"It's time to evolve our brand," is not an uncommon phrase to hear bantered about corporate boardrooms when a brand—be it corporate or product/service—reaches that inevitable point in its lifetime when it just doesn't seem to resonate with buyers the same way it once did. Perhaps the industry has change or the market has become saturated and/or commoditized. Maybe the category has changed because of advancing technology or an upstart new competitor has challenged the prevailing business model. Or it could be buyer needs, problems, and proclivities have just shifted over time. Markets change and brands have to adapt, and as Charles Darwin himself once wrote, "It is not the strongest of a species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."

Unfortunately, there seems to be some confusion among the higher-ups about what exactly real brand evolution entails. These days, most simply look to what the up-start or leading competitor is doing that appears to be the root of great successes and try to do it themselves. It's the corporate version of natural selection: this is the trait that seems to make our competitors so successful so we should do it too. There doesn't appear to be any rigorous analysis of what it'll cost to do it; consideration of all the steps required to make the brand known for whatever new positioning it's trying to adopt; or deliberation of how to transition from the old marketing strategy to a new one—what sort of stumbling blocks and challenges (i.e., external perceptions, internal culture) there might be, for instance.

We don't think this is what Darwin had in mind when he talked about survival of the fittest. Matching a competitor on some attribute or benefit may make your brand more "fit"—it may make operations more efficient, for instance, or plug a hole in terms of offerings that meet customer needs—but if a competitor is already offering it in a way that's already superior, it won't make you the "fittest," in other words, the company that does it better than any body else and the reason why buyers choose you over someone else. Copying competitors lead to superficial tactical moves, not the kind of transformational strategies that propel brands to a brighter future.

Wal-Mart, the Beast of Bentonville, and brand that's dominated the retail landscape for over a decade is a recent case in point. Perhaps because its selection of merchandise in some areas (electronics was a noticeable one this past holiday season) was out-of-date; possibly competition had increased; or likely a combination of both of these factors along with many others, Wal-Mart's sales at stores open at least a year rose 2.5% in May, falling at the low end of the company's 2% to 4% forecasted increase. Wal-Mart's executives admitted concern about the state of the retail chain and began to consider what the next step for the brand should be. Apparently management believed they need look no further than rival and analyst darling Target, a company that just posted a 5.1% same store sales increase.

"Wal-Mart's focus will always be on less-affluent shoppers, but we need to widen our appeal to a broader range of customer," Wal-Mart's president and CEO Lee Scott told shareholders and employees in June, as he announced upper-income shoppers are a new, important target for the chain, just as they have been for Target for many years. Upscale shoppers, according to the company, already visit Wal-Mart for low prices on laundry detergent, toothpaste, and other staples, and the goal—also borrowed from Target—is to get them to stop in the apparel and housewares department for higher-margin merchandise. The company proceeded to make an extensive ad buy in Vogue (with similar efforts in other media frequented by higher income shoppers planned) and brought the merchandise buying and product development team's closer together to work on offerings that are more appealing and attractive to upper-income customers.

Yet as Origins of Brands author Laura Ries commented on her blog recently, "You can have fashionable clothes at low prices, but that position is already owned in the mind by Target....Target owns that position in the mind by making its stores feel fashionable, by hiring fashionable designers, and having fashionable celebrities like Oprah say it is 'chic.'" Wal-Mart's positioning "Always Low Prices," didn't change; nor did store decor, size, layout, design, or location. The website remains the same and advertising circulars haven't been upgraded with a hipper design. Most importantly, there's no indication any efforts to overcome the perception that Wal-Mart items are so cheap because they are lower quality are underway. In other words, there's not much evidence that there's any real evolution going on. Wal-Mart isn't becoming something entirely new either to it or to the market; it's just trying to become Target.

Real brand evolution—the kind Harvard Business School cases and Wall Street Journal articles are written about—is based on understanding what customer problems are out there that players in the industry have ignored and you can solve profitably. Instead of shifting its focus to higher income shoppers, is there some problem, besides having tight budgets, its core group of lower income customers have that Wal-Mart could solve? Same goes for higher income customers—what do they need besides great buys on soap and fashionable clothing (which, let's face it, they're more likely to buy at Target, a department store, or catalog than at Wal-Mart)? These are the kind of questions companies like IBM, Intel, and ExxonMobil all asked themselves before truly evolving their brands in new marketing directions and how the "fittest" survive.

The signs all seem to be there—the high profile of the Christian conservative bloc during the 2004 presidential election; the debate over Supreme Court nominees; vocal discussions about intelligent design; the success of Mel Gibson's 2004 picture "Passion of the Christ"—but has America really become a more religiously fundamentalist country over time? Our recent analysis reveals that the popular perception among Hollywood, politicians, marketers, and many others that the number of Americans who consider themselves fundamentalist is growing at a much faster rate than those with less orthodox or evangelical views has no basis in fact.

We compared data from the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey of Americans 18-years and older in 1972, 1982, 1991 (the survey was not conducted in 1992), and 2002. Each year the survey asked a national probability sample of, depending on the year, approximately 1500-2000 people about whether they consider themselves a religious liberal, moderate, or fundamentalist.

We discovered that among the general population, the number of Americans who consider themselves religiously liberal increased dramatically over the course of 30 years while the number of fundamentalist increased only marginally. Liberals expanded from 18% of the population in 1972 to 29% in 2002, while fundamentalists grew from 27% in 1972 to 30% in 2002. Moderates, on the other hand, decreased considerably, from 52% in 1972 to 36% in 2002, adding credence to the notion that American society is polarizing over time. "American society today is actually just as religiously liberal as it is fundamentalist," explained Claire Cropper, our vice president of statistical services.

Copernicus also looked at the religious leanings across the regions of the country:

• In the South, the area of the country with the highest number of fundamentalists (44% in 2002), the liberals saw the most noticeable increase, growing by 200 percent from 9% in 1972 to 27% in 2002.
• In the West, the number of religious liberals grew by 65%, from 20% in 1972 to 33% in 2002, while fundamentalists remained relatively unchanged, from 22% in 1972 to 23% in 2002.
• In the Midwest, the number of liberals increased by just under 4%, from 18% in 1972 to 25% in 2002. The number of fundamentalists actually grew at a slightly higher rate, from 17% in 1972 to 26% in 2002.
• Finally, in the Northeast region of the country with its reputation for liberalism, the number of liberals remained relatively steady, increasing from 28% in 1972 to 33% in 2002, while the percentage of fundamentalists doubled, from 9% in 1972 to 18% in 2002.

Here are some of the other differentiating characteristics we found:

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We're lucky enough to call Larry Light, the recently retired EVP and Global Chief Marketing Officer of McDonald's, a friend and former colleague and regard him as a true genius in our industry. So when he started talking about a new concept he called "Brand Journalism," we—along with everyone else in marketing—paid attention. "Think of McDonald's as a magazine," Light explained in remarks to the Adwatch: Outlook 2004 conference:

Journalism is the collection and communication of news, events and happenings. Journalism informs, entertains, persuades. Brand Journalism means telling the many facets of our brand story every day in 119 countries. It's a chronicle of the varied things in the McDonald's brand world, throughout the years. Customers will not accept monotonous repetition of the same simplistic message, they want a dynamic, creative chronicle.

He went on to say later in interviews that "because a brand like McDonald's means different things to different people, it should not have one brand position." He believes brand journalism signaled the end of "brand positioning as we know it" because "identifying one brand positioning, communicating it in a repetitive manner, is old-fashioned, out-of-date, out-of-touch brand communication."

We've listened carefully to Light's comments and to the reaction, both positive and negative, to brand journalism in the year since he first made his comments to see how it played out in McDonald's marketing communications strategy. We do see the value of "brand journalism" if it means what we think it means—having different selling messages for different, non-overlapping audiences. It's a particularly interesting idea for an advertiser spending $500 million+ with money to burn (just consider the budget required to create and produce the number of executions required to deliver entirely different selling messages to multiple audiences).

Certainly it's entirely plausible that one day in the not too distant future it will be possible for a marketer to deliver a specific message customized to the demographics, interests, attitudes, and proclivities of a specific group of target buyers via TV (whatever form TV takes), the Internet, mobile phones, events, etc., and know with almost 100% certainty that the brand message is the ONLY one they will see, hear, experience, etc., no matter where they are. Even billboards might change messages based on who happens to be walking by—already the gigantic 13-screen Reuters interactive billboard in Times Square is enabled to link to mobile phones, digital cameras, the internet, and live events and often carries ads programmed to react to what's going on in the street below.

But in 2005, this kind of message exposure control and certainty that there is no overlap isn't particularly realistic. Most audiences still intersect and there's currently no way to ensure that different target groups aren't exposed to different messages. In recent years, several brands have actually gotten in trouble with buyers when the firm delivered a message intended for another set of eyes and ears than the one that saw it. Look at the trouble McDonald's itself had when it introduced the Deluxe line of "adult sandwiches" using Ronald McDonald in ads to say the chain wasn't just a place for kids. Kids—a sizable target for McD's—saw the ads and felt alienated, as did their parents—another important target—who wondered if the restaurant chain was changing its family orientation. Amazon.com is one of many on-line retailers that got in trouble with buyers when, based on an algorithm that considered among other things zip code, previous purchases, and price paid, it tried to charge different prices to different people and word quickly spread.

A different message for different audiences invariably means everyone is exposed to—in one way or another—all the different messages and the result is brand confusion. A way out of this dilemma is to run ads without any message at all and we all know how that story ends—advertising ROI of close to zero sound familiar? We can't help but wonder if brand journalism is just a modified attempt for McDonald's and other proponents to try to be all things to all people—a strategy that has not worked for a single company in America and many have tried. Being different things to different groups of people is a terrific theory, but it's just not practical, not to mention financially feasible for most marketers, at this point in time.

For more insightful marketing discoveries, visit http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/discover/index.htm

Have a hot discovery for our next release? Contact us at info@copernicusmarketing.com

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We're always interested in learning about emerging media and how marketers are integrating new, non-traditional channels into their marketing plans, so we're excited to get a hold of a copy of Branding Unbound. No worries if you're not up on the acronyms and inner workings of wireless, this book focuses on techniques for making wireless advertising more effective and the impact it can/will have on customer relationships with brands, products, and services. There's also an interesting section on trends. The question and answer sessions at the end of each chapter with noted marketing authors including Seth Godin and Gary Hamel who answer questions such as, "how will mobility change our idea of the brand experience?" and insights from companies that are actively using wireless are particularly thought-provoking.

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There's an exciting conference coming up this Fall that every brand management professional should put on their calendar. Brand ManageCamp 2005 will take place November 1-3, 2005, at the Hyatt Regency at Penn's Landing in Philadelphia, PA, and has an incredible line-up of speakers—all recognized and respected authorities in their areas of expertise.

Speakers including the father of positioning Jack Trout; retail and consumer trend expert Phil Lempert (who you may also recognize as the NBC Today Show's food trends editor); President and CEO of BBDO Worldwide Andrew Robertson; the mother of cause branding Carol Cone; and Copernicus' own Kevin Clancy will "deliver to you the relevant information and actionable insights you crave to become a stronger, more successful brand manager while helping you unlock the full potential of your brands."

We'd like to extend our brand-minded Mzine readers a special discount price of $2099—a $400 savings off the full price of the conference—through the end of September. To receive your discount, enter the promotional code BMCRB91 in the "Promotion Code" box at the bottom of the online registration page at www.managecamp.com/register.php. This special offer expires September 30, 2005, so reserve your spot today at THE conference for anyone involved in brand management.

Also visit the Brand ManageCamp Blog for au courant musings from the speakers: www.managecamp.typepad.com.

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