We No Longer Feel Better On Swisse?

After a huge blitz earlier in the year, Advertisements by Vitamin company Swisse seem to have largely dropped off our screen. I’ve previously discussed multivitamin endorsements before. This article is about the battle to embed a perception into your target audiences mind. Because if you’ve embedded a perception, it lives on for quite a long time. Even without watering. It’s about how Swisse extracted full value from their tagline, before the strong tagline suddenly disappeared.

Firstly, businesses aren’t stupid. They know that this perception is key to a brands success. If you can win the battle of the mind, then you can always count on your assumptions prevailing and encouraging sales.

In 2011, Swisse increased its  total revenue by 60%, and an increase in profit of 131%. In 2012, I have no doubt that it’ll realise another healthy growth number at the end of this year.

This healthy growth number will largely be driven from a huge media spend in the first half of 2012. Wind your mind back a few months… Swiss had plenty of TV ads on high rotation to embed its tagline ‘Tired? Stressed? You’ll feel better on Swisse’. Heck I even went along to a corporate event and was handed a bunch of Swisse Multivitamins as I legged out the door. “No Thanks”.

This media and sponsorship saturation no doubt worked wonders in embedding the key brand message. Again, brands know that if you win the battle of the mind, then you can always count on your assumptions prevailing in the future.

…Anyways, the Therapeutic Goods Advertising Complaint Resolution Panel started playing bad cop and asked Swisse to cease promoting that some of its products were “clinically proven” or “independently tested”, as well as its tagline “Tired? Stressed? You’ll feel better on Swisse”. This went to the Federal court. Unfortunately the ultimate findings were suppressed. Don’t you love it when that happens.

But guess what happened before a judgement was even handed down? Yup, Swisse stopped using its ‘Tired? Stressed? You’ll feel better on Swisse’ message. Was this just a coincidence? I’ll leave that up to you.

I bet Swisse won’t be game to roll out its you’ll feel better on Swisse’ tagline given the court case, but it doesn’t matter. Swisse has already conquered the battle of the mind. It has already embedded its brand message. And this halo effect will live on in the minds of the public for at least the medium term. While, barely a few thousand will be aware of the behind the scenes court case.

And that is a great example of a brand nailing its brand message, while skirting (largely) unharmed on the edge of regulation. If I was a competitor like Blackmore’s, I’d be quite annoyed.

Growing your small business,

David Moloney
Small Business Planned