Revival Post: Matching a Brand's Marketing to Its Life Stage

Reviving an earlier post from when my readership was: my mom. In my list of "Yes! This is so right! Why do we tend to over-complicate things, when we could just read this?" this article is right up there. Thank you, David Matli, for simplifying something so complex...

It always strikes me how intertwined brand and business strategies are--or should be. This is an absolute must-read article on "Matching a brand's marketing to its stage of life" by David Matli at MarketingProfs.com. I have provided excerpts here, but please read the full article at its origin.

Matli provides a simple view of the four stages of a company and its brand: new, growth, mature and revival.  He also provides pithy, modern brand examples in the article.

New Brands (Create) 
Primary Challenge: Differentiation and Targeted Awareness
"In the early stages of a brand launch, the question that you continually hear is 'What is it?' Distinct, simple, and viral differentiation create the potential for explosive growth. But most significant, it is the relevance to an early-adopter audience that catapults...a brand past the new, start up phase and into the growth phase."
Example: TOMS Shoes

Growth Brands (Build)
Primary Challenge: Transitioning from Early Adopters to Mass Market Without Alienating Core Fans
"Owners of hot, new brands commonly mistake their rabid and vocal fan base support as something long term that will carry their brands into the mainstream.  That is only true when it is carefully managed. It is critical, in this phase, to strategically shift to a simple brand message, using the short-term support of early adopters...The chief challenge in the growth stage is to achieve clarity of brand standards, messaging, tone of voice, philosophical stance, and values."
Example: Books adapted for screen like Harry Potter

Mature Brands (Leverage)
Primary Challenge: Growth Against  "Cooler" Upstart Competitors
"When a brand has become a household name, marketing has become a core internal function.  Growth becomes difficult to maintain because of the sheer weight of the brand's size and awareness makes it challenging to constantly refresh.  Senior management seeks new ways to increase brand relevance...Continuing growth with world-straddling brands requires not only maintaining relevance with the core audience but also constantly expanding into new taste-makers niches, markets and brand extensions.  That process forces a brand to become more diverse in execution and often softens a brand positioning, unless it is carefully managed. Brands risk not accurately identifying their key differentiation points and skillfully translating those attributes into broader marketing strategies...That can take years, just as the brand took years to build.  Brand managers may eventually find that the brand they own has become a commodity with little value."
Example: Ocean Pacific

Revival Brands (Evolve)
Primary Challenge: Regain Relevancy
"When a brand has been a household name with a broad fan base for a generation or more, brand managers settle into a routine and stop giving much thought to differentiation, awareness, and new competitors...Many companies with such brands tend to hire managers with experience in maintaining a business, but little experience in brand extension, differentiation, or repositioning -- skills essential to maintaining relevance when dramatic shifts occur in the marketplace.  And they always occur...At that point, it's critical that strong brand leadership act quickly to re-establish the brand's core relevance in the minds of its consumers....A brand may be well known but so ubiquitous that it becomes background noise, and people forget why it's special. Relevance in a fresh context can become a growth engine for older brands."
Example: Sesame Street
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Update November 25, 2011: @christinecuoco, a fantastic marketer and friend, sent a note about Youngme Moon's book Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd. I have only read the excerpt she sent. It goes into further detail about the stages of mature and revival brands and the need for differentiation.