Can This Brand Be Saved? case study tells of the plight of La Shampoo. Introduced in 1975, the brand has retained its motto of "La Shampoo: For the Look and Feel of France" throughout the years. More than a decade later, sales began to take a downward slope. When Caroline was appointed as Brand Manager, the company started addressing the problem. She started with a new packaging design which, unfortunately, seemed not to have helped at all. Caroline knows that the brand is in trouble and she must decide on the appropriate marketing plan soon in order to save it.
​Regina Fazio Maruca
Harvard Business Review (94508-PDF-ENG)
September 01, 1994
Case questions answered:
- What is John Deighton's approach?
- What is La Shampoo's niche?
- What is the market research of Caroline?
- Is there a solid core?
- What if La Shampoo's customer franchise were dispersed among a larger group of consumers who purchased the brand only infrequently?
- What is the worst-case scenario?
- What is John Hanlon's approach?
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Can This Brand Be Saved? Case Answers
Can This Brand Be Saved? – The La Shampoo Case Study
What is John Deighton’s approach?
Caroline is debating solutions before forming any fact-based opinion of the problem that La Shampoo confronts and on the question of can this brand be saved. Her brand is small and declining, but that is a vague diagnosis to base treatment on. Her immediate concern should be to establish why the brand is so sick.
To begin to identify the problem, Caroline should try to find out which market La Shampoo really serves. When a brand’s share is as low as 2% or 3% of the national market, it probably holds a larger share of a smaller niche or submarket.
2. What is La Shampoo’s niche?
- It is still essentially a regional brand;
- Certain retailers may favor it; and
- More popular with a certain age group or ethnic group.
3. What is the market research of Caroline?
Caroline will be in a strong position if she has been subscribing to a retail scanner panel or has access to some of the “frequent shopper” purchase records that major retail chains are assembling.
Aggregates of individual purchasing histories can show her…
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