed to identify the skills you possess and those you lack.

4. FINDING A NICHE — Is Your Idea Feasible?
• Identify and briefly describe the business you plan to start.
• Identify the product or service you plan to sell.
• Does your product or service satisfy an unfilled need?
• Will your product or service serve an existing market in which demand exceeds supply?
• Will your product or service be competitive based on its quality, selection, price or location?

5. MARKET ANALYSIS
• Do you know who your customers will be?
• Do you understand their needs and desires?
• Do you know where they live?
• Will you be offering the kind of products or services that they will buy?
• Will your prices be competitive in quality and value?
• Will your promotional program be effective?
• Do you understand how your business compares with your competitors?
• Will your business be conveniently located for the people you plan to serve?
• Will there be adequate parking facilities for the people you plan to serve?

6. PLANNING YOUR START-UP

So far this checklist has helped you identify questions and problems you will face converting your idea into reality and determining if your idea is feasible. Through self-analysis you have learned of your personal qualifications and deficiencies and through market analysis you have learned if there is a demand for your product or service.

The following questions are grouped according to function. They are designed to help you plan your business startup.

Name and Legal Structure
* Have you chosen a name for your business?
* Have you chosen to operate as sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation?

Your Business and the Law

A person in business is not expected to be a lawyer but each business owner should have a basic knowledge of laws affecting the business. Here are some of the legal matters you should be acquainted with:
• Do you know which licenses and permits you may need to operate your business?
• Do you know the business laws you will have to obey?
• Do you have a lawyer who can advise you and help you with legal papers?
• Are you aware of:
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requirements?
Regulations covering hazardous material?
Local ordinances covering signs snow removal etc.?
Federal Tax Code provisions pertaining to small business?
Federal regulations on withholding taxes and
Social Security?
State Workmen’s Compensation laws?
Protecting Your Business

It is becoming increasingly important that attention be given to security and insurance protection for your business.

There are several areas that should be covered. Have you examined the following categories of risk protection?
• Fire
• Theft
• Robbery
• Vandalism
• Accident Liability Business Premises and Location

Have you found a suitable building in a location convenient for your customers?
Can the building be modified for your needs at a reasonable cost?
Have you considered renting or leasing with an option to buy?
Will you have a lawyer check the zoning regulations and lease?

Merchandise

• Have you decided what items you will sell or produce or what service(s) you will provide?
• Have you made a merchandise plan based upon estimated sales to determine the amount of inventory you will need to control purchases?
• Have you found reliable suppliers who will assist you in the start-up?
• Have you compared the prices quality and credit terms of suppliers?

Business Records

•  Are you prepared to maintain complete records of sales income and expenses accounts payable and receivables?
• Have you determined how to handle payroll records tax reports and payments?
• Do you know what financial reports should be prepared and how to prepare
> them?
7. FINANCES
A large number of small businesses fail each year. There are a number of reasons for these failures but one of the main reasons is insufficient funds. Too many entrepreneurs try to start and operate a business without sufficient capital (money). To avoid this dilemma you can review your situation by analyzing these three questions:

• How much money do you have?
• How much money will you need to start your business?
• How much money will you need to stay in business?
• Use the following table (personal financial statement) to answer the first question:

Table 1  Personal Financial Statement

* ____________, 20 ___

ASSETS
• Cash on hand
• Savings account
> * Stocks, bonds, securities
> * Accounts/notes receivable
> * Real estate
> * Life insurance (cash value)
> * Automobile/other vehicles
> * Other liquid assets
* LIABILITIES
*  
> * Accounts payable
> * Notes payable
> * Contracts payable
> * Taxes
> * Real estate loans
> * Other liabilities
* Table 2 (startup costs calculator) will help you answer the second question: How much money will you need to start your business?
*
* The answer to the third question (How much money will you need to stay in business?) must be divided into two parts: immediate costs and future costs.
*  
*
* Table 2 — START-UP COST ESTIMATES
*  
> * Decorating, remodeling
> * Fixtures, equipment
> * Installing fixtures, equipment
> * Services, supplies
> * Beginning inventory cost
> * Legal, professional fees
> * Licenses, permits
> * Telephone utility deposits
> * Insurance
> * Signs
> * Advertising for opening
> * Unanticipated expenses
* From the moment the door to your new business opens a certain amount of income will undoubtedly come in. However this income should not be projected in your operating expenses. You will need enough money available to cover costs for at least the first three months of operation.
*  
*
* Table 3 (estimate of monthly expenses) will help you project your operating expenses on a monthly basis.
*  
*
* Table 3 — EXPENSES FOR ONE MONTH
*  
> * Your living costs
> * Employee wages
> * Rent
> * Advertising
> * Supplies
> * Utilities
> * Insurance
> * Taxes
> * Maintenance
> * Delivery/transportation
> * Miscellaneous

Small businesses in the US will not cut spending on most forms of online advertising in 2009, judging by a survey conducted in December 2008 by Ad-ology Research . A higher percentage of respondents said they planned to spend “about the same” in 2009 than planned to change their spending.

More small businesses said they would increase their spending on social networking than on any other format. And respondents were more likely to say they would increase spending in 2009 on e-mail and their company Websites than make cuts on those formats.

The percentage of small businesses who said they did not use various online marketing tactics was high. Well over one-third of respondents said they did not market using social networks, their own Website or even e-mail. Less than one-quarter used more tech-reliant tactics such as online video and mobile marketing.

A lot of small businesses’ marketing efforts this year will focus on lead generation, according t

o a study conducted in December 2008 by Issues and Answers for the Yellow Pages Association (YPA). More than one-half of responding small-business owners named lead generation as their greatest challenge. Nearly one out of five said lack of ad dollars was the toughest marketing problem they faced.

Many respondents said that ROI was the main way they measured success for their marketing tactics. The YPA took this as an opportunity to note its online search results and print ad ROL.

“Yellow Pages print and online listings received more than 17 billion searches in 2007 from consumers ready to make purchases,” said Neg Norton, president of the YPA, in a statement.

Agencies and brands from all verticals rely on eMarketer Total Access for analysis and data.

Social-media services, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and countless other websites, have had a profound effect on how millions of Americans — especially those under 35 — interact with others (or don’t), shop and view brands. It’s a real-time digital lifestyle, powered by smartphones and netbooks, that often colors what products they purchase, how they view brands and where they spend most of their waking hours.

Marketers have noticed. Social-networking services increasingly are indispensable business tools, says Forrester Research. According to its survey of 1,217 business decision makers worldwide late last year, 95% use social networks to some extent.

And 53% of more than 300 marketers planned to increase social-media marketing spending this year, according to a Forrester presentation in April.

Some of the biggest companies — Ford, Levi Strauss and Chevron, to name a few — are reengineering marketing operations to embrace digital tools to more nimbly brand products, support customers and cash in on the social-media wave. In doing so, they are creating online communities and aggressive outreach programs, and being brutally honest in talking directly to their customers/followers/fans/friends.

“It was an easy call. This is where our customers are,” says Megan O’Connor, director of digital marketing at Levi’s. The more-than-150-year-old company last month launched a social-media program on Facebook and Twitter along with a larger “Go Forth” traditional marketing campaign. Its goal is to burnish its brand name among young men.

Grown up digital

At their core, social networks are fostering a blistering number of personal connections and chatter online. The share of Americans 18 and over online who use a social-networking service more than quadrupled to 35% in 2008 from 8% in 2005, according to Pew Internet & American Life Project.

“It’s the modern-day version of knitting — to kill downtime,” says Kaitlin Villanova, 26, a social-media strategist in Brooklyn who is an avid iPhone user. “I use social networking to communicate, bank, comparison shop, everything.”

Facebook is up to 250 million members, 50 million of whom joined in the past three months. In April, they spent 13.9 billion minutes on Facebook, up 700% from April 2008, says Nielsen NetView.

More than 300,000 businesses — one-third of them small businesses — have a presence on Facebook. Members of its fastest-growing demographic — those 35 and older — have enormous purchasing power, a powerful incentive to marketers.

Twitter has about 40 million users who each day produce a staggering amount of tweets, Twitter’s quaint word to describe short messages. Its users spent nearly 300 million minutes on the site in April, 3,712% more than in April 2008, Nielsen says. Increasingly, consumers don’t search for products and services. Rather, services come to their attention via social media, says Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics, a new book that explains how social media have changed how companies do business.

Social-networking-savvy businesses have appointed social-media directors to help: Look to ImagePatrol for help here.

• Add customers quickly. When software maker Intuit built a site for small businesses in late January, it integrated elements of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/LinkedIn> , the social network for business professionals. After 12 weeks, it generated more than 1 million visits and helped spike QuickBooks unit shipments 57% in June, year-over-year. “Social (media) is one of the key trends driving our business,” says Kira Wampler, social-media marketing leader at Intuit. “It’s more than pure marketing. It’s about fast connections with customers and building an ongoing relationship.”

National pizza chain Papa John <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Papa+John%27s+Pizza> ’s added 148,000 fans on Nov. 17 through a guerrilla marketing campaign on Facebook. It offered a free medium pizza to anyone who signed up to be its fan on Facebook. The promotion gained it thousands of customers and drove its Web traffic up 253%. It now has more than 300,000 fans and hopes to top 1 million by the end of the year.

• Word-of-mouth marketing. Sometimes a company’s best advocates are its customers. Just ask Best Buy <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Companies/Retail/Best+Buy>  and MyFICO, the consumer division of Fair Isaac <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Fair+Isaac> , which invented the FICO credit-risk score used by lenders. They’ve built specialized online communities where their customers freely evaluate products and services.

Those who visit MyFICO’s community website are spending 41% more than other customers, says Lyle Fong, CEO of software Lithium, which helps build online communities for more than 150 companies, including MyFICO.

•Enhance customer service. For more than a year, Comcast <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Companies/Publishers,+Media,+Music/Comcast>  has pioneered the use of Twitter to talk directly to customers. Its Twitter page,  @comcastcares , has 28,000 followers.

Comcast’s blueprint for unfettered customer support — no more waiting on hold on the phone — fomented a movement. Software maker Sage North America, to cite another example, routinely receives instant feedback from hundreds of people within an hour on specific products and services. “It is a living, breathing, 24/7 think tank of users and employees,” says Ryan Zuk, a company spokesman.

Besides being instant, such feedback is cheap. Typically, companies have relied on third-party focus groups that let them observe the reactions of customers during a two-hour session that can cost $10,000 to $15,000, says Natalie L. Petouhoff, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Lenovo <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Lenovo+Group> has seen a 20% reduction in call-center activity in the U.S. over six months because nearly 50,000 customers go to its community website for information about laptops.

•Speak directly to customers. Blogs, Twitter or Facebook can be an ideal forum for CEOs to offer customers a candid viewpoint.

When a hack attack disabled Twitter’s service for hours this month, co-founder Biz Stone gave up-to-the-minute updates on the company’s blog.

The Carphone Warehouse <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/The+Carphone+Warehouse> , Europe’s leading independent retailer of mobile phones and services, has a simple credo: It says, “I’m sorry” when necessary on its Twitter page for customer support.

“There is no gap between the CEO and customer. They now talk directly to each other,” says Promise Phelon, CEO of UpMo, a career-management website. “The network is so connected, there’s no need for a middleman.”

“These customers want honesty, and quickly,” says Shiv Singh, who wrote a report on social-media marketing for ad agency Razorfish.

Challenges ahead But with rewards come risks.

Reaching out to millions of consumers who thrive online around the clock requires an investment, a different type of thinking and some courage, says Petouhoff. She spent six months on a just-released report on monetization of social-media tools at 20 companies, including Lenovo and Intuit.

Many companies — reflecting the general public’s sentiment toward social media — fall into two camps: Those who embrace it and those who eschew it. “Those that don’t know how to get their arms around it seem to be held back by worrying about the legal implications of customers helping customers, and about being too honest with customers,” Petouhoff says.

Most corporations are still wedded to a traditional marketing approach, based on TV, radio and print ads, says Charlene Li, partner at technology consulting firm Altimeter Group. “Ford and Levi’s are at the avant-garde of social-media use, but they are not typical,” she says.

A social-media plan is hardly a guarantee of success, Li and others say. While some companies — especially market leaders such as Starbucks <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Companies/Food+and+beverage,+Agriculture,+Chemical/Starbucks+Corp> and Nike with consumer products — are predisposed to the medium, others aren’t. Tightly regulated health care providers, for example, may think twice about making the public’s comments readily available on Facebook or Twitter.

“Social media is not the messiah,” says Michael Brito, social-media strategist at Intel <http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Intel+Corporation> . “It is one of several tools.”

Still, a growing number of marketers can’t afford to ignore millions of potential customers who are consuming media in new ways.

Three-fourths of men ages 18 to 34 say they spend most of their time in front of a computer screen vs. 18% in front of a TV screen, according to a survey of 50,000 by AskMen.com, a lifestyle website. Those who don’t have a social-media plan don’t at their own risk, say marketing experts.

“Companies have no choice. This is where their customers are going,” says Shel Israel, author of the forthcoming Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods.

If you were to ask every manager on Earth to list their five least favorite managerial activities, all of them would include “putting out fires” on their list. We all know what it’s like to have to put out a fire – a fire starts when somebody screws up and suddenly your project is in jeopardy. You, being the person in charge, inevitably have to swoop in and put the fire out, and putting it out requires a lot of last minute scrambling, long nights, weekends in the office, and plenty of stress.

Fires occur because of poor communication Perhaps someone doesn’t understand why what they’re doing is important or who is actually responsible for what. But somewhere along the way some part of a major project or assignment falls apart and you, the manager, are the lucky one who gets to put it back together. It gets worse: bad communication is endemic, so you’re going to be putting out lots of fires. You move from crisis to crisis, fixing care of one urgent, mission-critical screw-up after another. You’re stressed, you have too much to do, you can’t go home early, it becomes harder to schedule vacations, and on and on. But wait a minute – we identified the disease responsible for creating crises: bad communication. Rather than treat the symptoms of bad communication, the fires, why don’t you start treating the disease of bad communication?

How can you communicate in a manner that makes your specifications absolutely clear and easy for your co-workers to remember? A Better Way to Communicate How can we communicate both clearly and memorably? Do we simply repeat ourselves more? Communicate slower? No. Instead, we should communicate visually. We’ve all heard the expression “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and it’s true – what takes one thousand words to explain correctly can be described much more easily using a simple picture. Not only is it easier to communicate something using a picture, but it’s also much easier for people to remember things that have been communicated to them visually. Psychologist Jerome Bruner of New York University has studied the art of communication, and his studies have shown that:

People remember 10% of what they hear; 20% of what they read; and 80% of what they see and do. ImagePatrol is all about image.

Most people are visual learners; a recent study by the U.S. Federal Government suggested that up to 83% of human learning occurs visually. The study also indicated that information which is communicated visually is retained up to six times greater than information which is communicated by spoken word alone. Manager’s problems can’t resolve their miscommunication problems with their teams by merely speaking more or writing more – you can’t scale failure into success. Instead, we should augment what we’ve been trying to say with pictures. It’s that simple.

Despite billions spent on marketing and branding every year, most companies  have commoditized their product and service brands, according to a new brand trends study , “The Commoditization  of Brands and Its Implications for Marketers,” by Copernicus Marketing  Consulting.

None of the 51 product and service categories analyzed in this brand  trends study are becoming more differentiated over time and  90 percent are declining in differentiation, with banks, bookstores, bottled  water, credit cards, discount stores, and fast food restaurants leading  the pack in becoming much more similar and having the least brand differentiation.  By “commoditized,” Copernicus means a company’s products and services  are amazingly similar to competitor products and services in features,  advertising, and price.

The study also found that consumers view low price as more important  than brand name in 28 out of 37 product categories, particularly when  selecting bookstores, bottled water, gas stations, office supply stores,  pet supply stores, and rental cars.

“It’s astounding to see the huge range of products and services that are  becoming commoditized,” explains Dr. Kevin J. Clancy , chairman and CEO  of Copernicus. “Consumers can’t see differences between major brands in  most categories, and as a result, many are buying based on price. If companies  want to increase their margins—maybe even survive—they must  learn how to develop value-add brands that set them apart from the competition  in their customers’ minds.” ImagePatrol can help.

Copernicus asked consumers  to rate the leading brands in each of 48 product and service categories  in terms of whether they are becoming more similar or different over time.  Copernicus translated the measures of brand differentiation into a scale  that ranged from +100 (much more similar) to -100 (much more different).  More positive scores indicated increasing similarity between brands and  a move towards commoditization. The leading brands that received the highest  similarity scores:

• 45 for Visa and Mastercard
• 40: Staples and Office Depot
• 38: Pets.com (now defunct)  and PetsMart.com
•  37: L’Oreal and Clairol

The study also asked consumers  to evaluate the brands in general in 51 product and service categories.  The categories receiving the highest similarity scores include:

• 37 for Credit Cards
• 36: Office Supply Stores
• 35: Bottled Water
• 34: Bookstores

The categories perceived as least  similar—or most differentiated—include:

• -2: Political Parties
• 3: Jewelry
• 7: Liquor

Study Methodology
Conducted among a nationally-representative sample of 615 men and women,  age 18 or older, from Market Facts’ Consumer Mail Panel, the study investigated  the performance of 51 different product and service categories in terms  of whether they are becoming more homogenous (i.e., the brands are becoming  more similar or commodity-like) or heterogeneous (i.e., differentiated)  over time.

The questionnaire used three different measures: the first asked respondents  to evaluate whether the two leading brands in a category were becoming more  similar or different; the second queried respondents about the category  as a whole; while the third focused on whether a low price vs. brand features  or benefits were becoming increasingly more important to respondents.

To receive a copy of the Copernicus brand  trends study”The Commoditization of Brands and Its Implications for  Marketers,” please send an e-mail to ami.bowen@copernicusmarketing.com.

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