space2scale
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact

Relevance! or what Phillip Morris learned from Leo Burnett

11/9/2011

0 Comments

 
Everybody talks about differentiation as the silver bullet in branding: "Stand out from the pack!", "Be unique!", "When others zig, you zag!"  But there's more to the equation.  Now I’m not a fan of cigarettes…but the lesson Phillip Morris offers us in the distinction between "being different" and "being different + relevant" is too valuable to pass up.
Picture
In 1924, Phillip Morris launches the Marlboro brand as the first ladies’ cigarette. Like all women’s cigarettes, it had a filter – but Marlboro was the only brand that had "A Beauty Tip" a printed red band around its filter to hide lipstick stains.  For 29 straight years, Phillip Morris put their considerable marketing muscle behind this clearly differentiated brand…and for 29 straight years Marlboro never once reached even one percent market share.

Picture
Fast forward to 1953.  Scientists have just established that smoking tobacco causes lung cancer.  Now, male smokers need a filter cigarette.  But, instead of launching a new brand touting the cancer risk reducing properties of a filter (a slippery slope if there ever was one) advertising legend Leo Burnett simply changes Marlboro’s sex.  That is, he makes it cool for men to smoke an established filter cigarette.  So cool, in fact, that Marlboro becomes the leading cigarette brand within a year or two – a distinction it has now had for over five decades...currently commanding about a 42% (Forty-Two!) percent share of the global cigarette market.  In short, Leo Burnett made the brand differentiation relevant.

Is your brand’s difference relevant...or is it just different?  Your share of your market – and how hard you have to work for it – might be a telling indicator.

0 Comments
    Picture

    Thorsten's
    Blog...

    First time here?  Please look at my Welcome Letter.  Hope I can be of service!

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    June 2017
    November 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    July 2014
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    June 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011

    Categories

    All
    Apple
    Brand
    Branding
    Brand Promise
    Brand Relevance
    Brand Stewardship
    College
    Cowboy
    Differentiation
    Filter Cigarettes
    Internal Brand Statement
    Leo Burnett
    Marlboro
    Outlier
    Personal Branding
    Peter Guber
    Phillip Morris
    Pricing
    Rolex
    Service
    Shawn Achor
    Stanford
    Steve Jobs
    Story
    Ted
    Tell To Win
    Timex
    Ucla
    Zag

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.