Brand Failure: The Effect of Marketing Mix

Link these brands: Hush Puppies, ModiLuft, and Kellogg’s.

You are right; they are all examples of failed brands. Have you ever wondered why a brand fails, in spite of the extensive research, strategy and planning that goes behind it? Can it be that the brand can fail even if one of the P’s of the marketing mix goes wrong? Let’s look at this aspect of brand failures.

The marketing mix is a mixture of the four P’s: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. The brand is at a risk of failure even if one of these P’s are goofed up. Let’s see how.

Let’s take one of the examples quoted above- Hush Puppies from Bata. In India, Bata is always perceived to be a low-price brand, which targets the middle class. When it brought in new and expensive brands like Hush Puppies, it did not find many buyers. Thus, it failed on the Price front.

Talking about shoes, consider Reebok as well. When it brought in BhaichungBhutia, the Sikkimese footballer to endorse its products, the sales did not show much improvement. Here, it failed on the Promotion front, because it failed to realize that in India, it is cricket that sells more than football. The use of the right type of celebrity for endorsement is important. This statement was also proved by a market research conducted to find out if the new face of Mirinda, Asin made a difference to the popularity of the drink. The survey results showed that about 80% of the respondents still preferred their old favourites when it came to soft drinks. On the contrary, when AamirKhan was roped in by Coca-Cola for the ‘ThandaMatlab Coca-Cola’ campaign, cold drinks were invariably associated as Coca-Cola for quite some time.

When we talk about brand failures, one classic example that comes to the mind is that of Kellogg’s. Kellogg’s failed in two of the P’s of the mix- Product and Price. One mistake on the part of Kellogg’s was that it did not take into account people’s tastes (literally). It assumed that if the product sold like hot cakes in the US, it should appeal equally to the Indian masses. It launched a product that was highly popular in the US in India, as it is, without considering people’s preferences here. It tried to fit in a square peg in a round hole. Also, Kellogg’s did not find many buyers because of the high price. It was perceived as a breakfast item for the affluent households, and found buyers from this category only. Thus, Kellogg’s was unable to tap the enormous market potential that India had in store.Thus, we see that a brand can fail if one, two or all the elements of the marketing mix go wrong. When launching a new product, it becomes very important for the brand manager to look at all the aspects of the four P’s before taking the plunge.

But then, business always involves some risks. If this risk factor is eliminated, it also takes away with it the elements of challenge and learning opportunities that it has to offer. So go ahead and take the plunge, but do take your learning guideof various principles learnt, such as the mixture of the four P’s, which will guide you to safety, if you start drowning.

-Written By-

Vrushali Patil (MMS I, JBIMS)