Research Means Business.
There is a right way to conduct research to grow your market share and a wrong way. Unless you are asking the right questions, your research will fail.
Go Beyond Theory to Steal Share.
You must go beyond theory and identify the emotional drivers of your target audience and use tough-minded strategies and positioning to steal market share from the competition.
The Process Does Count.
Stealing Share has developed a unique process unlike any other brand company in the world that is designed with a single purpose, to steal market share.
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Case Study: Major Airline CarriersNorthwest
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Earlier in this study, we explained that if you market category benefits, you are benefiting the market leader most. There’s no better example than Northwest, which did post $2.32 billion of net income in 2007 but that was after filing for bankruptcy protection in 2006, and continued the industry trend of posting losses in first quarter 2008.
Northwest promotes checking bags at the curb. Printing out your boarding passes, etc. Unfortuntely for Northwest, so does its competition.
Northwest "Anthem"
What’s even more damaging is that many of its spots look exactly like the market leader, American. See if you can spot the difference between these ads.
Northwest Airlines "Transforming Chair"
If having those business class benefits is important to you, you will more often choose the market leader, American, than you’ll choose Northwest if you have a choice (depending on availability, connections, etc.).
Northwest’s position is “Now you’re flying smart.” This feels like rote advertising. A common brand positioning is to reward customers for being “smart,” and many brand firms consider it a “boilerplate” position. Who wouldn’t want to be recognized for being smart? It only works if you show that the rest of the industry is dumb and target audiences believe those who use the competition are dumb. (Think of how Continental suggests the competition in its marketing.)
But what does being smart mean? Printing boarding passes? Just flying out of town? The advertising has a cleverness to it but little strategic element.
The branding is reflected in its 2008 first quarter RPK numbers as it only posted an increase of .77 percent over the previous year and its passenger revenue rose just 6.2%, a rate smaller than most of its competition. Northwest has held firm, but it has not built a brand to steal market share.
