The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things

Porsches for soccer moms? Finance bros in Patagonia? Bud Light Pride cans? Drive-through Starbucks? What happens when your growth strategy creates conflict between customers?

You always want to grow your brand, but there’s a dilemma: the more customer segments you target for growth, the harder it becomes to avoid conflict. Sometimes you do such a good job building a loyal following that attempts to court other customers feel like betrayal to your core. Sometimes, a segment adopts your products without you targeting them, alienating your existing customers. Sometimes, your growth strategy flies in the face of what people have decided your brand means to them.

Welcome to ＂the conflict zone,＂ where brands must navigate these incompatibilities to achieve growth--or face losing customers rather than growing. How did Supreme’s attempts to cross over cost the brand its coveted reputation among skateboarders? How did Apple lose one of its most devoted customer bases when it updated a piece of software? What does Gucci do when the cast of Jersey Shore starts toting their handbags around?

Marketing experts and professors Annie Wilson and Ryan Hamilton answer these questions, and through dozens of cases provide insight into how brands can drive growth by attracting new segments without alienating or losing their current customers. With a fresh, simple framework for growing without imploding, Wilson and Hamilton show you how to recognize when you’re heading for the conflict zone, how to steer clear of it, and what to do if you find yourself in it.

Here you’ll find a better way to strategically select new target markets and evaluate, monitor, and manage multiple customer segments. The Growth Dilemma is your road map to brand growth.

Annie Wilson is a senior lecturer of marketing at the Wharton School of Business and a former behavioral scientist for The Vanguard Group. Annie received a PhD in marketing from Harvard Business School. She has worked in consulting partnerships and provided keynote talks on brand strategy in the financial, entertainment, and fashion industries.

Ryan Hamilton is an associate professor of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. He has consulted on branding with Walmart, FedEx, Home Depot, Caterpillar, ConAgra, Cigna, Visa, and Ipsos, among others, and has been a keynote speaker. He coauthored a book and cohosts a podcast, both called The Intuitive Customer. He has also produced two lecture series, ＂Critical Business Skills for Success: Marketing＂ and ＂How You Decide: The Science of Human Decision Making,＂ for The Great Courses.