Manchester Products: A Brand Transition Challenge

Ameya C. Samant                                        MKT6200   Pf. Jeffrey Sieloff

MANCHESTER PRODUCTS: A brand transition challenge

Problem Statement: To make a decision whether to select one of the 3 strategies or to make a different strategy for Manchester products transition.

Background analysis:

Manchester product Inc. Leader in office furniture has taken over Paul Logan’s furniture division. This has allowed Manchester to enter the home furniture division and has also given them competitive advantage over others. MH can use PLFD logo only for 3 years new products of MH cannot be sold on Paul Logan’s logo. Paul Logan on the other hand cannot re-enter furniture market for 10 years.

Analysis: 

Strategy 1: Changing the brand name of all the product categories to Manchester as soon as possible. However this strategy does not consider the fact that Manchester doesn’t have the brand strength to pull off the brand transition. Also many distributors are opposed to this take over as they feel PLFD was crowd puller.

Strategy 2: To delay the change of name for as long as possible.

Strategy 3: Selecting one or two products which have low risk from brand transition.

The 3 strategy though being good choice demanded long customer acceptance period to the change in brand logo. The current economic situation makes this strategy non-viable. Hence the only option is to develop a new strategy.

Recommendations:

A step by step approach should be applied. As we have 3 years to use the PLFD brand name we should go ahead with it. Both brand names should be used with effective implementation of “cross selling”. Merchandising the products with of MH and PLFD together and educating the customers via sales staff will help in maintaining the quality perception. After about 7 to 8 months the products must have both the logos and advertisements should focus on quality and standards. Packaging must also be gradually changed. Once the customer relates PLFD with MH the brand equity of MH will increase. After a year market research must be done on perception of brand MH and PLFD brand. In the second year MH products must be placed besides the MH PLFD combine logo brand products. Discount offers must be given on MH brands only. After the middle of the final year a second market research must be done to determine the quality and logo perception of the customers w.r.t the MR and combined MR / PLFD brand. The final remaining months the MR/PLFD logo in advertisements must not been shown and only MR logo products must be endorsed. Focus should be on quality.