{"id":2703,"date":"2016-08-10T14:13:27","date_gmt":"2016-08-10T14:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/?p=2703"},"modified":"2016-08-10T14:13:27","modified_gmt":"2016-08-10T14:13:27","slug":"mazda-to-focus-on-brand-management-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/2016\/08\/mazda-to-focus-on-brand-management-growth\/","title":{"rendered":"Mazda to Focus on Brand Management to Increase Long-term Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The major car brand has seen a decline in sales at the start of 2016 and with the bigger picture looking even flatter, Mazda has decided to focus their brand on the future.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

With a new CEO in place, the company\u2019s focus is very much on brand management.\u00a0 Believed that it will be this that will drive them to long term growth and success.<\/p>\n

1) Taking the brand under control<\/h1>\n

Sometimes brands can be forgotten about, left behind, not managed correctly.\u00a0 Without anyone really knowing this can have a huge impact on a growing business.\u00a0 Your brand is who you are, we can\u2019t stress this enough.<\/p>\n

The stronger your brand, your brands position and your ability to manage this in-line with your target audience, the more success as a company you can achieve.<\/p>\n

For Mazda their new brand management strategy is what their top chiefs believe to be their key to long-term success.\u00a0 Not just in the US but globally.<\/p>\n

\"mazda_brand_value_management_the_branding_journal_3\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

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2) What will change<\/h1>\n

Their focus. \u00a0Drive.\u00a0 Their connection to their customers.\u00a0 According to the new CEO, Masahiro Moro \u201cwe have changed to emphasize brand and product values to customers to emphasize brand-value management\u201d.<\/p>\n

The advantage of building on the value of their brand and making it clear that this is their focus is that it then becomes the key driver for sustainable competitive advantage. \u00a0It allows companies to extend their brand into new products, markets and channels much easier. \u00a0This is due to the trust and loyalty that can be built through brand communications. \u00a0It allows people to build up a relationship with you, an association and connection.\u00a0 They can relate to your brand values and identity and hence buy into your new products with much more ease.<\/p>\n

3) Taking it\u2019s time<\/h1>\n

Bearing this in mind it should come as no surprise that brand has become the company\u2019s primary focus.\u00a0 With their global share of automotive sales less than 2% – the company has also attempted to overhaul its entire product line-up.\u00a0 Expanding its offering, cross segmenting and placing itself on a higher pricing platform.\u00a0 Their brand has to play a key part in this.<\/p>\n

However, Mazda were making these changes without having their brand-value management strategy in place first. \u00a0It should then come as no shock that sales were still down by 8% in the first half of 2016.<\/p>\n

Moro will admit that after the Great Recession, Mazda\u2019s strategy had been to focus on increasing volume and achieving sales through growth at nearly any cost.<\/p>\n

4) Lessons learnt<\/h1>\n

\"mazda_brand_value_management_the_branding_journal_1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Like any business lessons have to be learnt.\u00a0 In this instance Mazda have come back sharp with their renewed vigour for the brand.<\/p>\n

For example, the new CX-9 is now widely available to see and test drive in showrooms throughout the US.\u00a0 Mazda are exploiting the premium materials, amenities and technology with the model to begin to leverage its brand out of the mere mainstream of the US auto-market and into more luxury territory.<\/p>\n

5) Customer focused<\/h1>\n

Now Mazda\u2019s brand strategy focuses on their target audience and how they can achieve their corporate strategy and their sales, whilst also meeting their consumer\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

Their philosophy is \u201chow to keep customers coming back to Mazda\u201d.\u00a0 Moro went on to comment that \u201cNow we are focused on how to take care of the customers throughout the ownership cycle.\u00a0 It\u2019s a big shift in mind-set\u201d.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest lessons that Mazda has learnt is that you can continue to evolve your product but it takes a long time to change consumer\u2019s perceptions.\u00a0 Consistent brand messaging is key to help support this.<\/p>\n

Mazda\u2019s brand-value management strategy will go a long way once embedded throughout the organisation.<\/p>\n

References:<\/strong> \u00a0Brand Channel
\n<\/a><\/em>Pictures from:<\/strong> Good Logo,\u00a0<\/em>Brand Channel,\u00a0<\/em>Latest Auto Logo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The major car brand has seen a decline in sales at the start of 2016 and with the…\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":2708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"With a new CEO in place, Mazda\u2019s focus is very much on brand management. Believed that it will be this that will drive them to long term growth and success.","_seopress_robots_index":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,4],"tags":[615,617,614,616],"ppma_author":[757],"class_list":{"0":"post-2703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brand-positioning","8":"category-news","9":"tag-brand-management","10":"tag-brand-value","11":"tag-mazda","12":"tag-north-america","13":"cs-entry","14":"cs-video-wrap"},"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":58,"label":"Brand Positioning"},{"value":4,"label":"News"}],"post_tag":[{"value":615,"label":"brand management"},{"value":617,"label":"brand value"},{"value":614,"label":"Mazda"},{"value":616,"label":"North America"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/mazda_brand_value_management_the_branding_journal_1.jpg",600,313,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Amanda Wright","author_link":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/author\/amanda-w\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":58,"name":"Brand Positioning","slug":"brand-positioning","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":58,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":207,"count":29,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":58,"category_count":29,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Brand Positioning","category_nicename":"brand-positioning","category_parent":207},{"term_id":4,"name":"News","slug":"news","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":4,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":95,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":4,"category_count":95,"category_description":"","cat_name":"News","category_nicename":"news","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":615,"name":"brand management","slug":"brand-management","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":615,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":617,"name":"brand value","slug":"brand-value","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":617,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":614,"name":"Mazda","slug":"mazda","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":614,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":616,"name":"North America","slug":"north-america","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":616,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw"}],"authors":[{"term_id":757,"user_id":15,"is_guest":0,"slug":"amanda-w","display_name":"Amanda Wright","avatar_url":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Amanda-W.jpg","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2703"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2780,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions\/2780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2703"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrandingjournal.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}