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August 08, 2004
Fast Company Better Brand Contest - Part III
Below is the third installment of our attempt to use the Marketing Playbook ABCs answer the question Fast Company posed recently posed in its contest - how to make these brands better (for which - by the way we got an honorable mention).
Brand 7. Microsoft - More Wealth by Sharing It More
A. Yes, the most recognizable, cash rich, powerful brand in technology today.
- On almost every computer on every desk and every home
- And incredibly cash rich
B. But, competing with nearly everyone they used to business with.
- Getting into every single business there is
- Or believed by most to get into them eventually
- Thereby making partners less and less happy and incented to work with them
C. So, go back to being a true platform for others to make money.
- Not just operating system as platform, company as platform
- Not just dividends to shareholders
- Real incentives, openness and benefit for tons of partners, developers etc to make lots of money by using Microsoft.
Brand 8. Office Depot - A Depot for Offices, Actually
A. Yes, great job becoming a mass market category killer.
B. But, what category are they actually killing now?
- Seem to offer everything to anyone who has a job
- (from snack food for the kitchen to office chairs to games)
- How do you compete with Costco?
C. So, be a Depot for Office services, physical and virtual
- Stop trying to be a consumer business, embrace that you are selling to business
- Use your locations more effectively, be even better bricks and clicks solution
- For any business service - daily replenishment, business services directory, meeting rooms and of course a depot for pick up.
Brand 9. Old Navy - Salute Your Own Colors
A. Yes, Old Navy stands for nice casual clothes for not too much money.
B. But, what really is the difference between Old Navy and the Gap?(and the Banana Republic for that matter)
- Other than a little price differentiation, it feels like they buy their stuff from the same place and from a very similar design template.
C. So, Let Old Navy Be/Buy Old Navy.
- Set the buyers and the designers free for each store
- Let us consumers have a real choice to make.
- And let Gap be Gap, Let Old Navy be Old Navy and Let Banana Republic be Banana Republic.
For the previous set of brands click here and the next click here.
Posted by johnza at August 8, 2004 08:56 PM
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Comments
Great ideas regarding Microsoft - agreed, it's fairly difficult to walk that line between courting and competing with your customers.
I haven't given much thought about how to help out Microsoft per se, but I have given a lot of thought regarding the future of media, communications and computing. What I think is that more and more the Internet is the computing "platform" of the future - and it's fairly wide open. While Microsoft can certainly build the tools to help developers be more effective, I don't know that they can claim any particular advantage. The desktop O/S gave Microsoft a lot of leverage in the ecosystem, but it's not the center of the universe any longer. And that's not to even mention the proliferation of devices that are NOT exactly PCs - mobile phones, PDAs, iPods and consumer devices, smart objects, sensors, RFID, etc. etc.
For a glimpse of using Net as a platform for desktop apps, see this post:
http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/PermaLink.aspx?guid=05f5ce32-6309-48ee-a36f-8c45a3bd7719
There's even an upcoming conference, Web 2.0, www.web2con.com on the subject.
Posted by: Evelyn Rodriguez at August 10, 2004 12:32 PM
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