所谓品牌, 指名字, 图案用以识别企业提供给某群消费者的产品或服务. 自1885年世界上第一个品牌出现后, 人类就一直生活在品牌的世界里 - 吃KFC, 喝Coca-cola, 穿Espirit, 用Nokia, 乘SIA, 住Hyatt - 这些都是在人们心中印象深刻的品牌, 它们超越了物品或服务本身, 被赋予了各种精神. 产品或者服务只是品牌的一部分, 优秀品牌给消费者带来的不止是产品的用处, 还有更高层次的精神享受.  品牌经营是一门艺术, Jack将HBS及现时新闻中摘取的案例来探究一番.

1980年代, 法国Bic公司的一次性打火机一次性剃须刀在世界各地大行其道, 销售红火. 于是Bic公司试图乘胜追击, 推出了Bic牌香水, 继承了公司的低价优质, 易买易用的传统 - 人们可以在十几万个超市里面以五美元的价格买到. 不过这次Bic公司失算了. 问题在哪? 很简单, Bic的品牌形象在消费者眼里缺乏跟香水这种感性商品有关的声望. 吉列Gillette公司则深悟此道, 它的牙膏用Oral B品牌, 电动牙刷Braun.

Bic公司的问题在于使用单一品牌给截然不同的商品, 另一方面, 给单一商品或服务使用过的的品牌也会出问题. 上周(2009年4月第二周)华尔街日报报道称微软的搜索败给Google的一个重要原因就是因为其品牌问题. 微软做了一个实验, 后台都是微软的搜索引擎, 一个标着是微软的, 一个标着是Google的, 结果显示人们对"Google"的满意度远远高于标着微软的系统. 文章分析说微软搜索名称混乱是罪魁祸首之一 - Live Search, Microsoft Search, Windows Live, ... 到底是什么, 非常不明确. Jack认为另外一个主要因素是, 在消费者心中微软就是Windows + Office, 网络似乎不管微软事; 而一提到Google, 人们知道它是精于搜索的, GMail(由于法律原因, GMail在德国与英国使用Google Mail的品牌)和众多GApps更确立Google树立的网络形象. Google另外一个明智的决定是它没有将收购过来的YouTube改成GVideo.

如何经营品牌, 这里有几个建议 - 品牌要定位恰当properly positioned(档次, 目标客户研究清楚); 保持一致性consistent(不发出矛盾信号); 品牌组合与分级合理well-arranged brand portfolio and hierarchy(品牌专注目标市场niche; 不要有过多重叠); 长期支持品牌give good support to brand(长期努力维持知名度).

后记: 某中国汽车品牌发布宣言要从低价策略转为高品质策略, Jack在本年度上海车展上看到了其'高端'品牌, 虽然牌子与以前的低端名称不同, 但从展台的布置上一看便知这些牌子属于同一个公司, 甚至同一群市场人员策划. 由此看来, 品牌的范畴远远超过了商标 - 也就是说品牌是消费者眼中的综合形象而非一个简单logo. 对于这家汽车公司, Jack的观点是设立新的公司, 单独进行营销, 即便制造销售等环节与母公司共享资源, 但在消费者认知上必需切断与旧有低端品牌的联系.

Illustration: SINGAPORE AIRLINES SUITES - A CLASS BEYOND FIRST
References: Keller, Kevin L. 1999. The Brand Report Card. Harvard Business Review (Jan-Feb 2000)  & Wingfield, Nick. 2009. Microsoft Faces Branding Problem In Effort to Top Google. The Wall Street Journal (Apr 8, 2009)  

    

阳春三月, 四人小游西湖. 柳絮桃花漫天飞舞, 戏鱼更戏人. 午至苏堤, 远想苏翁李翁, 酒浓肉香诗意兴. 游人如织, 醉意阑珊又白堤. 腿酸肚饿, 恰遇酒家, 品杭菜尝西酒, 饱餐之于又至湖边赏夜景. 回途火车最后一刻终挤上. 古人当笑今人之仓促, 吾唯窃喜一日之偷闲.
Thanks LW for taking the photos.

I have spent two days developing a Java based mathematics expression render engine. It looks like a simple task, yet it's more much complicated than it should be. Nine out of ten maths equation renders are based on Knuth's Tex (created 20 years ago) and they require a Unix system or ported libraries on Windows. To make things worse, the syntax of Tex/Letax is hard to read and to write for beginners.

My goal is a pure Java solution with simple and easy to read syntax - after all, readability is almost everything in software development. Taking the idea and code of many public maths libraries, finally I managed to render text like x_(1,2)=(-b+-sqrt(b^2-4a c))/(2a) into the PNG file shown above.

It's a process that requires endurance, persistence, and astuteness - you have to grasp the essential of thousands lines of Java, JavaScript and XML as soon as possible. In two days, the total number of lines of code written/modified by me exceeds 2,000. I gave up more than 10 times - after each giving up, I revisited the web and confirmed that I was on the right direction - you know you are on the right track and yet you can not move ahead. I was thinking that I probably should outsource it to someone or to implement it later. Giving-ups, thoughts, coffee, tea ... finally, it's done.

Usually coding is fun, that just catch(Exception e) {}. It's worth taking a quick look at our typical daily activities -

• 9:00am morning session begins with a oatmeal and a coffee;
• 12:00nn we eat and discuss various topics at one of the restaurants;
• 1:30pm afternoon session starts with a coffee or tea;
• 5:40pm one person will cook a healthy meal for all and others may go for jogging;
• 6:40pm dinner, news and most importantly, our comments on news.
• 7:30pm frisbee time! Since our last visit to the botanic garden, frisbee has been our favorite sports - it's light, fun and full of laugh.

Not bad, eh?