Big Brands Big Trouble: Lessons Learned the Hard Way (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Long ago and far away, I started my career at General Electric..." (more)
Key Phrases: differentiating idea, bigger competitor, big competitor, Burger King, Wall Street, General Motors (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Despite impressive triumphs over the years, leading companies like General Motors, Xerox, and Levi Strauss have also stumbled badly at times. In Big Brands, Big Trouble, Jack Trout points out their biggest missteps as well as the critical lessons that can be learned from them. In his typically no-nonsense manner, Trout--a "positioning" expert who has written numerous bestselling books on the topic and served as a consultant to several of these firms--lays out the myriad errors that caused them and other giants to lose ground in the fight for success. Helpful specifics abound, such as in the chapter on Crest, in which Trout notes how the toothpaste's one-time dominance slipped away when consumer concern over cavities gave way to worries about discoloration, bad breath, and gum disease (which other brands more effectively set themselves up to attack). The lessons Trout takes from this are threefold: even winning positions must occasionally evolve; knowledge of how leadership was initially attained must always be maintained; and competitors must never be given an angle to exploit. Likewise, the section on Burger King discusses how turnover at the top, inconsistent advertising messages, and a loss of focus on how to assault the industry leader resulted in a stagnation that has perpetually mired the chain as a fast-food also-ran. "It's a fact of life that the easiest idea to overlook is the obvious one," Trout notes in this chapter. Since most ideas are apparent only in retrospect, however, his insights should prove invaluable to readers who might easily make similar mistakes. --Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly

Trout (Differentiate or Die) does the obvious in his latest book, rehashing the demise of well-known failures such as Xerox and Miller Brewing, and his redundant preaching of unoriginal strategies may irritate. But readers will find salvation in his straightforward, engaging prose and the constant hammering home of lessons (GM failed because it lost touch with the market, and AT&T tanked when it lost its focus). The book's first part is an excellent reminder of what managers should and should not do with a brand, making this a primer for the uninitiated.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1st edition (September 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471414328
• ISBN-13: 978-0471414322
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,034,705 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Missed Branded Opportunities and Mistakes from the Trenches!, October 15, 2001

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

Big Brands, Big Trouble is a no-holds-barred look at the greatest brand marketing errors of the last three decades in the United States and U.K. Unlike most books about how to be more successful by looking at the winners, this one looks primarily at the people who did it worst in order draw out the lessons for today. Further breaking with tradition, author Jack Trout names names and relates private conversations in which he unsuccessfully attempted to encourage alternatives. From there, he selects prominent consulting firms, boards of directors, and investors interested in profit growth for special scorn in contributing to the debacles. Along the way, management advisor icons like Tom Peters, McKinsey & Company, and Michael Porter are body slammed by Mr. Trout's criticisms.

The book opens with a few key points:

(1) "[P]eople perceive the first brand to enter their mind as superior." So benchmarking against other brands will be misleading. You have to compete with what's in minds, not what's in reality.

(2) Be clear what you are selling if you establish a new category. Calling something an Apple Newton as an example of a PDA doesn't tell much. Calling something similar a Palm Pilot does.

(3) It's hard to change an established brand. Look at new Coke.

(4) Don't try to stretch brands where they won't go. A.1. Poultry Sauce makes no sense.

(5) Focusing on profits leads to mistakes. You will only do unrealistic things, as Miller did in destroying its brand. Instead get profits from doing enough of the right things to strengthen and grow brands.

(6) Attack yourself with new brands from new positions. Don't wait for the competition to do it.

From there, you will follow along discussions of GM's forgetting the basic lessons of segmentation that Alfred Sloan put in place (each brand having a higher price and higher perceived quality), Xerox predicting an office revolution that never occurred and missing the opportunity to become the king of laser printers, DEC ignoring the PC, AT&T moving away from communication into computers and cable, missing the chance to be "the reliable choice," Levi Strauss failing to segment for style, age, and outlet, Crest losing the therapeutic segment to Colgate's Total, Burger King backing away from touting its advantages versus McDonald's in favor of searching for Herb, Firestone trying to fix its battered brand rather than establishing a new one, Mark's & Spenser losing the service and value positioning while becoming less stylish for young people, and Kellogg's heavily promoting generic cereals.

In the end, Mr. Trout argues that it's all about knowing competitors, avoiding your #1 competitor's strength in your marketing focus, exploiting your #1 competitor's weaknesses in your marketing, crushing small competitors as soon as possible, shifting the battlefield to your advantage (shades of Sun Tzu), and paying attention to what's going on in the marketplace as your top priority from the CEO on down. Ultimately, he restates these points as: "it's all about understanding that the mind of the consumer is where you win or lose;" stay in touch; think long term; and "Remember the Titanic." .

Basically, Mr. Trout is arguing that bad decisions come from imagining success from places where you cannot hope to predict what will happen next, pursuing actions that look good in the first year and are a disaster after that (such as endless line extensions), and forecasting volumes that aren't going to happen. You might think of these perspectives as quantified dope-smoking. If you want company, he warns you that neither your consultants nor your board will have the knowledge or guts to warn you from your follow but will gladly accept as much money as you want to spend with them. You, however, will end up holding the bad. It is interesting to note that many of the biggest flops have come from companies that made the biggest use of the most prestigious consulting firms. Somehow the disasters didn't stick to the advisors though.

After you finish this book, I suggest that you take a similar look at your cost reduction efforts. These actions are usually flawed with the same weaknesses and abetted by the same parties.

By the way, do you really want to ask the opinion of someone who may write bad things about you in a future book? I assume Mr. Trout has decided that he doesn't want to attract new clients from companies having problems. I don't quite understand why this approach is good for Mr. Trout's brand. I certainly wouldn't want to hire him, even if I thought he might give me good advice. What do you think?

Build a new model for your business that improves customer benefits and perceptions while reducing competitive choices!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deliver a clear message-Perception is the most important!, September 13, 2003

By	Yvonne Lam Si Ting (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

ˇ§Big Brands Big troubleˇ¨ is a very interesting and comprehensive book. This book explains several types of popular mistakes with different big brand cases, how to select a board of directors and how to be a good CEO. I think this book is suitable for anyone who is interested in Marketing or Branding because you could gain a lot of insight from it. After reading this book, you will understand why some brands cannot be established well even they have spent a lot money on advertising, introducing many new products.

This book impress me the most is that Jack Trout illustrated all mistakes clearly by showing how the big brands, like Levis, Burger King, AT&T and Marks and Spencer made in the past. Then you may discover that some of the existing well-known brands are actually making mistakes for their marketing strategies. Moreover, you may get surprise that some of the popular marketing strategies, like line extension, benchmarking cannot promote your product, conversely, they will hurt your company seriously. So you must read this book if you want to surpass your competitors by using appropriate marketing strategies for your company.

Overall speaking, this book is easy to read and understand because Jack Trout delivered a concise and important message in the book ˇV ˇ§Marketing is a battle of perception, not productˇ¨

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Packed with Knowledge!, January 21, 2003

By	Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract.com" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Jack Trout, head of the marketing firm Trout & Partners, digs for details about the major reasons big brands run into trouble and just how enormous companies mess up by handling their signature standard-bearers badly. He runs down the litany: mistaken extensions of the brand name, failures to differentiate the brand's qualities and loss of clarity about just what a brand represents. His failure sagas are mini-novels based inside Xerox, General Motors, AT&T, Digital Equipment, General Mills and Coca-Cola. Remember New Coke? Now that was a branding debacle. Trout highlights corporate shortcomings and lays the blame for branding woes right at the feet of people who should have known better: of out-of-touch CEOs, ineffective consultants and dysfunctional boards. Alert consumers who like insider business war stories will enjoy this clear, lively book, but if you own a company or market a brand, we from getAbstract suspect you should read it twice.