Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

34 BRAND RELEVANCE
into a sustainable position by actively managing perceptions of
the new product category or subcategory and asserting a dominant
position of the brand in the new arena. That requires not
only resources and recognition of the expanded brand - building
task but also organizational will and competence in brand
building.
Another option is to be a trend responder, a fi rm that is a
fast follower rather than leader. Such fi rms track trends and
events, evaluate their future impact, and create response strategies
to deal with relevance challenges. In some cases they
can enter and take over an emerging category or subcategory.
However, trend responders are usually playing defense. They are
keeping up so that they can take action to avoid irrelevance.
Chapter Ten details trend responder strategies.
There is a third organization type that can be labeled as
the “ trend unaware. ” These firms are simply unaware of market
trends and risk waking up surprised to fi nd its brands are no longer
relevant. The trend unaware often have inadequate external
sensing systems, executives who are not market driven, organizational
infl exibility, or an excessive focus on strategies that have
worked well in the past. There are actually two types of trend -
unaware fi rms. One is a “ turn - the - crank ” fi rm that simply does
this year what was done last year. The other is the “ committed ”
fi rm that has a single - minded focus on a business strategy and
continually improves its competitive position by enhancing the
value proposition, reducing costs, refusing to be diverted by market
dynamics.
The Payoff
If you can create or own a new business arena in which your
competitors are not relevant, as did iPod, Cirque du Soleil,
Prius, Asahi Super Dry, and eBay, then you have the potential
to make exceptional returns, sometimes for many years. Richard
Rumelt, the UCLA strategy guru, talked about how the most