7. Make up your own sentences using the words and word combinations given below.

To gain ground against smth, to be shy about breaking one’s spending, to enhance the impact of smth, to be consistent in look, consumer awareness, fastest-growing area, specific criteria, to reach niche audiences, to flatten, to pull back, a stumbling block, to narrow a gap.

8. What kind of products would you enjoy selling? Think of the customers for that product. Can you imagine yourself going through the seven-step selling process with them? Which steps would be most difficult? Which easiest? Which step could you avoid by selling in a retail store?

9. You are planning to open a business in town selling women’s clothes. There is a very successful shop on the other side of town that seems to be managed well. You decide to apply for a job at that store to learn all about the business. Then you can apply what you learned at your own store. Would that be ethical? You feel it is just another form of marketing research. Is it? You hear of a similar store in another town and ask to do a term paper on that store. You don’t tell the store owner that you are planning your own store. Instead, you say you are a student doing a paper for a class. Is that ethical? What is fair and what is not in gathering ideas from a competitor? When does research become corporate spying?

   ECONOMIC ISSUE: BRAND RELAUNCH

FINANCIAL TIMES OCTOBER 28 2004

Such stuff as dreams are made on

GlaxoSmithKline has pulled out all the stops to reinvent Horlicks, but can we really expect it to draw the hip crowds, asks Alicia Clegg

Owning a brand that becomes a metaphor for the age is every marketer’s ambition. In the 1990s Harvey Nichols achieved this distinction with a little help from Patsy and Edina of Absolutely Fabulous. Apple’s iPod is on the way to achieving similar celebrity in the digital noughties. But how should a brand react when its image seems locked in the past?

When Jack Straw, the UK foreign secretary, last year described one of the government’s so-called “dodgy dos­siers” as “a complete Horlicks” – by which he is supposed to have meant a right mess – the incident surely counted as the lowest point in the 130-year history of GlaxoSmithKline’s classic bedtime drink.

A year later, however, things have started to look up. In a feisty attempt to move with the times, the veteran brand has revamped its appearance. It has also engaged Mark Borkowski, a public relations consultant, to convince sleep-deprived party-goers and stressed-out working mothers that Horlicks is a product that speaks to their needs.

Horlicks’ attempt to draw in a new generation of drinkers highlights a dilemma faced by many so-called heri­tage brands, which have seen the average age of their customers creep up year by year. The first option for brand owners is to proceed gradually, updating the look and feel of the brand through fine adjustments to its imagery and tone. Such an approach aims to attract younger people to the brand without alienating existing customers. The other option is to reinterpret the traditional values of the brand in contemporary idiom to reach younger consumers.

Until recently Horlicks seemed wedded to the path of gradual change. In January, the company launched a new TV campaign featuring the tag-line: “Horlicks could help anyone get a restful night’s sleep.” Though humorous enough, none of the commercials – which feature mean-minded traffic wardens and bus drivers settling down with steaming mugs of the malt-based drink – seem likely, nor are even intended, to dispel com­mon perceptions of the brand as a cosy accompaniment to bed socks and lights out at nine.

Now, however, the brand may be changing tack. In July the product was given a creamier taste and repackaged in an eye-catching carton, with a moon-shaped “do-not-disturb sign” symbolising restful sleep. Hard on the heels of the new visual identity, the company's public relations agents recently announced that the beverage is back in fashion – and being enjoyed as a relaxing after-dinner digestive in hip London venues such as the Groucho Club and the Zetter Hotel.

Horlicks is by no means the only heritage brand facing the dilemma of evolution versus revolution. Others include Kit-Kat, which has modified its iconic packaging and slogan; Ribena, the blackcurrant-flavoured drink; and Tetley Tea, which is running advertisements with chic celebrities, such as Sex and the City’s Kim Cat-trail. Yet according to Charles Trevail, director of London-based consultancy Promise, the number of brands that can be said to have genuinely reinvented themselves is surprisingly low. Among the exceptions that prove the rule are Guinness, Lucozade and, most recently, Hovis.

An aversion to taking risks with brands that consumers hold in affection – even if they are no longer buying them so heavily – may explain why companies often prefer to modernise gradually when sales start to slip.

The danger, however, is that in a crowded marketplace changes that are subtly communicated risk being drowned out by the surrounding media cacophony. The risks of marking a break with the past may not be as great as brand owners think. Richard Murray, co-founder of Williams Murray Hamm, the London-based agency that redesigned Horlicks, argues the number of brands that would be devalued by sudden change is fewer than one might suppose.

“A few brands, such as Oxo and Marmite, have an iconic identity. But there are many others, such as Nescafe, laying claim to a unique equity, which consumers don’t really distinguish between.” For household names in this situation, suggests Mr Murray, the challenge is to re-express what they stand for in a way that distinguishes them from their rivals.

No amount of clever marketing will restore the fortunes of a brand for which consumers no longer have a need, however. To avoid becoming irrelevant, says Jez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand in the UK, companies must invest in their products as well as their image.

Babycham, the cider brand, showed the consequences of not responding to changes in taste when it embarked on a cosmetic relaunch in the mid-1990s. The image makeover, which involved dropping the brand's trademark deer and pear-green bottle, failed comprehensively and was subsequently reversed. “Babycham harked back to a time when consumers had unsophisticated palettes,” says Mr Frampton.

Whether Horlicks can connect with a younger market remains to be seen. In the brand’s favour is the fact that its central idea – offering people something that will help them to unwind at the end of a hectic day, and promote restful sleep – seems more relevant today than at any time in the past. Judging by the welter of publicity which the reported sightings of style-leaders sipping Horlicks in ultra-cool bars has generated, it appears that the relaunch has at least tickled the taste buds of the media. Mr Trevail, while applauding GSK’s audacity, sounds a cautionary note. “Getting Horlicks into the Groucho Club makes a bold statement.” But, he adds: “It’s all too easy to imagine some joker of a barman tossing powder into a mug and, with a well-aimed wisecrack, turning the whole thing into a bit of a...” Horlicks?

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE OF HEALTHY COMPETITION

To pull off a big relaunch, a brand must succeed on several fronts.

First, it must answer a real need among consumers and appeal to contemporary tastes. “Marketing a deficient product is pointless,” says Jez Frampton, chief executive of Interbrand in the UK.

Second, the brand must be one consumers will relate to, given the right presentation. If the core values are obsolete the relaunch is destined to fail unless – and this has rarely been achieved – some way can be found of changing what the brand stands for.

Third, the repositioning must be communicated with conviction. “Attracting new customers is like dating,” says Mr Trevail. “If you send out mixed messages you won’t be taken seriously.”

Lucozade and Hovis are well-known UK brands that have negotiated these challenges. By the mid-1980s Lucozade’s positioning, as a drink to aid recovery after illness, seemed at odds with society’s emphasis on high achievement.

To reconnect with consumers, the brand took the unusual step of changing not just its imagery, but what Lucozade stood for, shifting the focus from convalescence to athletic power.

Hovis’s problem was its inability to make headway in the white bread sector. In June 2001 the brand was relaunched to dispel its sepia-toned image, created by the nostalgic “boy-on-the-bike” commercials of 15 years earlier. The relaunch - which centred on the idea of “getting something good inside” – included TV advertising featuring a Simpsons-style cartoon family; a dramatic new pack design depicting wholesome toppings, plus high-profile public relations activity to grab the attention of the media.

The critical factor for both Lucozade and Hovis was having a bold idea, confidently communicated through multiple media. Any brand that seeks to emulate their success will need to be equally single-minded.