Oh Chevy, I mean Chevrolet.
July 7th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Everyone knows that GM has had its fair share of problems as of late. With the debt, the borrowing and the cutting of jobs they have not been left in a very good light. Yet people want to see them back where they used to be. They want to remember them as an all American company, making cars for Americans by Americans. But that image is lost in a pool of other stuff, and as Chevy is trying to rebuild what they had they keep digging deeper and deeper, never fixing the true issues but sticking on band-aids left and right hoping to keep enough blood in to stay alive.
And actually, if you come right down to it, maybe this is the best strategy for Chevy right now. They can make smaller dollar “fixes” to their image while slowly working on the bigger issues that plague them…but in any case, they need to be careful. They need to work on getting back their customers trust, and they need to pick their battles—this is not on my list of important ones. While this article is about a month old, and they have already clarified their intentions, I am not a believer in a strategy like this. These are hard times, and the focus needs to be not on what name people are using to refer to Chevy but that they are choosing to drive a Chevy. I think that in order for people to come back to Chevrolet they need to take a look at the root issues they are facing, and then bring the brand full circle from there.
This isn’t the only reason why the first article seems insane to me. Not only does it go against everything that I have written in this blog about brand strategy and building trust, but it proves that fixing things from the bottom up is the only way that a brand will see results. People get tired of being lied to, and in the end a company’s goal should be for people to own their brand. We as marketers strive for this every day, by trying to get people to live, eat, breathe and speak our brand. The idea of calling the car a Chevy is a prime example of this in practice—people were so in love with this brand they created a nickname for it and used it all over creation, from pop culture to literature. If I were Chevy, I would be supporting that relationship with my public, and using it as a bridge to connect customers back to the happy place that they were in when that nickname was formed and the brand was in its heyday—keeping the American public interested in buying American cars.
For brands, experience is essential
July 1st, 2010 § Leave a Comment
People want to buy experiences, and as a place you need to be in the business of selling them. Visitors want to know that they are going somewhere not for the “I love Xplace” t-shirt, but for the parasailing, fine dining, white water rafting, quirky neighborhoods etc. These things are not tangible, but they are the things that drive people’s travel decisions. This is difficult for some places/people to swallow. You might argue that people choose vacation destinations based on shopping, and shopping begets tangible items so the experience theory is wrong. But I would say that they chose that destination based on the shopping experience—being able to go to many exclusive shops, eating in nice restaurants that usually accompany said shops and being around people who are holding themselves to the same experience standard. Sure when they go home they have that shirt they bought, but that item is just a segue into a story about the experience—I got this shirt at Saks, and they gave us chocolate in the dressing room and then we ate a delicious lunch and then we blah, blah, blah. See, the tangible faded after the initial introduction, but the experience lasted for the rest of the conversation.
This is an important lesson for places to learn, and even more important is the fact that messaging, experience and upkeep must bein-synch. If you have read the posts below, you know that I am a huge believer in the fact that brands need to live up to promises. Flashy campaigns get initial responses, but once a brand doesn’t live up to expectations it is doomed for failure. I was reading this article about brands that have talked the talk, but not walked the walk. Very interesting points, and all relevant to the idea that in order to be trusted and valued as a brand, you have to be real. And even when real is ugly, if you hold yourself to the standards that you would expect other companies to have, then you will weather the storm in a much better fashion.
Take BP. I know, I know, everyone is using BP. But, the article points out that they recently changed their slogan to “Beyond Petroleum” touting their green energy initiatives (and inadvertently touting their environmental consciousness). Then the gulf oil spill comes up and they falter, big time, erasing the confidence in what was a strong brand image. They did not live up to the talk, and in essence provided a bad experience for consumers—both in the actual spill and in the way they handled it. This has happened to dozens of big brands, but another interesting one is Starbucks. They had it right from the beginning, and they knew that people came to Starbucks for the experience—not the coffee. People can get good coffee at a lot of places, but when you go to Starbucks you get the unique, eclectic coffee house experience wherever you are. Then they started to grow, and when they did they forgot about the experience. Business told them it was about the coffee, and they over expanded and lost what made their brand unique. Now they have learned their lesson, and are going back to the experience. It works.
In essence, experience is the most important piece of the puzzle, along with having the conviction to make sure that the experience you provide or the way that you talk about your brand is the truth. If it’s not, people will find out. And they will be mad. If it is the truth, people will be impressed and ready to integrate you brand into their lives, which is the goal of every brand. Every place or thing has unique qualities, and the trick is to use them together in a way that provides more than just tangible benefit—build that experience. Once you know what it is about your destination that is special, and how to market it and make sure that it stays intact, you will reap the benefits of your labor and people will be telling their neighbors about the experience you had to offer.
Wham bam thank you brand
June 24th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Catchy title eh? I thought so too. But it begs the question, at what stage does a place need to be in the branding process before it markets to consumers? Does a brand build a city, or does a city build a brand? I’ve talked a lot about making sure your place brand truly represents the place that you are branding. This is essential for many reasons, but most of all because people do not like to be lied to. And when you lie to them by promising them something that is not true, via branding, they are not happy. And unhappy people like to tell others what made them that way. You get the picture, and eventually all of the time and money you spent on building this perception is gone—along with any credibility you had, virtually erasing the chance of building a successful brand in the future.
That is my take. But then I read this article by Simon Anholt, the inventor of the place brand. It’s about a lot of things, but the part that speaks to this issue in particular references the World Cup in South Africa. As many of you know, there were a lot of people who didn’t think Johannesburg was ready to host something as big as the World Cup. They still have many issues of their own they need to deal with, and people got angry when they began to pour money into the “disneyfication” of their city for all of the visitors who would expect this kind of world class atmosphere. What about schools and crime they would say? But the government thought they knew what they were doing and went on with it. I did not think that they knew what they were doing, and I was sure they were headed for failure. But guess what? Simon Anholt has a lesson to teach us.
According to Anholt, this money is just as well spent now as if it would have went to education, etc., on one condition—that they continue to build the brand. And it makes sense. If they can build that brand to be a strong and successful tourism industry, then they can gain another source of revenue to take them past the troubles of the past and into a new future. But things are still rough, and I am not sure that the people who are there are ready to accept this as a vacation destination. It’s a big gamble, but it’s interesting because it opened my eyes (and maybe yours) that it may be possible to start sharing your brand before it’s done. Like a museum that is open during renovations. Maybe, in part, it can be wham bam thank you brand—thank you for drawing enough attention for people to see that my place is worth the trip.
Brand Audience: Bored or floored?
June 20th, 2010 § 2 Comments
The other day I posted about how important stakeholders are in the place branding process. Now chances are, if you found my blog, you already know the huge role that audience plays in any branding or communication effort. But here’s the thing, in branding the audience is so essential that they are the brand. If your audience doesn’t buy your brand, then they wont live it. And if they won’t live it, other people won’t catch wind of it. And if it isn’t being lived or spread, it’s dead.
This is troubling to some people– especially people who have dedicated their time (or even lives) to brands that have failed– because your audience is not always apparent. You may not know who they are, what they look like or what they want, and that makes failing very easy. If your audience doesn’t like your brand, it could mean back to the drawing board. Sometimes the brand needs some tweaking and can be re-released. Sometimes the brand is dead and a new approach needs to be taken. In either of the cases, your audience should be the one behind the wheel, telling you what route to go and why. Here’s an interesting post on the differences in branding, albeit not place branding, between Microsoft and Apple. Why does one brand struggle while the other flourishes? I’d say its the understanding of the audience.
This idea of audience plays an important role in our own lives, as well. Personal brands are something that have been coming up more and more in recent conversations, especially with the job market the way that it is. Your personal brand is becoming a way for you to open doors, or close them, and should be given the same type of consideration as a place brand or product brand would be. It is important to take your stakeholders into perspective when building a personal brand, because you never know what is coming next. You may think that it won’t matter that you posted pictures of binge drinking (buzz word) on Facebook until you don’t get a job because of it. Or that you ranted and raved in the comment section of a blog until you find out that blog is written by a client. You get the idea. Brands are meant to be enjoyed, lived and spread. Stakeholders are the medium through which that happens. Do right by your place (product, etc.) AND your audience in most any branding situation, and success will follow shortly behind.
