Pepsico Branding CaseEssay Preview: Pepsico Branding CaseReport this essayBranding is not an expense but an investmentThe brand is the image of the company, and if consistent, it can present a clear and homogeneous sense of what the brand is all about. As companies grow, there are more executives making decisions, and in the case of PepsiCo where part of its international growth was within independent bottlers across various countries, brand consistency was tougher to maintain.
At the time of the case study, PepsiCo had been able to close the market share gap they had with Coke, and their attention moved to strengthening the brand. Project Blue was then an investment in their future, and something they needed to do to refresh and fortify their image.
internationally and as segmented as PepsiCo grew,Your companys brand is what people think of you, and thats shaped by every interaction you have with your market. Its therefore crucial to ensure that every touchpoint with your company is consistent, that you present a clear and homogeneous sense of what youre all about.
Thats not easy, especially as your firm grows. As more and more people make decisions that affect your company, and by extension your brand, it becomes tougher to maintain consistency. Both your “old friends” (i.e., long-time staff) and “new friends” (new staff and outside creative suppliers) are likely to want to put their personal stamp on everything. Its natural for them to want to show their creativity — whether on your products, business cards, flyer, radio commercial, recruiting materials, training videos, reception area, e-mail formats, websites — everything!
Why? Because your old friends, whove seen the same message seemingly forever, are sure that, like them, customers have become tired and are ready for a new message. And your new friends whove just joined your firm are trying to do everything to impress, including leaving their fresh mark on projects or initiatives that come their way. New friends can also include the many outsourced creative suppliers who believe it just isnt creative unless its all new and has never been seen before. And no group is more receptive to new ideas than old friends, who have long since become bored. Both groups have little respect for the No. 1 brand-building tool: consistency.
What happens when people get bored and consistency of brand message is ignored? Companies engage in off-brand behaviour and risk their hard-earned brand equity. Consider this real-life example: Volvo differentiates itself from the hundreds of car choices in the market by “owning” the safety position. The company has earned it through relentless focus on the subject: theyve been at the forefront of most safety-feature innovations in the automotive industry for the past 40 years. Yet recently, to try to make up for a series of service appointments and recalls, a well-intentioned Toronto dealer opted not to give a customer another travel first-aid kit but instead an expensive corkscrew set embossed with the Volvo name on the lid. The unquestioned leader in automotive safety associating with rinking? This decision was definitely not consistent
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Even the very people responsible for the issue would admit that Volvo’s behaviour was wrong.
“You are not going to find us as ‘pro-safety and innovation’ of Volvo, yet we are not having any problem with this, for reasons explained by the dealer in this situation.”
They have been at the forefront of many safety innovations in the automotive industry not only for 40 years, but their brand’s continued existence as a whole and their reputation. Volvo also has its own brand and has seen major success with safety initiatives as well, especially of its current fleet of C-engines.
Of course, there are some instances where Volvo’s behavior can lead to problems. Take an extremely early-stage accident, such as the one seen in this video.
“Unfortunately, after my car caught fire a year ago, it blew up. It exploded and then started to go, and it took all my battery charging, because I wanted to do the repairs first”
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The other example was an accident in North Carolina where an individual was seriously injured when a Volvo SUV hit them.
What makes the incident so special is that you never heard of this from other companies. Volvo wasn’t even mentioned on the manufacturer’s latest public statements about the tragedy. In fact, it was only briefly mentioned, for almost two years, in public comments made as they were being prepared for a recall investigation.
Indeed, Volvo is a very busy brand, and the recall investigation was extremely slow, and it took more than four years to launch. But it did not get all of the attention that Volvo was receiving before this incident, and the decision to ban the brand wasn’t made for some specific reason.
We will soon move on to a next point.
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And there is something much more important which Volvo didn’t get.
When it comes to safety, Volvo’s biggest achievement is to the safety of its suppliers. For good or ill, their behaviour is one for the records of all Volvo dealerships including many smaller Volvo owned by other companies. For example, in the case of my wife, the problem began with her not letting me in our car and she was later charged for it. But it didn’t end there.
This is because Volvo’s approach for customer safety is more than simply making it possible to buy a new engine from them.
“One thing that is unique is that our business model and customer relationships can be more collaborative and we see that they are more collaborative, and so it takes a bigger risk to protect all customers.”
And this is precisely what will happen when we look at Volvo’s continued involvement in the safety landscape.
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Even though its future is under close watch, Volvo’s business model is still heavily weighted down by their customer relationships. Most of them are just trying to meet its demand. The following was a fact that many of these suppliers didn’t mention much and we are sure you heard about other suppliers too.
To further complicate things a bit Volvo actually has one-time agreements with all of your old suppliers.
“We would recommend to all clients that they contact new suppliers, not only if they need one because they don’t have existing supply chain in