Parallel market analysis: A technique for risk-averse brand innovation

Abstract

The requirement for brand innovation is unrelenting but marketers often find this move into untested territory irreconcilable with the need for caution.

This paper examines the recent trend for innovation through brand extension and describes how a safer strategy can often be derived through the ‘importation’ if successful ideas from other markets.

Parallel Market Analysis is the phrase created to describe this process of identifying and researching selected markets with a view to translating the learning into another area. Provided that these markets represent a model if similar consumer pressures and dynamics, this analysis yields a risk-averse source if inspiration for new brand development.

Three starting points for the parallel analysis technique are identified and discussed:

• mirror markets;

• lead markets;

• parallel principles.