Why some companies should stick to what they do best!

February 5th, 2012 • 1 comment Uncategorized

Today, as I was perusing my classmates’ blogs for inspiration to write my blog post,  I chanced upon Dan Neufeld’s blog post about how Heinz experimented with purple, green and blue ketchup only to meet with disastrous results. This blog post of his brought to mind a few other companies who tried to move away from their main market offering and achieved no success. One such company is Colgate who thought it would be a good brand extension to introduce Colgate Kitchen Entrees! The reckoning behind this is to probably convince people that after consuming these entrees, they could brush their teeth with Colgate toothpaste. I for one, sure can’t work up an appetite for food of any kind when I think of Colgate toothpaste and this seemed to be what lots of people thought too. The result- a colossal product failure.

Doesn't look appetising to me!

Brand extensions can be successful or not. A great example of a successful brand extension is IAMS pet insurance. But, the direction of the brand extension is important. Another reason why Colgate probably failed is because they had a brand image that was too powerful. Quite ironic, but a strong brand image can be both a bane and a boon. In this case, the strong brand image and the connected strong value proposition that Colgate created and maintained in its consumers’ minds for years prohibited people from even reaching the second step of the adoption process- interest stage where the consumer seeks information about the product. Subsequently, few innovators and early adopters tried the product and the product failed to reach awareness in the consumers’ mind and achieve success.

This Colgate story brings an important point to the forefront. Consumer perception and branding is important, maybe even more important than the product quality in the beginning stages of the adoption process.