Top 10 Halloween Candy Brands
Happy Halloween brandsalsa readers! In spirit of today’s sugar-filled, ghoulish holiday we thought we’d countdown America’s top 10 Halloween candy. All of the data is from a market research study performed by the market research firm, Information Resources Inc.
It is interesting to see that eight of the 10 brands on this list first debuted before 1950. While in most industries newer is always better the opposite is true when it comes to our favorite candies.
Here is America’s top 10 Halloween candies, I dare you to make it through the post without running over to the office candy stash:
10. Almond Joy
Sales: $82.25 million
Unit sales: 79.39 million
Average price per unit: $1.04
Introduced: 1946
Company: Hershey Co.
Almond Joy was introduced in 1946 as a version of the Peter Paul Mounds chocolate bar. Peter Paul merged with Cadbury Schweppes in 1978, and roughly 10 years later, Hershey acquired the company’s U.S. business. In the past 12 months, the brand was one of just 10 to sell more than $80 million in the under 3.5 oz. bar category, the size customers typically buy at the checkout line in a grocery store or supermarket.
9. Milky Way
Sales: $93.46 million
Unit sales: 90.83 million
Average price per unit: $1.03
Introduced: 1923
Company: Mars Inc.
Mars has been selling Milky Way bars since 1923. The bar is not directly named after the galaxy containing our solar system, as some believe, but after a once-popular malted milk shake. In the past year, sales of standard-sized Milky Way bars rose by more than 5% to $93.4 million. This made the brand the only one of the company’s top-sellers that did not lose market share over that time, based on IRI data. Sales of snack-sized Milky Way, typically popular around Halloween for trick-or-treaters, rose by more than 10%.
8. Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Creme
Sales: $100.70 million
Unit sales: 98.92 million
Average price per unit: $1.02
Introduced: 1994
Company: Hershey Co.
Hershey’s Cookies ‘N’ Creme bar, introduced in 1994, is actually a relatively new addition to Hershey’s line of chocolate brands. It is also one of just eight brands to record sales of more than $100 million in the most recently available 52-week period. However, dollar sales of the brand were relatively flat over the past 52 weeks, rising roughly 1.7% — too little to gain market share. By comparison, dollar sales of all Hershey standard-size brands rose by roughly 9%.
7. 3 Musketeers
Sales: $101.27 million
Unit sales: 90.79 million
Average price per unit: $1.12
Introduced: 1932
Company: Mars Inc.
Over the past year, sales of 3 Musketeers bars fell by 9.6% to just over $101 million, the second-largest drop of any major chocolate candy bar. Dollar sales of snack-sized 3 Musketeers also fell by about 4%. One potential explanation for the brand’s decline in sales may be less advertising. In March, Ad Week reported that “media spending on 3 Musketeers exceeded $6 million last year, down from about $15 million in 2011 and more than $17 million in 2010, according to Nielsen.” Mars has sold 3 Musketeers bars since 1932.
6. Twix 4 To Go
Sales: $116.13 million
Unit sales: 74.49 million
Average price per unit: $1.56
Introduced: 1993
Company: Mars Inc.
Mars sold over $116 million of Twix 4 To Go bars, compared to just over $80 million of the traditional Twix bar over the most recently available 52 weeks. However, the standard Twix, which contains two cookie bars, still sold close to 88 million units, while Twix 4 To Go, containing four cookie bars, sold just under 75 million units. The difference was made up in the price. Twix 4 To Go costs an average of $1.56, the most expensive top-selling chocolate candy and more than 60 cents more than the average Twix bar.
5. Kit Kat
Sales: $306.51 million
Unit sales: 275.88 million
Average price per unit: $1.11
Introduced: 1935
Company: Hershey Co.
Sales of few chocolate bars grew faster than Kit Kats over the past year. In that time, the number of Kit Kat bars sold rose 17.8%, while dollar sales rose by more than 22%. Recently, Kit Kat launched a co-promotion with Google, which code-named the most recent version of its Android operating system “KitKat.” The Kit Kat brand, owned by Nestle, is popular worldwide. The Hershey Company, however, licenses and manufactures the chocolate in the United States.
4. Hershey’s
Sales: $324.63 million
Unit sales: 308.42 million
Average price per unit: $1.05
Introduced: 1900
Company: Hershey Co.
Hershey has been making many of its most famous brands for decades, and it has made Hershey’s branded milk chocolate bars since 1900. Although most of the company’s brands have been around for quite a while, Hershey is planning to introduce its first new U.S. brand in decades in 2014. Sales of the company’s long-standing brands have risen recently, mostly because of advertising pushes. According to IRI, sales of standard-size Hershey’s-branded chocolate bars rose by nearly 8% in dollar terms and 7% in unit terms. The brand’s dollar sales for snack sizes, popular around Halloween, have also increased by nearly 12%.
3. Snickers
Sales: $456.91 million
Unit sales: 412.81 million
Average price per unit: $1.11
Introduced: 1930
Company: Mars Inc.
Snickers bar sales fell by more than 7% to just under 413 million units in the most recent 52 weeks available. This mirrored the decline in the under 3.5 oz category Mars faced across all of its brands, for which unit sales fell by 7.7%. Snickers has been around since 1930, and in recent years has made a major advertising push with its celebrity-filled, “You’re not you when you’re hungry,” campaign. The first commercial in the campaign, which aired during the 2010 Super Bowl, featured actress Betty White getting tackled in a backyard football game. It was an instant sensation.
2. M&M’s
Sales: $500.82 million
Unit sales: 435.18 million
Average price per unit: $1.15
Introduced: 1941
Company: Mars Inc.
Sales of M&M’s only trail sales of top chocolate brand Reese’s by a small amount. But the brand lost its position as the best-selling chocolate after sales fell by more than 3% during the 52 weeks ending in early September. In terms of total units sold, M&M’s did even worse, with unit sales down 7.5% from the same period the year before. M&M’s also may not see the same sales boost other candy makers see during the Halloween season. Although it is the second highest selling regular size candy, it ranks only eighth among brands in snack-sized sales.
1. Reese’s
Sales: $509.85 million
Unit sales: 407.44 million
Average price per unit: $1.25
Introduced: 1928
Company: Hershey Co.
Reese’s regular size (less than 3.5 oz) peanut butter cups jumped by 7.7% to just under $510 million in the past year, outstripping M&M’s from its top spot as the best-selling chocolate. As a result, the brand overtook M&M’s as the nation’s best-selling chocolate candy. Overall, with Reese’s and several other major brands sales growing over the past 12 months, the Hershey Company dominated the market for standard-size chocolate candy, accounting for roughly 49% of customer spending. Halloween marks a major sales opportunity for Reese’s as well. The brand leads in sales of snack-sized packages, which are often given out to trick-or-treaters.
Source:
America’s Favorite Halloween Candy
Welcome to the new addisonwhitney.com
After months of preparation, dedication and hard work, Addison Whitney is delighted to officially announce the launch our newly designed website, www.addisonwhitney.com.
The new website is clean, colorful and a stronger representation of our brand. Our goal is to provide our visitors with an extremely user friendly site that clearly communicates who we are and what we do. The site offers more functionality and easier navigation, while painting a better picture of our company’s past, present and future.
There’s a lot to see on the new site and we hope that everyone will check it out, but to learn a bit more about the direction and design of the site, check out the screenshots below.
While you’re on the site, I also encourage you to sign up for Forward, our quarterly newsletter that shares major branding news, insights and updates on what we have going on at Addison Whitney.
What’s new at addisonwhitney.com:
On the homepage, our rotating hero area directs you to the major sections of our site: Who We Are, What We Do and case studies.
You will also see a static call-to-action for a healthcare-specific section of the site. Our experience in both healthcare and non-healthcare industries is so extensive that it’simportant for us to highlight each separately with dedicated sections.
One of the most exciting additions to our new site is the Our Team page (located within the Who We Are navigation). This is a great opportunity to talk about our people and what makes Addison Whitney great. The passion and dedication that drives us every day is why clients love hiring us and why we love working here.
Under Who We Are, we also highlight our global locations and Helping Hands work: two things we love to show off.
Under What We Do, you will find our department pages. In this section, we have really simplified the navigation and user experience.
Each department page includes a link to our case studies and, when you click here, you’ll be taken to a pre-filtered case study page that corresponds to the page you came from (e.g., verbal or visual branding, brand strategy or research and analysis).
The case study page on the new addisonwhitney.com is the main showpiece and greatest improvement from the old site.
Now, we have two separate case study pages, one dedicated to our healthcare work and one for our non-healthcare work. Both have the same functionality and look.
When you click on Our Work, you will be greeted with large images rather than a list, and unlike before, where it took at the very least five clicks to find a case study, now you can find what you’re looking for in as little as two – a huge user experience improvement.
Both case study pages feature a robust filtering system that allows you to sort our work by service, industry, situation or region.
As far as the actual case studies go, they are more detailed and engaging, and boast more pictures.
There are a lot of great changes happening here at Addison Whitney, and the debut of our new website is just the beginning! Over the next few months, you’ll see a redesigned Japanese site, a reskin of our beloved brandsalsa and a few other great items that we’re not quite ready to share yet. But, we promise they’re exciting, so stay tuned! And in the meantime, please to check out the new addisonwhitney.com, and tell us what you think.
Brands We Love: Gatorade
There are few brands that can disrupt a market or industry, or create a need that consumers don’t even know they wanted in the first place. We all know the stories behind some of these brands - Apple does it regularly; Dyson and Chobani are also brands that get lumped into this category. But, a brand that is almost always overlooked as a game changer is Gatorade. Like the brands mentioned before, Gatorade created a product that, at the same time, launched a new industry: the sports drink industry.
Gatorade is a brand that has long been a staple on the sidelines of sports fields and has mastered its brand’s story and application of the brand in relevant areas. Through sponsorships, innovative sports research and athlete endorsements Gatorade has catapulted itself from a homemade concoction to a well-respected brand.
Gatorade’s History:
It may be a surprise to some, but this industry-leading drink has very humble beginnings dating back to 1965 in Gainesville, Florida, home of the Florida Gators. The original sports drink was formulated by a team of researchers at the University of Florida College of Medicine, including Robert Cade, Dana Shires, Harry James Free and Alejandro de Quesada. It was created following a request from Florida Gators’ football head coach Ray Graves to aid athletes by acting as a hydrating replacement for body fluids lost during physical exertion in hot weather. The earliest versions of the beverage consisted of a mixture of water, sodium, sugar, potassium, phosphate and lemon juice. Ten players on the University of Florida football team tested the first version of Gatorade during practices and games in 1965, and the tests were deemed successful. The football team credited Gatorade as having contributed to their first Orange Bowl win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in 1967, at which point the drink gained traction within the athletic community. Yellow Jackets coach Bobby Dodd, when asked why his team lost, replied: "We didn't have Gatorade. That made the difference."
Gatorade’s Brand Power:
The name Gatorade has become synonymous with sports nutrition, research, elite athletes and winning championships. Gatorade has attached its name to some of the most recognizable and respected athletes such as Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, Dwayne Wade and Peyton Manning. But perhaps one of the strongest brand ties Gatorade has with consumers is the “Gatorade dunk,” first popularized by the 1985 New York Giants. From a brand exposure standpoint, the tradition of dumping a Gatorade cooler on a winning coach’s head after a big game is the type of un-paid, highly impactful and visual exposure any brand craves, and reinforces how engrained the Gatorade brand is in American sports.
Gatorade is currently manufactured by PepsiCo and distributed in over 80 countries. Gatorade commands 46% of the worldwide sports drink market according to Euromonitor International. In 2010, Gatorade re-branded a number of its products. Original Gatorade was initially re-labeled as Gatorade G. Gatorade Rain was re-labeled as No Excuses. Gatorade AM was re-labeled Shine On; Gatorade X-Factor was relabeled as Be Tough; and Gatorade Fierce was relabeled Bring It. However these names were short-lived, as a two percent decline in market share in 2009 led to a broader repositioning of the entire line in 2010. Beginning in February 2010, the Gatorade product portfolio was re-positioned around what the company refers to as the G Series, categorizing varieties of its products into three main segments: before, during, and after athletic events.
Gatorade is one of four beverage brands on Forbes Most Powerful Brands list. Overall, Gatorade is ranked 86th on the list with a brand value of 4.8 billion. Gatorade is the only sports specific beverage on the list, and I don’t foresee another sports drink chipping away at Gatorade’s brand power, but as always it will be interesting to see where Gatorade lands next year on the annual report published by Forbes.
Sources:
The Gatorade Company Fact Sheet
Gatorade
Gatorade’s G Force Leaves No Sweat Behind
The World’s Most Powerful Brands
Brands are Gearing Up for NFL Kickoff
Today the calendar reads September 5, 2013, but that’s nothing more than a technicality. We all know what today really is, the start of the NFL football season. After its annual eight month hiatus from our TV screens and branded products on our grocery store shelves, it’sback. And, the only ones more ready than the players, fans, and coaches are the brands who each year enter into lucrative partnerships with the most profitable and recognizable sporting organization out there, the NFL.
Exclusive and official partnerships with the NFL are a big business, and often times the pinnacle of the participating brand’s strategy each year. According to Turnkey Sports & Entertainment in its annual NFL sponsorship awareness survey, more than one-third of the group surveyed said they are more likely to recommend a product/service to a friend or family member and consciously support a company because their products/services are an official sponsor of the NFL.
Starting today and continuing through the weekend, more than 105 million viewers are expected to tune into an NFL game. A lot of brands invest in campaigns and strategies to capture the attention of the viewers, but today we’ll look at three of the most heavily invested brands and what their partnerships with the NFL have meant for their businesses.
Pepsi
As the largest food and beverage company, it’s no wonder Pepsi is an exclusive partner of the NFL. Pepsi has been developing fresh creative that will start to be unveiled during tonight’s kickoff game.
New this year for Pepsi: the brand will feature all 32 teams on point-of-sale materials and include each Pepsi variety in NFL advertising (Pepsi Max, Diet Pepsi, etc.)Pepsi’s contract has long allowed it to use all 32 teams and logos in promotional materials, but it has never taken advantage of the benefit until now.
This year’s Pepsi campaign will tell a season-long story led by the call to action, “Are you fan enough?” Angelique Krembs, VP-marketing for trademark Pepsi, said Pepsi worked closely with the NFL and asked consumers how they felt about different periods of the season, which led to this campaign idea.
As an NFL fan, I understand that our feelings about the season change as the weeks go on, so I am excited to see how Pepsi wraps these common fan feelings into a campaign. NFL fans tend to connect to the advertisements that capture what it’s like to be a fan, good or bad, so I suspect these ads will be a big hit among viewers.
Bud Light
Perhaps no brands are more synonymous with the NFL than Anheuser-Busch and Bud Light. Anheuser-Busch has held exclusive alcohol advertising rights for the Super Bowl for 22 years. But, it’s interesting to point out Bud Light has only had an exclusive partnership with the NFL since 2011. Stretching from 2001-2010, MillerCoors enjoyed the exclusive partnership, and prior to that, the two shared advertising rights.
Bud Light’s exclusive partnership with the NFL certainly seems to be paying off. The NFL sponsorship survey mentioned above found that NFL fans provide Bud Light with its highest recognition scores out of all of Bud Light’s official partnerships. In 2012, the high recognition scores can be attributed to the fact that in addition to its blanket deal with the NFL, Bud Light has local sponsorship agreements in place with 28 of the league’s 32 franchises. Along with the TV spots, the brewer rolled out specially marked 12-packs packaged in a material that looked and felt like pebbled pigskin. The cans also featured the NFL shield and the local team’s logo.
For 2013, Bud Light will launch a series of new spots called “Dilemmas” that highlight the lengths fans go to help their team win. To me, this feels very similar to their highly successful “Superstitious” series that ran last year with the now famous tagline “it’s only weird if it doesn’t work.” But, if executed well, this could be a fun extension of the “Superstitious” series, and could help build on the emotional attachments and equity that last year’s campaign built.
Papa John's
Last up is Papa John’s. After the 2012 NFL season, more than 62 percent of avid NFL fans correctly identified Papa John’s as the official pizza of the NFL, a 13 percent increase from the year before. The increase in Turnkey’s report was the largest change among all 68 brands measured in the survey and seems to be the most perplexing to me. Compared to the other brands mentioned (or not mentioned) in this post, Papa John’s advertising and sponsorship seems to be the least memorable. But perhaps the recognition is partly due to the fact that pizza is a less competitive and crowded space on the advertising scene compared to others. Nonetheless, Papa John’s exclusive partnership with the NFL and its Peyton Manning TV spots are working. Before the start of the 2013-14 season, Papa John’s entered into a new, long-term brand partnership with the NFL.
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With tonight’s NFL kickoff, it will be fun to watch how each brand approaches its season-long campaign. At the end of the 2013-14 season, we’ll revisit this post and discuss what brands made the biggest impact on the season through its advertising and promotions.
Sources:
NFL Prods Partners Into Kicking Off Season with Fresh Creative
Avid fans know their NFL sponsors
Pepsi's NFL Sponsorship To Star All 32 Teams
Bud Light to be official beer sponsor
Bud Light Suits Up for 2012 NFL Season Heavy TV spend marks second year of official sponsorship
Jobs: Past and Present
Ask someone who Steve Jobs is and they’ll say the founder of Apple, the guy who gave us the iPod, iPhone and iPad, among so many other things. Some, like myself, will go as far as saying the guy who taught us the importance of a strong, consistent brand.
Tomorrow with the opening of JOBS, the official Steve Jobs movie, the world will get a look into the life of the great Steve Jobs.
To celebrate, let’s take a step back in time and enjoy a clip from the 2001 WWDC where Steve Jobs first unveiled the truly revolutionary iPod.
Still need a little more Steve Jobs? Check out the official trailer for JOBS. If you’re not already excited for this movie, I think this trailer will do the trick. Enjoy!
Embrace the Shake
We’d love to think of ourselves as being unlimited, but in reality that isn’t true for most. This can apply to your personal self or to your company/brand. At Addison Whitney, our clients vary greatly, and with each client there are going to be certain limitations we face and must work around – some clients face stronger regulatory guidelines, others have smaller budgets. Whatever it is, we find a way to work with them and around those limitations. And, we approach each project looking at what could be, versus what is, always developing creative deliverables above and beyond what our client could have imagined. Approaching every project this way is at the very core of who we are.
For today’s post, I wanted to do something a little different and share a great video I saw from a TED talk in February. There are a number of messages you can take away from the video, but the primary message Phil Hansen (the speaker) shares is that by sometimes thinking inside the box – and not out, like we’re usually told –your creativity may break out in ways you haven’t seen before. In other words, using your limitations, not as barriers, but as the foundation for creating something, can produce amazing results.
Take a look at this video, and watch how Phil works through his limitations to “embrace the shake,” and in turn, unleash his creativity.
Addison Whitney Designers Kick Off Summer with Sum Art Show
Art, design, music and beer. Is there a better combination to kick off summer? I didn’t think so, and that’s just how Addison Whitney’s designers spent the first day of summer last Friday, June 21st.
Organized by our very own designer, Chris Cureton, Sum Art was a celebration of art and Charlotte’s growing creative community. Our designers, along with other local artists, gathered at Birdsong Brewing Co. to showcase original pieces and celebrate the start of summer. It was a fantastic show, and all who attended had a great time! Take a look at what our designers had to say about the experience, and check out the video to learn more about each of their pieces.
In their words:
“Sum Art was a great opportunity to bring art and design to the Charlotte community. By putting the focus on consumer experience, much like the brands we help develop, the show appealed to a much broader audience. It was amazing how an art show became such a fun event for all parties involved.” – Chris Cureton, graphic designer
"Sum Art was the perfect way to kick off summer – enjoying art and beer with friends and fellow artists in the community. There was an array of styles and media which made for a great show. I was thrilled to participate and look forward to more events like this in Charlotte!" – Cathleen Foley, design manager
"What I loved about the Sum Art show is all the variations of one question, what summer meant to us. And, how the personalities of all the artists shined through their work. I was truly honored to be a part of the show this year and hope to participate in coming years as well!" – Nick Irwin, design director
“I had a great time at the show and really enjoyed talking with the other designers/artists. Each and every one of us has unique memories and experiences of summers past and that definitely came out in our work. I was really impressed by the array of work that was shown and found it so interesting to see how seven different people interpreted one word.” – Karlie Winchell, graphic designer
Are Step-Down Line Extensions a Good Idea?
A brand extension in its simplest form is a strategy in which a well-established brand name is extended to a new product in a different product category. Sometimes brand extensions work, and sometimes they don’t, but for the purpose of this post we’re going to look at a specific niche of brand extensions: step-down line extensions (also called downscale extensions) for luxury brands.
A step-down line extension is when a brand introduces a new product that is perceived to be or marketed as lower quality than other products it currently sells. Implementing a strategy like this has clear pros and cons. The pros of step-down line extensions very heavily favor financial and awareness growth, but on the flipside, the cons most revolve around diluting the brand's equity and reputation.
More and more brands are testing out this strategy. From Polo Ralph Lauren, Armani and most recently Whole Foods, brands are constantly trying to redefine messages and come up with new ways to reach customers and step-down line extensions is one of those ways. While I tend to see more merit in why you shouldn’t introduce a step-down line extension, the strategy isn’t completely flawed.
Luxury brands have an interesting dilemma when it comes to their brands and profitability. Even though there is a strong desire for their brands and each product has a high margin, purchasing happens in low volumes. Maintaining a healthy cash flow into the brand can be tough. By departing from a strictly luxury market, luxury brands are given the ability to grow more quickly and reach certain financial goals. Stretching past luxury markets builds mass-market awareness, expands advertising opportunities, and ultimately gets the brand/products into the hands of more consumers, and, in turn, creates steady revenue for the brand.
Steady revenue, sounds great doesn’t it? But, from a branding perspective, is it really that great for a luxury brand to introduce a step-down line extension?
When a luxury brand introduces a lower quality product, the brand is doing so at great risk to the equity of its original brand. The greatest risk, of course, is the chance that the luxury brand will lose its status by being associated to the new product, therefore changing the course of the brand altogether. Consumers who once trusted the quality of a brand may change their opinion if they feel the luxury brand is no longer highly focused on making the best version of a product, but rather spreading itself thin by introducing additional products. Aside from the quality of a luxury brand, the worst thing it could lose is its own exclusivity, or the very thing that made it desirable in the first place. To maintain control of where the brand is sold, requires a lot of effort, but is time well spent if it prevents dilution to the brand’s value.
The debate that a step-down line extension brings up is, what’s more important: generating a healthy, steady revenue stream or maintaining the value, meaning and promise of your brand? The side you’ll take can probably be answered by asking one question – when you first started your company/brand, were you hoping to reach a mass market or did you seek to create a high-end, best-in-class product that has a more of an exclusive audience?
Brands We Love: Kia
Earlier this week while I was perusing Twitter, I noticed a large number of tweets surrounding an unlikely brand, Kia, and being a strong advocate of the brand, I was immediately intrigued. Though I hold it close to my heart and tell anybody who wants to listen how much I love Kia, I also know it’s typically not a highly talked about brand. So as you can imagine, I began to investigate the reason why. As it turns out, Kia made its debut this week on Interbrand’s 2013 Best Global Green Brands, which is Interbrand’s nod to the top ethical and ecologically responsible brands.
My affinity for the Kia brand began seven years ago, when I bought my Kia Sorento. Kia was in the process of repositioning itself in the American market from a not-so-glamorous automaker to a polished, design savvy one, all while still being an affordable option for American drivers. I’d like to think I was ahead of the curve when it came to Kia, but as it turns out I was fully falling into its plan of becoming a well-recognized and respected brand in America, and I don’t mind that one bit.
Instead of listing all the reasons why I love the Kia brand (and trust me, there are a lot), let’s take a look back at the brand’s history and how it has become one of the most valuable brands.
Kia’s storied past
Kia, South Korea's oldest car company, was founded on June 9, 1944 as a manufacturer of steel tubing and bicycle parts. In 1951, Kia switched gears a bit (pun intended) and began building complete bicycles. In 1952, Kia changed its name from Kyungsung Precision Industry and later built motorcycles (starting in 1957), trucks (1962) and cars (1974).
It wasn’t until 1992, that Kia Motors America was incorporated in the United States. Kia began sales operations in Portland, Oregon at four dealerships. Since then, Kia has expanded methodically, one region at a time. Fast forward to 2013, and Kia is the fourth largest automotive group in the world.
The Kia brand
When I began researching the Kia brand a bit more for this blog post, I was extremely happy to see that Kia’s website outlines its corporate identity.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the brand is its name, Kia. Without knowing when the name was chosen, its fascinating to see how the company’s success has mirrored the meaning of its name .
According to Kia’s website, the word Kia is derived from the Chinese letter “Ki,” meaning to “arise or come out of” and “a,” referring to Asia. When the two words come together Kia means to “arise or come out up out of Asia.”
Kia has emerged as one of the fastest-growing automobile brands, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. The brand’s success has been attributed to its connection with millennials and Gen Y audiences by promoting uses of technology and connectivity that appeal to younger audiences. As a strong advocate for the Kia brand and self-proclaimed Kia driver for life, I’m excited to see how it responds to its growing popularity.
Sources:
Kia Corporate Website
Kia Motors enters Interbrand’s list of 50 best global green brands 2013
Refining the Hyundai-Kia brand plan
Branding Pharmaceutical Drugs in China
Did you know according to the Chinese Association for Pharmaceutical Equipment group that the Chinese pharmaceutical industry has been growing at an average annual rate of 16.72% over the last few decades?
And that growth isn’t going to slow down anytime soon.
China stands at the cusp of a modern society with an increasingly affluent and growing population. And it’s this growing population that is demanding better services and quality of life – but how will this impact the pharmaceutical industry in China – particularly in regards to branded pharmaceutical drugs?
Not just in the pharmaceutical industry, but for all industries across the board, China has become the must win market. An aging population, increasingly affluent younger population, and the rise of diseases in China all create an emerging need for drugs, which is why The IMS Institute has predicted that by 2016 China will overtake Japan as the second largest pharmaceutical market in the world. So it’s no wonder why billions of dollars a year are being invested in the country.
Many foreign players such as AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Bayer and GSKhave already established themselves firmly in the market and are expanding their services regularly within the country. But with the entry of foreign players in the industry, the competition amongst these players will continue to increase. China has more than 5,000 pharma companies, and in 2010 was the leading country filing pharmaceutical trademarks – even beating out the United States, one of the most mature pharmaceutical markets by nearly 10,000 trademarks filed. Even though China is the global leader filing pharmaceutical trademarks, the majority of the drugs manufactured in China are generic. But as China’s consumer mindset continues to mature and grow, so will the branded pharmaceutical sector.
Why the continued growth?
Specifically for pharmaceuticals, powerful product brand names are important tools to offset competitive pressure from generics and to build customer loyalty. Though heavily regulated by state legislations, in China’s case the SFDA, brand naming for pharmaceutical products is unique, and can greatly affect marketing decisions.
In highly competitive environments, a strong brand will rise above the clutter and demand attention. With a strong brand, you secure a unique position of credibility in the consumer mind, have more influence on your market and motivate customers to purchase from you.
From a marketing perspective, brand naming for a pharmaceutical product may take into consideration aspects such as the chemical/biological nature of its active ingredient, composition/formulation, therapeutic indication, associated medical condition, benefit and adherence to the corporate identity.
From a communication point of view, pharmaceutical branding specialists must decide whether to focus on the functionality or the end-user benefits. It is also from the same angle that pharmaceutical naming is usually considered of great complexity, as most of the time, both audiences should be targeted.
Chinese regulations on pharmaceutical drug naming frown upon utilization of characters that are either indicative of curative effect, intended use, target audience or may imply efficacy.
Regardless of the market you’re in, developing a strong pharmaceutical name is tough, but in China it can be particularly challenging. You must keep in mind translations, the use of characters and regulatory conditions. Biological and pharmaceutical products rely heavily on the protection of intellectual property rights, so it’s essential for foreign companies to gain thorough understanding of China’s IPR protection system before entering the market.
Multinational companies have greatly expanded their businesses in China over the years and have aligned with local pharmaceutical companies, which has proven to be a winning strategy for both parties. And as these companies and other foreign players continue to expand their footprint in China, competition will become fierce as each seeks to penetrate the market. Pricing, intricate knowledge of regional markets and developing strong brands will determine who gets ahead and who doesn’t.