Eating one’s own share – Brand cannibalisation

“If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will”  – Steve Jobs

 

How can you eat your own share?

 

What is brand cannibalisation?

 

Market cannibalisation or brand cannibalisation is not a new strategy. It has been an old school thought for big brands, but implementing this can either shoot up your sales and profits or toss your world if you are not flexible enough.

 

There are two classic stories from the past which can be taken as lessons to learn from. 

 

The Coke Story

 

While consumers were already happy with Coca-Cola signature drink Coke, the big brand thought to launch different flavoured soda products in the market like Coke Zero, Coke Diet, Cherry Coke, Vanilla Coke etc. They implemented this strategy to acquire new customers and increase their market share. They thought that this would initially cannibalise their regular coke but in the long run, they will benefit from this as they would have a larger customer base than that they had.

But here is the twist, loyal customers still preferred their original drink and with time Coca-Cola realised this too. This prompted the beverage giant to revise their formula and sell their original coke as “Classic Coke”.

 

Lesson learnt – Be Flexible and responsive

 

The Google Story

 

Google launched a chrome extension called google quick scroll which will skyrocket your browsing speed and give you faster results on “find your page” query. The technology giant already profited from the Google Advertisement platform but guess what? The google quick scroll jeopardised Google Ads business model by allowing fast search and reducing the time which users spend on a web page. 

 

Lesson Learnt – Don’t let one service contradict the other’s nature 

 

Please share your views/suggestions in the comment section and get in touch if you have a knack for branding too.

  

Keep branding!