The brandgym blog

How to be innovative at 236 years old: Veuve Clicquot

I love what champagne brand Veuve Clicquot have done to rejuvenate their brand over the last 7 years, under the leadership of CEO Cecile Bonnefond. Its a fantastic example of growing the core. All of Bonnefond's ideas are focused on selling more champagne, not stretching off into wierd and wacky brand extensions.

Bonnefond captures perfectly the challenge of balancing the need to change with a respect of the brand's history and what made it famous: "I see my job as really managing a paradox. With Veuve Clicquot, you have history, but we also want to be the most edgy, modern, audacious, 'in' name in Champagne."

I posted previously on the brilliant outer box that turns into an ice bucket (bloody brilliant, and it works!) and the limited edition Andre Putnam edition. Here are a couple of other ones:

1. Riva Collection: what an inspired bit of co-branding! This collection of accessories for the top-of-the-range Grande Damme champagne has been done with Riva, the luxury speed boat builders. What's great about this is that the craftsmanship of Riva has been used to create objects that make consuming the champagne even more enjoyable, not just a series of random lifestye accessories.

So, you have what has to be the most amazing ice bucket ever, and a simply superb "cruiser bag" to transport your champagne bottle and flutes in. I also admire the attention to detail on the website text, which is pure poetry: "The pure lines of the sophisticated cruiser bag are a reminder of the yacht that inspired its creation: black lacquer with mahogany inlay, chrome detailing and leather trim".


2. Clicquot on the go: for the mainstream Yellow Label product, the brand has launched a series of accessories under the heading "on the go". These include a neoprene "jacket" to keep your champers cold for the picnic. The City Traveller goes further with a carrying case for a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and 2 champagne flutes. This is a truly inspired example of growing the core:
- encourages consumption on new occasions
- great creator of buzz and incentive to buy in the the all important duty free channel
- brilliant, bright yellow branding when used out and about!

Parent company LVMH don't break out sales by brand in their champagne and wine division, but according to Bobnnefond, Veuve Clicquot has played a key role in driving division sales ip 7% in 2007.

So, raise your glasses to Cecile and her team!

Mickey D's makeover makes a million

Working recently on brand vision projects for big service brands (Tesco and RSA insurance) has reinforced just how big a challenge it is to work in marketing leadership role in such a business. Its one thing to talk about being a "brand-led business", and change the whole customer experience, not just the advertising. But trying to do this is something else. It requires an ability to influence the whole business, and stamina to stay in the job several years to make the long-term change happen.

One such service business that has successfully revamped the customer experience is McDonald's. Its a great example of growing the core business. Just look at the business results since they implemented their Plan to Win in 2004:
- Stock price has more than tripled since 2003
- 40 straight months of positive worldwide sales increases
- Double-digit increases in earnings per share for the past three years

An interview with UK Marketing Director Jill McDonald (brand-led naming!) in the latest Market Leader sheds some light on what drove these impressive results:

1. Store revolution: Have you seen a McDonald's lately? They have been transforming the UK store design since 2006, and my local one got the treatment this month. It has more vibrant colours and less aggressive red. It does actually look quite nice.

As McDonald comments, "The new-look restaurants are so visible, and symbolised that something's changed. It's still McDonald's, but it looks different - more modern, and fresher"

2. Focus on the core: CEO Steve Easterbrook led the process of re-building belief in the core burger business, and ensuring this was delivered with excellence. Also, core products were upgraded to make them less unhealthy. For example, salt was cut by 24% in fries and by 30% in Chicken McNuggets.

3. Operational effectiveness: there was a massive investment in kitchen equipment to allow improved cooking of food, including healthier chicken-based meals

4. Healthy options: the core is burgers, but healthy options like fruit bags and carrot sticks have been added. And before you poo-poo these as window dressing, check out the sales data that McDonald quotes: since launch five years ago they sold 30 million fuit bags.

5. Democratising ground coffee: McDonald's has created a whole new revenue stream by offering fresh ground coffee at competitive prices, offering an affordable alternative to Starbucks. The coffee actually beat Starbucks in blind testing.This has increased traffic at breakfast, and also helped enhance the brand's quality image.

Time for growing the apple core

We're big fans of growing the core. And we think that more and more companies will be trying to figure out how to do this over the coming months, given the tough economic times we face.

An interesting article on Yahoo! by Arik Hesseldahl suggests that Apple is one such company who could benefit from this approach. He says: "With the economy heading into certain trouble, consumers are more concerned about lowering the balances on their credit cards than on maxing them out on new stuff."

Rather than seeking to create another world-changing product breakthrough a la iPod, iTunes or iPhone, Arik suggests that "Apple and its customers would be well-served if the company concentrates on making everything better, faster, and cheaper."

Ideas on how Apple could do this include:

1.Build penetration: Apple still only has 8.5% of the U.S. PC market. Growing this to 10% would boost sales by 18%. Arik proposes doing this by adding new and improved features and functionality to both hardware and software, increasing appeal to new customers and keeping existing users happier longer.

2. Geographic expansion: Arik recommends using the iPhone as a "beachhead" to introduce its brand into new markets where Apple is not strong, such as China and Russia. This is a smart idea, as the experience in Europe and the US shows that the iPhone is that rare beast: a product extension that genuinely has a positive "halo" effect on sales of other products in the range. 

3. More usage from existing products: An example of this is the recent upgrade to iTunes. The "Genius" feature: when you click on a single song it automatically creates a playlist of similar music in your collection, and suggests other songs to buy from the iTunes store.

This is all still innovation. But its innovation with a little "i", not a big "I". Its less sexy, but a great way to create profitable growth, especially in the current hard times ahead.

Thinking out of the Sky box

Nice example of growing the core from Sky, the digital TV people. Their banner ad for designer Sky boxes got me to click through to their site, which is a rare event.

They have launched a limited edition set of 5 different Sky boxes. I think this is clever for a few reasons:

1. It reflects insight into the way people want objects in their homes to be well designed, and "talkable". Gone are the days of boring grey boxes being enough.

2. A nice box won't be enough to make people buy a Sky subscription. But, it might be the little extra special touch that pushes someone on the verge of buying over the edge

3. Its free! Apart from the cost of getting the designs done, the cost is minimal

4. It creates a bit of cut through in a category that for 99% of the time talks about only price

5. It potentially creates a new purchase occasion of gifting

Kit-Kat's clever "packvertising"

I posted last week on how Axe/Lynx had grown their core business by better promoting usage of their body spray: "spray more, get more". Here is another good example from Kit-Kat of better promoting your core product, this time by making more use of packaging. I call it "packvertising".

On the back of the packs you find a little cartoon with a suggestion on how to use a Kit-Kat. One says "The Scoop" and suggests using a Kit-Kat finger to scoop ice cream. Another is called "Kool Break" and suggests putting your Kit-Kat in the fridge.

What a smart use of packaging as an free advertising medium to drive extra usage through new occasions. And my guess is it also involved consumer insight work to uncover the ways that consumers had invented to use the product.

What are you doing with the millions of free GRPs on your packaging?

My favourite brand growth story - Axe/Lynx

This is the last story to catch up for the WTS? book. And its my fave story of brand growth...

Anyone can grow a business by launching a new product or service, at least in the short-term. After all, there is what Jane in WTS? calls "the gift from the God of Marketing called 'pipe-line fill'": this is the sales you get from stuffing the supermarket shelves full of product when you launch something new. It gives you good early sales results.

However, what about growing the brand when you can change nothing. Nada. No new products. No change to the packaging. All you can do is better "activate" what you have. Now, that needs creativity.

The Axe/Lynx story comes from Latin America. The team saw that consumption per capita in one market (Argentina) was much higher than another (Brazil). When they dug into this, the reason seemed to be young guys spraying their whole body, not just under their arms. This led to a campaign called "Spray More, Get More" which encouraged all-over usage with the promise of, er, more sex.

The brilliant ad has a bloke spraying Lynx/Axe on the coatstand, and his girlfriend pole dancing round it as a result. He then sprays it down his chest towards his, er, private parts. And the girl follows.

This built the business quite significantly, making the core business stronger. Much better quality growth than that from adding new products.

Some inspiration from this:
- Make sure every brief for communication starts with a business issue
- Specifically, What are the opportunities to increase consumption, or get new users?
- And what are the "triggers" that will drive these changes in consumption?
- Then, find an impactful and entertaining way to deliver this message