It’s time we got back to the business of building brands.
After hearing that KraftHeinz stock lost 28% of its value, let’s hope that we’re done with deep cost cutting as the primary driver of value creation. Let’s get back to the business of building brands with great ideas and innovation.
It’s obvious, many companies and big brands are under siege as a result of changing consumer preferences or from the disruptive effects of technology. Facing an existential threat, you’d expect them to fight for survival and reinvent themselves back to relevance. Then why does this obsession with cost cutting feel like these companies are retreating? A culture of cost cutting forces people to focus their attention internally. When people look inward, they solve company problems not consumer problems.
What if … we reset and refocused our attention externally. A culture of discovery yields insight, opportunities and ideas. When people look outwards, they solve consumer problems. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, we haven’t seen such a rapid shift in consumer values and behaviours. Perhaps it’s time we listen to and engage consumers again, not just to activate but to also discover. Solving consumer problems will bring us back to building brands with great ideas and innovation.
To a company, a brand is a valuable asset. To a consumer, a brand is the humanization of a company’s value proposition. Let’s get back to the business of building brands that create value for both our consumers and companies.
Isn’t this why we signed up to be marketers in the first place?
Read the full article at Forbes.com The Truly Awful Idea Behind Warren Buffett’s $4.2B KraftHeinz Wipeout
