How Do Some Brands Show Up and Knock Off the Leader
I have been thinking much deeper lately about Branding, and why some some brands can show up and knock the contender out of the loop, even when the contender was once a powerhouse. I am thinking about say, Blockbuster and Netflix for instance.
He Started With a Single Trash Truck
Wayne Huizenga started with a single garbage truck in 1968, and grew Waste Management, Inc. into an entity that would become a Fortune 500 company. Huizenga aggressively purchased independent garbage hauling companies, and by the time he took the company public in 1972, he had completed the acquisition of 133 small-time haulers. By 1983, he grew Waste Management into the largest waste disposal company in the United States.
Renting Containers
Huizenga repeated his business success with Blockbuster Video, opening a handful of stores in 1987, and becoming the country’s leading movie rental chain by 1994. It has been said that Huizenga likened the video business to his trash business, as they both involved “Renting Containers”
Along Comes Netflix
Netflix came up with a brilliantly simple concept when it launched its service in 1999: rent DVDs by mail for a flat monthly fee. You choose the movies you want on the Netflix Web site, receive from one to eight discs at a time (depending on the pricing plan you’ve chosen), and–using a prepaid envelope–return them in the mail whenever you’re finished viewing.
So What is Different
The set monthly billing rate means that the decades-old bane of the video store–late fees–is a thing of the past. In fact, not only has Netflix’s pricing strategy prompted brick-and-mortar rival Blockbuster to adopt a “no late fees” strategy at its retail stores, the old-line video rental giant has chosen to fight Netflix as well, offering a very similar online rental service starting in August 2004 that’s since been enhanced by limited integration with its brick-and-mortar video stores.
Arguably, Netflix, or any other mail order video isn’t for everyone. Some folks like to stroll around the store, but that store has a cost, a cost that an on line operation can run circles around, and one that Blockbuster may well never recover from.
What Are You Willing to Do
Do you have to make as radical changes as the above example, I actually think so. But you can’t be different for the sake of being different, you also have to solve a problem that was right in front of everyones nose, such a No More Late Fees.
The bigger question is, Are You Aware Enough to See It, OR, have you accepted things as they have always been, which over time equals mediocrity. Let us know your thoughts, Are You Ready to Break From the Pack of mediocrity and Create a Great Brand,
Eric’s background is rooted in the rental and real estate industries. He founded metro Detroit’s Urbane Apartments in 2003, after serving as senior vice president for a major Midwest apartment developer. He established a proven track record of effectively repositioning existing rental properties in a way that added value for investors while enhancing the resident experience.
He also established The Urbane Way, a social media marketing and PR laboratory, where innovative marketing ideas are tested. Eric has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine and Business Week Magazine.
You can connect with Eric_Urbane on Twitter.
Eric also writes regular articles for the following publications;
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