Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

GAINING AND MAINTAINING RELEVANCE 301
The programs did affect the dialogue. Out of three thousand
U.S. brands tracked by Y & R ’ s Brand Asset Valuator database,
Walmart was number twelve on the social responsibility scale in
2008, an incredible achievement. 5 There was one 2010 article
titled “ Green Project Making It Harder to Hate Walmart, ” and
another titled “ Walmart ’ s Environmental Game Changer. ”
6
The
hardcore Walmart critics were still there, but it was clear that
their intensity and breadth were visibly lessened. The relevance
challenge was not over for Walmart but it was greatly alleviated,
and the trajectory was positive, a remarkable change given
where the fi rm started only a few years before.
Avoiding the Loss of Relevance
Creating and managing the perceptions of a new product category
or subcategory to make competitors irrelevant is a way to
win. But another objective is to avoid losing. A brand loses by
failing to maintain relevance, by becoming yesterday ’ s brand.
Maintaining relevance not only avoids losing but preserves a
platform for future initiatives and successes.
How do you lose relevance? There are two ways.
One route is to lose category or subcategory relevance. Customers
simply no longer want to buy what you are making,
even though your offering might still be of high quality and the
customers who remain love it and your fi rm as much as ever. If
a brand is attached to a category or subcategory that is fading in
relation to one that is emerging, the brand ’ s relevance and sales
will decline.
The second route is to lose energy relevance, to lose energy
and the visibility that goes with it. If brands with energy are
available, why consider one that is tired and has nothing new
or interesting to offer? Without energy the brand may become
locked in the past and suitable for an older generation. Or it
may lack the visibility to be considered, it may simply fade into
background noise.