on Fans Expectations   When fans attend a Rolling Stones or Eagles concert, they expect to hear a string of hits they can sing along with, performed with top- notch sound quality and delivered with high energy. Like these leg- endary bands, Kraft brands give customers what they expect. Kraft may not be gourmet food, but its fans dont expect it to be. They do, however, expect reliability, top-shelf quality, familiarity, and good value. Firms must ask themselves, "Do our products really deliver the attributes consumers consider most important?" In a food company, those attributes might include taste, ease of preparation, consistency,     reliability, and safety, all of which affect the overall perception of product quality. Distribution is the less observable attribute of great brands, just as road crews and staging may escape the attention of fans at a concert. But a focus on quality that customers expect has lead to a hit parade of number-one brands at Kraft, including Philadelphia, the number-one cream cheese in the world.     Evolve to Re main Relevant without Alienating Current Fans   Many artists featured in this book are dedicated to innovation, often trying to incorporate the latest technology into their shows, musical sounds, and productions. Madonna sticks to her core brand, but innovates in terms of how she presents that brand to her fans. Neil Diamond, on the other hand, innovates by releasing new music but changing as little as possible, following more closely the adage, "If it aint broken, dont fix it." Kraft follows a combination of the two. A leader in the world of cheese, Kraft shows how to take an exist- ing product and rework it a thousand ways to create new products. Building on its basic cheese formula, Kraft was the first to offer com- mercially packaged cheese slices in 1965. Philadelphia cream cheese now comes with pineapple, strawberries, or salmon already mixed in; Kraft sells over $1 billion annually in cream cheese alone. It put cheese in a spray can, called it Cheez Whiz (reaching a whole group of customers just dying to eat cheese from a can), and forever changed hors doeuvres at Middle Americas dinner parties. It took fat out of Velveeta (Velveeta Lite), for calorie-conscious consumers in search of smaller waistlines, and put in jalapeños, for those wanting a little zing in their cheese loaf. Constantly innovating, Kraft now has bragging rights to a portfolio of 200 forms of cheese products-even Elton John doesnt have that many versions of "Candles in the Wind."     Create an Authentic Brand ; Choose an Accepted Conduit   Mooove over Elsie, theres a new cow in town-and shes purple. Kraft added Milka, one of Europes leading brands of chocolate, to its vast array of brands sold in the United States. Founded by Phillippe Suchard in the mid-1800s in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Milka