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: [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

This example of what falls into the Ansoff matrix strategy of “market development” shocks me as a Brit. Erdinger Weissbier (a wheat-based Bavarian brew) has been gradually stretching out across different segments to appeal to more than the beer-swilling pot-bellied traditional drinker from home. So it has positioned a low-alcohol variety to car drivers. An [...]

If you take the Ansoff matrix at face value – and follow the “safer” Z sequence, you would never jump straight to a diversification strategy. Does Richard Branson care? Hardly. He’d probably point to a Harvard study that found that there is no correlation between companies with a strategy and business success. If anything, companies [...]

Nestlé does it again. KitKat takes on the Nestlé stamp In the late 80s they bought the traditional York-based English chocolate company Rowntree Mackintosh. One of their biggest assets: KitKat. So over time it was inevitable that the Nestlé owners would roll out their “Nestle on the front of all packaging” strategy in this core [...]

I’ve seen many examples of products stretching their way across the Ansoff matrix into new customer groups or markets (market development strategy), but let me introduce you to one of my favourites. Vaseline for … But before I do, allow me to show you how Vaseline did a similar thing after years in the consumer [...]