Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

Ulrike has once again pointed out a good example to me, this time of a product development strategy straight out of the Ansoff matrix. I’ve noticed the traditional German cuddly toy maker trying to do something about the dwindling birth rates in Germany before, most obviously by targetting older buyers in the media (who’ll buy [...]

SCA – who recently bought German megabrand Tempo from international consumer products mammoth Procter & Gamble – seem to think I spend my whole day thinking about toilet paper. No, on Assael’s model for understanding buying behaviour this is bottom right box: habitual purchase. We go to the supermarket, think for a fraction of a [...]

Porsche’s joint venture talks broke down with Volkswagen some time ago, so now it seems they’re looking for new ways to make money. According to the Handelsblatt article sent to me by Philip, we can expect to find 150 Porsche Design outlets in countries ranging from Dubai to Delhi by 2014. Cutting edge design (Image: [...]

Catch up competitors if you can. Here is a wonderful example of cobranding. Develey, Bavarian producer of sauces, mustard and condiments and supplier of ketchup to McDonalds in Germany, has a growing presence in supermarkets. McDonald’s has none. Develey has the technical and product know-how. McDonald’s as a franchise has, more-or-less, none. But Develey really [...]

When the size of your target group keeps shrinking, you need to find new ways to grow the business – or improve profits. Steiff, cult German producer of teddy bears, knows how important this is, in a country where birth rates don’t look like they’ll ever return to the high levels of the 1960s. So [...]

Portfolio management and long-term planning is crucial when you grow a business. One of the biggest issues from a marketing point of view is: do you stretch the brand and extend it into new markets, or do you launch new ones? This was obviously the issue tackled by Jägermeister, a cult brand that has already [...]

What a brave move – John Deere (makers of farming equipment) are going into … jeans. Well Ansoff would certainly take his straw hat off to them for diversification. Diversifying into jeans. Hopefully not a dear move. It will be interesting to see if they pull it off, after all Harley Davidson did. Ok, it’s [...]

Your guardian angel this winter I stumbled across this press ad a couple of years ago in Canada and it confirms how powerful a brand icon can be. Whenever I show it to my MBAs it raises plenty of smiles. Not just a guardian angel in the coming winter, a guardian angel to the brand. [...]

The thing about the Ansoff matrix is the boxes are clearly defined, but sometimes it’s tricky working out whether a company is developing the market, the product, or both. Clikits, expanding lego products to girls Take Lego. One of its constant struggles is to get girls to buy more lego. Lego is intrinsically more about [...]

In the top left-hand corner of the Ansoff matrix you are encouraged to achieve business growth by sticking with the same products and sticking with the same market or customer. Easier said than done. But loyalty promotions and below-the-line activity that encourage customers to use more are one way of doing this. Here’s a good [...]