Episode1 Innovation Branding

We are starting a new series in our column. It is the “Episode Series”.

We often see companies similar to ours “introducing their achievements” on the web or on TV. There are some things I think about.

First of all, “Your achievements are never something you can do alone.”

Because there are almost no projects that can be done by one person. Therefore, I think it is morally wrong to introduce it as “I accomplished this.” A project is accomplished by many people working together, and if you take into consideration the feelings of those who collaborated, you have to be very careful about the “introduction of achievements” when promoting yourself.

Secondly, not only are “introductions” to customers without their permission, but we also often see introductions like “Our company made this project a success” even though they only did a small part of the project.

In any case, we are quite reluctant to do such “introductions of achievements.” Therefore, we do not often “introduce achievements” on our website.

However, there are some “achievements” that are a little interesting and useful to you.

We will introduce these various strategic cases as fiction based on true stories (in the form of episodes).

I hope that reading this will be an opportunity for you to learn about the appeal and effectiveness of strategy.

About 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to work with Mr. S, an engineer at a major automobile manufacturer (category brand), through a certain connection.

At the time, our company was producing domestic race operations for the “International Air Race” and also managed the pilots.

The “certain connection” mentioned above was when Mr. S had an opportunity to meet the pilot, and at that time, he noticed that the sports car he was developing had a lot in common with airplanes, and he consulted us about whether we could give shape to this commonality.

According to Mr. S, although his company’s automobile brand was aiming to be a luxury brand, it ended up being a representative “car for old men” and its domestic brand ranking was also low.

Mr. S said that he wanted his company’s automobile brand to be in the same position as Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

As one of the solutions, he thought that by developing a sports car, which had only released sedans until then, he could express “dynamism” and “excitement” even in a luxury car.

This is how we began our strategy design.

During the research, we discovered that the sports car had “thoroughly pursued aerodynamics” (which may be natural).

This is its biggest commonality with airplanes.

In principle, airplanes undergo thorough wind tunnel testing and aerodynamic calculations to create their beautiful, streamlined bodies.

The sports car we were developing had a similar idea.

So we decided to create a strategy based on this “commonality.”

This is “innovation branding.”

Usually, it is common for companies to use actors, celebrities, athletes, etc. to incorporate them into their own branding strategies.

However, this is a passive approach that uses the brand image of celebrities, athletes, etc. to raise the level of their own brand.

Going one step further, there is “co-branding,” a marketing technique in which multiple companies or brands work together to develop a brand. It is also called co-creation branding and is used frequently, especially in Europe and the United States. The benefit is that by working together, we can increase awareness and strengthen brand value, something that would be difficult to achieve through branding a single brand.

“Innovation Branding” goes even further.

The goal is to create “something innovative” by teaming up with other companies, IP holders, or actors.

So this time, rather than using pilots as image characters, we designed a strategy in which both parties would resonate with each other and co-create to improve.

To be more specific,

– Communicate mutual activities through events and social media, etc.

– Support each other’s goals through technology exchanges

And so, this project started in the same year.

In 2016, the performance of the pilots under our management in the Air Race continued to be poor.

The automobile manufacturer also had no effect on raising its brand from the struggling pilots, and the brand’s low ranking continued for some time.

However, neither Mr. S nor the pilots were concerned about that.

They were aiming for a turnaround through “innovation branding.”

As part of this activity, the automobile manufacturer supported the development of racing aircraft,

and the pilots supported the development of automobiles.

Their efforts paid off, and the pilots won the overall championship in the 2017 Air Race.

In 2020, the automobile manufacturer also saw pre-orders for a sports car that utilized aviation technology sell out in one week,

and thus the signal for a turnaround was raised!

Thus, the car manufacturer, which had been struggling with a slump in its brand, gradually rose in the brand rankings, and in 2020, Mr. S became the president of the manufacturer. This was certainly not the result of these “innovation branding” alone, but it is true that it was one of the factors that influenced Mr. S’s appointment.

Then, in 2023, Mr. S went from being the president of the car manufacturer (category brand) to being the president of the car manufacturer (main body).

He was now entrusted with steering the world’s number one car manufacturer.

*By the way, this year the category brand finally won first place in all brand rankings.

To tell you the truth, I have predicted that Mr. S would become president.

Many people around me said, “That’s probably impossible, isn’t it? Because it’s such a big company, there are many executives between the then president and Mr. S, so it’s difficult to jump several ranks.”

However, what was special about Mr. S was his foresight, cleverness, ability to execute, openness to our proposals, and above all, his love of cars.

We thought that Mr. S was suitable to be the leader of the rapidly changing automotive industry.

Incidentally, Mr. S and Pilot still have a good relationship to this day.

When I think back on this episode, it still gives me chills to think that strategy has no small impact not only on people, but also on companies and industries.

We will continue to work hard to improve our strategic technology.

Written by Ashida Hiroshi