Tag Archive | Galen Weston

My new book The Future of You! Creating Your Enduring Brand is now available through Kickstarter.

The entire book is filled with great insights that provide you with practical, easy-to-implement tools that will help you to create your enduring brand. I am particularly excited about the 9th Chapter which features industry leaders and celebrities who personally took the time to share their expertise within the pages of The Future of You!

In today’s book excerpt, I am delighted to share with you the following wise words from Dr. John Tantillo, whose book “People Buy Brands Not Companies” is a must read;

Besides being the host of the popular radio show BrandTalk, Dr. John Tantillo, “The Marketing Doctor,” is a frequent contributor to Fox News Opinion online and the author of the book People Buy Brands, Not Companies. When I asked Dr. John for his thoughts on building an enduring brand, here is what he had to say:

Brands Are Always About Your Customers!

Whether building a personality or corporate brand, the essential component is to satisfy a need for a given Target Market that will eventually become your customers. To underscore this point, it is important to remember that brand building has very little to do with the marketer (the Brand Holder) and everything to do with one’s customers.

This is best illustrated when Duncan Hines introduced an instant cake mix product where one would only have to add water to bake one of those delicious DH cakes. The new product was unsuccessful. Why? Because when consumers were asked why they did not buy this state-of-the-art innovation, they responded: “When I bake a cake for my family I want to do more than just add water.” This clearly showed the good folks at Duncan Hines that there was an additional need that was overlooked ̶ he need to be more involved in the baking process when preparing baked items for the family.

Times change and today this might not be as much of an issue as it was in the 1970s when Duncan Hines introduced this unique product to the American market. And so, for a brand to remain competitive, marketers must continue to research what their customers really want through quantitative and qualitative research. It’s simple: Know your customers and respond to their changing needs so that your brand will always be there for them. This is the basis for all successful brands ̶ know your brand and your customer’s needs even more. And if your customers change, adapt accordingly.

What is interesting about the Duncan Hines example is that during a recent segment of the Food Network’s Recipe to Riches show, the Executive Chairman of Loblaw Companies, Galen Weston, favored a product because it allowed the individual preparing the meal to be part of the process while still providing the convenience to accommodate a busy schedule.

Similar to Kentucky Fried Chicken’s move toward introducing a healthier menu in the 1990s only to return to their deep fried roots in 2007, Dr. John’s key point is that you have to – without fail – understand the changing interests of those you seek to serve.

Remember to click on my Kickstarter image below to watch my brief video, which provides a more detailed overview of my book, and to check out the wonderful gifts that are available as a token of my appreciation for your decision to support this exciting new project.