There was a great article posted this week on Ad Age by Al Ries that really hits a point most people do not understand about marketing. That point is the difference between common sense and marketing sense. While both are crucial to business operations, you cannot run your operation without one or the other.
Everyone remembers the “Pizza, Pizza” slogan of the 90’s used by Little Caesars, but what most people don’t know is where they are today. They are virtually invisible. Ranking as the second largest pizza chain in 1994, they are now sitting in 4th well behind the current leaders Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Papa John’s.
What happened to Little Caesars is simple. They were able to elevate their brand to a point where everyone knew their slogan. It still exists in the minds of many today, and that’s pretty good considering it was created over 15 years ago. But as they always say, the bigger they are the harder they fall, and that was exactly the case with Little Caesars.
Common sense tells us that if we regularly create new ideas then people will be attracted to the brand for many different reasons, but marketing sense has something different to say.
Marketing sense tells us when you create a brand image that resonates with consumers, it is quite difficult to get that image out of their mind. When you create new ideas with different themes, oftentimes the themes do not relate and sometimes counteract their own motives.
During the late nineties Little Caesars was pumping out new ideas left and right from Italian kitchens to larger sized pizzas and even changing their slogan to “Delivery, Deliver.” Let Little Caesars be your guinea pig, when you find a concept that works, stick with it.
This last sentence is vital to business success “Let Little Caesars be your guinea pig, when you find a concept that works, stick with it.”
I too have witnessed many businesses small, media and large personally get “tired” of a particular ad, slogan, marketing campaign, etc. and when they did they chose to revise it of course almost every one who does this loses momentum and even when they attempt to put what “was” working back into play they have an extremely difficult time getting back on track and many of them go under fast.