Eatons: A Sad Case

Eaton’s- A Case For The Value Of Skilful Brand Strategy.

By Stefan Paul
 
(Dec. 2002. St. Louis, MO). I am often confronted by business leaders and managers, especially in Canada, concerning the value of Brand Strategy. Or, as many of these businesspeople like to suggest, “the perceived lack of value in it.” Brand Strategy to some is just ‘hocus-pocus”—there is no real proof of its merits or effectiveness... End of story. Of course, as a Brand Strategist, I pull out my case studies, theories, and ideas from greats like Kotler, Aacker, and Ries, etc.—but, only to polite smiles. The names of huge multinationals and US gurus just seem too far away and on a scale that just does not seem applicable to many Canadian business leaders—especially small and b2b companies. So, I needed an example they can understand, relate to, and put into perspective: Eaton’s. For Brand Strategists, like astronomers, Brand failures are like supernovas—their collapse full of information and data about the past, significant events, and the recipe for failure. Eaton’s and its failure, twice, is a great and rare specimen to examine—Brand wise.

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