Yet, Gordon Wade, partner at the EMM Group, observes that brand equity scores long have been declining. Wade lists these reasons for the decline:
• The cost of conventional media is skyrocketing.
• The effectiveness of using conventional media is declining, and with it, return on investment.
Underlying these reasons, Wade says, is a more fundamental factor. Most marketers lack a process for building brand equity, even though, by his estimation, brand equity comprises 60% of shareholder value at a typical product manufacturer. And, most CEOs and COOs are not marketers. They don’t understand brand equity and don’t know they can have a process for building it.
This is all occurring as traditional marketing approaches are changing, and packaging is becoming vital to the marketing success of any consumer product. But too often, marketing budgets are being cut.
How can you operate ahead of this curve? Wade offers these five ideas:
1. Identify packaging’s role in your company.
2. Understand that packaging is more important today than it was yesterday.
3. Fight for resources.
4. Feel as though you have no chance of winning this fight? Ask yourself why you wouldn’t fight against budget cuts for something you deem to be more important today than it was yesterday.
5. Develop a real process for packaging, using the “language” of senior management.
Follow these steps, and you can develop a credible argument for the resources you need from the executive suite.
