I have always been fascinated by people who buy nearly bankrupt companies, turn them around, then sell them for a neat profit. Now, there are companies out there that do the same thing for brands. Take River West brands for example. They are bringing back Salon Selectives. Daneen from Spoiled Pretty quotes the following:
“The re-introduction of Salon Selectives represents a great opportunity
for our company,” said Dr. Eugene Zeffren, CEO of SSB, the company that
distributes and markets Salon Selectives. “Our research shows that the
brand still has over 80 percent awareness among our target consumers.
These women don’t just remember the Salon Selectives name, they retain
a host of other positive associations, including the apple scent and
the customized hair care message - they can even sing the jingle.”
So - with its reintroduction, Salon Selectives does not have to start from scratch. It already has 80% awareness! This is every marketers dream to work with (and now that jingle is going to be in my head for the rest of the day ;)).
On their Brand Properties page, there is a wide variety of options, including Coleco, Underalls and Eagle Snacks. From a business strategy perspective, these seem to be strange bedfellows, but River West goes into an interesting explanation of their value proposition:
What do the brands below have in common? If you’re
looking for manufacturing synergies, you won’t find any. What ties them
together is this: they were all once big businesses and important parts
of Americana during their first runs, all went off the market
completely or close to it at one point in time, and all of them have
returned or will soon return to the marketplace thanks in no small part
to the work we do at River West Brands.
River West does more than simply re-release the brands, it actually creates new value. Jennifer Wells from Report on Business discusses this example:
Take the case of Brim coffee, a dead brand until River West came
along. There was high consumer recall of the product and its
advertising motto: “Fill it to the rim with Brim.” Better yet, says Mr.
Thomann, fewer than 10 per cent of survey respondents remembered that
Brim was a decaffeinated coffee. (”Fill it to the rim” played on the
notion that you needn’t worry about the jittery effects of caffeine.)That memory gap has left River West free to seek a reformulation of
the beverage, which the company hopes to relaunch no later than the
first quarter of ‘09. The new coffee will be caffeinated and pumped
with vitamins and minerals - “Fill it to the rim with Brim because it’s
filled with goodness.”
I find this idea very compelling, since it shows the true value of brand building. Once the mind becomes familiar with a brand, that familiarity is precious psychological real-estate. As the market-place gets more and more cluttered, the value of that psychological real-estate on old brands keeps on growing.
