Public Relations, in its many forms, should be an essential strategic discipline within a company’s 360-degree brand marketing framework. Public Relations carries the greatest impact when it is folded into a larger plan that integrates a well-defined brand message across all marketing and communications activities. This holds particularly true for brands in transition.

1. BRANDS IN TRANSITION
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BRANDS IN TRANSITION: CREATING
THE RIGHT COMMUNICATIONS MIX

2. BRANDS IN TRANSITION
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Public Relations, in its many forms, should
be an essential strategic discipline within
a company’s 360-degree brand marketing
framework. Public Relations carries the
greatest impact when it is folded into a
larger plan that integrates a well-defined
brand message across all marketing and
communications activities. This holds
particularly true for brands in transition.

3. BRANDS IN TRANSITION
© MWW GROUP, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 3
BRANDS IN TRANSITION: CREATING THE RIGHT COMMUNICATIONS MIX
Every brand and company faces hurdles at some point that challenge their
ability to either maintain the original brand promise or continue to define it with
the original core customers that helped build the brand. Indeed, moving your
brand from one place to a new position is often required to stay in business. For
example, the Amazon of ten years ago is not the Amazon of today. Oil companies
mostly recognize the need to find new sources of energy across the board, invest
heavily in this area and now position themselves as energy companies. Subaru
traded on its all-wheel drive capabilities for years – but when that became less
unique and distinctive they deftly transitioned to a car company built around
active and outdoor lifestyles.
In particular, brands that need to move from a niche positioning to create more
mass market appeal, or established brands that need to drive higher short-
term sales due to competitive pressure, are particularly vulnerable to losing
the equity of their brand. Category leaders are especially susceptible to the
slippery slope built on successive small concessions that slowly undermine the
perception of the brand.
These small changes over time are often irreversible and premium positioning
is slowly ceded to new entrants or fast moving competitors. Oftentimes these
changes are necessitated by the cold reality of the bottom-line, but even in the
most competitive spaces there are means to replace lost brand equity with new
assets that can build a better brand for the future.
This short whitepaper explores how Public Relations can fulfill a critical role in
keeping the brand message on target and the value that the discipline brings
during times of transition, as well as when other marketing priorities have wavered.

4. BRANDS IN TRANSITION
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The key is that for every point of brand
equity that is ceded, a new asset is
introduced. These new assets can take
many forms, but they need to pass
muster on the following points:
• Are they relevant?
• Are they distinctive?
• Are they ownable?
Relevant brand assets are, by
definition, ones that add value to
the customer experience or brand
perception. Distinctive and ownable
assets keep brands from looking stale
or appearing as “me too” brands.
These are important points, because
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW
if a brand is ceding its position on
something that was once relevant,
distinctive or uniquely owned it
has lost a significant competitive
advantage.
Consider Kodak as an example, it
never lost its distinctive or ownable
brand assets – but it did lose its
relevance during its failed brand
evolution. By missing the opportunity
to replace relevant brand assets with
something new it surrendered its
position in the world of photography.
On the other hand, Amazon has
continued to create new relevance in
distinctive and ownable ways that have
not eroded its overall position. It is
this creation of new brand assets that
has allowed Amazon to let go of some
of its original core equities without
diminishing the overall brand. This
is the roadmap for brands that need
to transition. If you need to let go of
something that isn’t working from a
bottom-line perspective, you need to
find a new brand asset to replace the
old one.
Changes in the marketplace demand
brands constantly evolve and create a
new brand vision.

5. BRANDS IN TRANSITION
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THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS
So where does PR fit
into the mix?
Brand transitions are difficult and changes in philosophy or a brand promise
usually don’t take hold overnight. Practically speaking, the introduction of a new
product, service, brand promise or other core asset or function requires trial
and uptake.
A brand moving off of its former position almost invariably needs to rebuild –
and most often with two sets of consumers: old ones it is hoping to retain and
new ones it is hoping to develop. This is a brave new world for all parties and
in response, communications strategies generally move from brand building,
maintenance and investment to driving awareness and trial.
This is where a double-edged sword begins to develop: the full range of
former brand assets are no longer applicable and new brand assets need to
be communicated. Awareness campaigns need to focus on a minimal number
of intuitively understood components of the new offer (leaving some legacy
attributes out of the equation), and the primary focus of new marketing efforts
will be on promoting trial.
So how do you effectively promote trial without losing the soul of your brand?
What follows are two examples of what not to do and one example of how to get
it right.

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TED
TED was originally a single conference based around technology and design.
As a brand its primary attributes were built around the concept of “ideas worth
spreading.” At its core, it was aspirational – where only the best of ideas were
presented and disseminated. While the TED events could also be seen as
elitist, this was counter-balanced by the free distribution of the presentations
under Creative Commons licensing.
Where TED has seen its brand diminished is primarily in the introduction of
TEDx – which licenses the TED brand for presentations around the globe. The
concept of the best ideas has been seriously diluted with the inclusion of 3,200
new TEDx events and 16,000 new presentations of widely varying quality.
TED as a brand has grown and reached new audiences – but its reputation
for uncompromised quality has taken a strong hit. What is happening is
an unacknowledged transition – which is not uncommon from a brand
management standpoint. TED is trying to communicate that it is staying true
to its original values (“ideas worth spreading”) while loosening controls and
allowing sub-par presentations under the TED umbrella via TEDx. These are
incompatible and create a tension around a brand that is not staying true to its
core brand promise.
In this case, adding new assets while letting go of old ones could have easily
precluded any brand diminishment. A slight shift and value add of becoming
an incubator of ideas would have sufficed – but the opportunity was missed
when it was assumed the brand promise would remain relevant for TEDx. Had
there been the right mix of communicating value and strategic vision, TED’s
transition could be in the books.

7. BRANDS IN TRANSITION
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JC PENNEY
JC Penney has found itself in a much tougher situation. The brand was built on
years of promotion heavy advertising and communications, so when they chose
to cut-off the promotional approach to retailing in exchange for everyday low
prices in the Spring of 2012, they lost a huge swath of customers.
The reason? Even with a new look and a new spokesperson, the strategy wasn’t
uniquely distinctive or relevant. JC Penney never stood a chance of picking up
the customers they lost to Target by offering something similar. JC Penney
needed something more substantive, but instead the changes looked like
window dressing to their customers.
So where could Public Relations have helped JC Penney?
JC Penney needed to better articulate the value of its approach to consumers
and the media. Do the everyday prices create more value? Theoretically, yes,
but it was hard to prove and was following a position already owned by other
retailers.
Public Relations could have laid the groundwork for articulating that JC Penney
was more than just a retailer – it could have built on job creation, impacts to
local economies, giving programs and support of its workers. These may not
have been enough to overcome all of the current issues – but it would have
positioned JC Penney as a brand with a soul, and not just a brand where you
can buy things cheaply.
These programs could then have formed the basis for the next level of
transition away from promotions to a company investing in its employees,
communities and customers. As the proof points and brand perceptions grew,
promotional advertising could be balanced back out with newly developed
brand assets.
In the end, JC Penney went cold-turkey on promotions and had to eventually
bow to pressure and re-introduce them. Now they are back to a transitional
state with no new brand equities in place. Time will tell if JC Penney will
remain viable – but the core lesson is that if your communications are solely
based on driving traffic and sales via promotions, the sales and promotions will
define your brand.

8. BRANDS IN TRANSITION
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SUCCESS STORY: ENERGY DRINKS CATEGORY TAPS INTO BRAND
RELEVANCE
TED and JC Penney are examples of where brands have gone wrong. Now
let’s look at brands getting it right. The energy drink sector yields some
prime examples.
Red Bull stands as an iconic brand across the globe – but this wasn’t entirely
built on the product and certainly wasn’t based on mere advertising. Red
Bull’s history begins as a trucker’s drink in Thailand. The opportunity Red Bull
capitalized on was the burgeoning “always on” lifestyle and the trend to push
limits and boundaries among youth in the mid-90s that aligned perfectly with
its brand promise.
Red Bull became a brand that raised the bar for what a beverage could offer
and reinforced that by aligning itself with a range of active sports and edge-
pushing sponsorships and events from football (soccer) to ice cross downhill
(Google it!), to surfing, cliff diving, grand prix and many more.
As a privately-held entity it is impossible to pinpoint how much Red Bull spends
in these areas, but the mix is evident: favor media-worthy investments in
tandem with or in place of traditional advertising. The Red Bull philosophy is
that if their results, achievements, events and activities are worth reporting,
you will read about them.
This philosophy has led to the brand becoming an iconic symbol synonymous
with energy drinks that has maintained a significant price premium over the
competition, including its primary competitor in the United States: Monster.
Monster in and of itself is another good example of understanding what
makes your brand assets relevant to the consumer. Monster was launched
by natural juice and soda company Hansens, but the two brands could not be
more different. Take the Monster product and put it under the Hansen brand
and it fails. But the brand also understood its market and the relevance of the

9. BRANDS IN TRANSITION
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Investing and building
a long-term core of
relevant brand assets
through events, media
coverage, sponsorships
and word-of-mouth
power the brand today.
product during a time of transition in the consumer market, and recognized
that the Hansen brand was not relevant to the younger consumer core for
energy drinks.
Similar to Red Bull, Monster built its brand by staying true to the product’s
relevance with surfers, bands and extreme sports by investing in building
those connections from the ground up and prioritizing earned reputation
building over reaching a mass market via advertising. So while pushing trial
and promotion early in the brand’s history was necessary – they were also
investing and building a long-term core of relevant brand assets through
events, media coverage, sponsorships and word-of-mouth that power the
brand today.
Early investment in Public Relations enabled both brands to successfully
undergo brand extensions and transitions. As a result, both brands have held
off larger players in the beverage industry, and have seen former upstarts
such as SoBe fall by the wayside, and have illustrated how a long-term view of
investing in building true brand equity is an earned activity.

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LESSONS LEARNED
RECOGNIZE A BRAND TRANSITION
To stay in business, companies must
recognize how even minor changes
to their services, products, or market
trends impact the relevance of their
brands. As mentioned before, this
is what kept Subaru and Amazon
from becoming irrelevant. And these
companies must also understand
that the transitions require support
beyond advertising, so that media
can understand the transition, why it
matters and what that means to the
customer.
That’s where Public Relations comes
in: to highlight the trend and illustrate
how the brand was committed to
capitalize on the change.
TAPPING INTO BRAND RELEVANCE
MATTERS
Promotions in particular are relevant
to a time and place – but they expire
and their relevancy expires as well.
Yesterday’s discount means nothing
today – except if it was one of a string
of many discounts, then it may be
expected again tomorrow thus holding
off purchase or incenting discount-
seeking behavior from other similar
brands.
When your brand is relevant to
a consumer only through sales,
discounts and promotions, you truly
have no real brand equity. Any brand
can offer a discount. What can you
offer that others don’t?
While the brand transition focuses
on driving trial and conversions, the
broader brand picture and equity
building slack needs to be picked up
via positive media coverage, digital
content development and social
engagement. Whether or not those
equity building initiatives fall under
product attributes, corporate social
responsibility, thought leadership,
events, outreach programs, cause
marketing or some other activity
is dependent on the brand and
management culture – but to ignore
them is to ignore an opportunity and
risk the long term relevance of the
brand.
Based on these scenarios, there are three lessons to learn:
PROMOTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS
NEED A COUNTERWEIGHT
These kinds of lessons extend across
many industries and brands. When
a brand loses the drive to maintain
its distinctiveness and relevance
over the long-term in place of driving
near-term spikes in moving units via
promotions – the delicate balance
that allows the brand to maintain its
position in the consumer mind is at
risk.
In other words, if all you communicate
about your brand is that you offer
promotions and discounts, that is all
anyone is going to remember.
Marketing science literature (see
Kopalle, Mela and Marsh) has
identified that promotions can lead
to “triple jeopardy.” Whereas when
discounts become more frequent,
baseline sales decrease over time.
Second, temporary price reductions
increase price sensitivity and make
it more difficult to command higher
margins. Third, the frequent use of
deals makes them a less effective
tool for gaining share from other
brands. Thus, your brand needs
a substantive counterweight to
promotional marketing in order to
allow for transitions back to brand-
based premium pricing necessary for
long-term profitability.
Companies must also
understand that the
transitions require
support beyond
advertising, so that
media can understand
the transition.

11. BRANDS IN TRANSITION
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