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Introduction
Brands. They power companies, pay salaries and in recent years have even become a balance-sheet item (Blackett, 1993; Lin, 1993; Thomas, 1993), yet the extent to which practitioners and academics truly understand brand management remains uncertain (Goodyear, 1993). Marketing professionals sometimes seem to forget that brands do not really exist objectively at all: they are not to be found in factories, delivery pipelines or retail outlets; they reside in people's heads (Restall and Gordon, 1993). The schematic memory of a brand in relation to competing brands, products or stores is referred to as positioning (a term often used interchangeably with image). Brand (re)positioning is therefore achieved through carefully manipulating all aspects of consumer information processing (Hawkins et al., 1992) to the extent that product design and quality and advertising messages need to be consistent. Sufficient repetitions, rewards and so forth must be offered to ensure that the desired interpretation (product position) is finally learned (Hawkins et al., 1992). This article addresses the case of a brand with an established yet somewhat irrelevant and undifferentiated position. The marketing task, therefore, was one of rejuvenation, or revitalization -- rather than repositioning in the traditional sense.
The original core values of the Mazda brand in South Africa (durability and reliability), while still important to consumers at the rational level, had become inherent in almost all other automotive brands. By concentrating on new core values (quality, technology and excitement), the brand was successfully refreshed -- giving it the substance to endure and succeed within a highly competitive, dynamic and brand conscious market.
From repositioning to revitalization
Any form of change can inherently be a difficult and delicate process. The more at odds the change is with the existing status quo, the more difficult it tends to be to implement. In brand terms, as Aaker (1991) points out, when an existing association is inconsistent with the repositioning, two concerns arise: First, the existing associations can inhibit the repositioning effort. Second, they may well be important to a worthwhile segment who could potentially be alienated by the repositioning. Any form of repositioning effort must therefore be sensitive to the existing customer base. Furthermore, in instances where brand equity has stagnated (precisely the predicament which faced the Mazda brand in South...