Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

190 BRAND RELEVANCE
Timing is particularly important with technology - driven
offerings. Premature offerings can fail, whereas just a few years
later a very similar offering with the benefi t of a technological
advance will be a big winner. Apple experienced a premature
launch with the Newton but got the timing right with several
of its other products. The challenge is to stay close to technological
developments and have the instinct to see when a barrier
can be overcome with new advances. The market also has
to be ready, especially if the technology is radical and requires a
change from the familiar in customer habits.
Leveraging Assets and Competencies
A new category or subcategory, if it is to have value and legs,
needs to be based on hard - to - duplicate assets and competencies.
If existing assets and competencies can be leveraged, that
means that they do not have to be developed but will be in
place, perhaps with some adaptation. Most of the risk is therefore
reduced. The process starts with an identifi cation of exactly
what the assets and competencies are — for example they could
be drawn from marketing, distribution, manufacturing, design,
R & D, or the brand. Mercedes - Benz, for example, launched a
style division in 2010 to leverage its styling expertise to design
helicopters, yachts, watches, interiors, and more.
Disney has a powerful brand that means family fun and
memories and a host of subbrands around characters from
Mickey onward, experiences at theme parks, and such movies
as The Lion King . It also has operational excellence: the ability
to execute as evidenced by theme park operations so exemplary
that others use Disney as a role model. The brand assets
and operational competencies combine to make a Disney cruise
ship a highly differentiated entry that immediately forms a new
cruise ship subcategory.
When a breakthrough technology is found, it often is not
clear what applications will be the big winners. The aggressive