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We can all do with a makeover now and then
Every January, I play a little game. I check how long it is before I see the evergreen headline New Year, New You! somewhere.
In past years, winners have been my gym, The Times, and my ex-ex-mobile phone operator (brand loyalty isn’t my strong suit).
This year, the winner was Tesco. For there, above the magazine rack in my local store, were those four fateful words. And it was only 29 December. That took the biscuit (low-fat, Light Choices, of course).
Why does it work year after year?
Because change is good. Any change.
And what goes for our faces, figures and jobs also goes for our businesses, brands and corporate image.
The constant constant
No brand can afford to stand still. But not all brands change for the same reason. Some want to, some need to, and some do it just because they can.
So why would you want to change your brand?
- It’s stale. What seemed like a great logo, tagline or look simply doesn’t cut it any more. You’re tired of seeing it, tired of hearing it, tired of putting it out there. And guess what? Your customers probably feel the same way.
- It’s invisible. ‘Brand blindness’ inevitably sets in among your target audience. Been there, done that. Nothing to see, move on. Change your look and they’ll sit up and take notice again.
- It’s falling behind. Makeovers are a me-too thing. If everybody else is doing them, and you’re not, it doesn’t matter how strong your brand is. It’s a game, so learn to do it well and often.
Sometimes, there’s simply no option. A takeover, for example, means that somebody loses out. When HSBC took over Midland Bank, a brand that had been on UK high streets for over a century disappeared without a trace.
The same happened recently when the Spanish giant Santander swallowed up Abbey, Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester. But when it comes to brands, bigger isn’t always better, as Barclays’ ill-fated ‘big bank’ advertising campaign proved.
Consumers like choice, and smaller banks, with a cosy, corner-shop feel, are preferable to huge multinationals. In an interesting development, the charmingly named Williams and Glyn’s bank looks set to re-emerge from the rubble if the Royal Bank of Scotland is broken up.
Froth with wings
Times change, and brands do too. Could there be a more iconic brand of the boom era than Starbucks? From humble beginnings in 1970s Seattle, it spread around the world and became synonymous with coffee.
Dot.com entrepreneurs hung out with grungy college students, lounging in battered leather seats with chill-out music wafting among the tables.
But that was then. This is now.
Big is now Bad: big banks, big investment houses, big bonuses.
Small is the new big. So Starbucks is going small again, launching unbranded coffee shops in an effort to lure people back.
So if you wander into 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea in Seattle, and think what a welcome alternative to Starbucks, you’re in for a surprise.
Because it’s Starbucks.
The stuff of legend
Sometimes, you really have no choice, and a makeover is not just an option – it’s the only option.
2010 sees the relaunch of a venerable old magazine, with a 90-year track record. The new title is to be Canada’s History.
It’s not going to set the world on fire, but at least it has the virtue of being immediately recognisable and obvious. Unlike its old title, which caused chaos with spam filters in the digital age.
For up until now, it’s revelled in a delightfully unfortunate name.
The Beaver.
Find out more:
For country, read company
Let’s pick a country at random.
How about Brazil? (Top row, second from the left.)
What images come to mind? Sugarloaf Mountain? The long sandy beach of Copacabana? Ronnie Biggs?
It it stable? Safe? Corrupt? Would you consider living there? Retiring there?
And where did you get that impression from?
If it’s blues day, it must be Belgium
I’ve just been reading an interesting report from Interbrand on country branding.
Yes, it really does exist – and countries spend huge amounts of money trying to control and manage their brand.
The Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index rates 50 countries based on various criteria (exports, governance, culture & heritage, people, tourism, investment & immigration).
And the winner is…
Germany (yes, I was surprised too).
The questions they asked included:
“If money were no object, would you like to visit this country on vacation?”
And a little more chillingly:
“If you were going to be falsely arrested for a crime you didn’t commit, in which country would you prefer this to happen?”
Hmm. I’ll have to think about that one.
We know what you’re thinking
Countries go to enormous effort to change the way we perceive them. And a big part of that effort is coming up with a tagline.
Some are obvious (Andorra – the Pyrenean country). Others are a little optimistic (Iran – the land of flowers and birds). Others are baffling (Philippines – more than the usual).
Some use humour. Remember Australia’s Where the bloody hell are you? campaign from a few years back?
And just occasionally, they say something they don’t really mean (Visit Berlin once).
But all are trying to achieve the same aim: managing their country’s brand by creating an image that attracts you.
To brand or not to brand
Interviewed by Sandi Toksvig a couple of years ago on BBC Radio 4′s Excess Baggage programme, Simon Anholt (of the Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index) made a fascinating point – because it applies to companies as well as countries.
He said that the alternative to branding your country is not not branding your country.
It’s letting someone else do it for you.
He also says that at some level, “every country has the reputation it deserves.” Again, something that could be said of every company.
Which is why it’s worth controlling your brand. And sometimes, that means taking the long view. Very long indeed.
Anholt said he was talking to a member of the Swedish royal family once, who asked how long it would take to change the image of the country – if they felt it was necessary.
“About 20 or 30 years,” Anholt replied.
“Oh, that quick?” she said nonchalantly.
Find out more:
It’s not what’s in the box – it’s what’s on the box
The Government in the UK is giving serious consideration to plans forcing tobacco companies to sell unbranded cigarettes.
So instead of getting 20 Benson & Hedges in a nice gold box with the distinctive black and red text, smokers will just get a white box that looks like every other white box. Silk Cut, Marlboro, Camel – you name it. One white box after another.
The tobacco industry knows that this could slash their sales and seriously eat into their profits.
Why?
Simple. The power of brand.
Why spend nearly £6 (that’s an eye-watering $11) on some of the best-known brands, when you could have some cut-price ciggies at £3.50 to £4?
After all, it’s just one white box or the other, isn’t it?
The same – but different
Walk down any supermarket aisle and you’ll see own-brand products nestling beside big brand names.
Have the supermarkets suddenly started up their own production lines? Of course not. Most own-brand products are made by the same people who make the branded products. They probably both come off the very same production line.
The only difference is the packaging. Oh yes, and the price.
Branded products always carry a premium. And that premium depends on the power of the brand – which in turn depends on how much money has been pumped into developing that brand.
Kellogg’s decided in 2000 to invest in brand-building and positioning itself as a premium brand.
In 2007, it spent $1bn on marketing for the first time. And this year, it was able to pass on increased ingredient costs to consumers, when other companies couldn’t. Its Q2 2008 sales increased by 11% and profits by 9%, leading it to revise its full-year forecast upwards.
So we have rising costs and an economic downturn. But increased sales.
That’s the power of brand.
In fact Stern Business School at New York University has calculated that 67.7% of the value of Kellogg’s the brand-name value.
And the winner is…
Interbrand and Business Week recently released their Best Global Brands 2008 report.
Coke is on top for the eighth year in a row. The ubiquitous Google has soared from 20th to 10th place. Interestingly, IBM has jumped ahead of Microsoft.
Even more interesting is the reaction of companies to the looming recession.
Some are cutting their marketing budget (Coke, Visa and US car manufacturers) some are keeping steady at a fixed percentage of revenue (Amex and Diageo) and others are actually increasing their marketing spend (Louis Vuitton, Accenture, Kleenex).
My vote goes for the last group. You spend more, the competition spends less. The recession ends. You win.
Game over.
Find out more:
- The Interbrand/Business Week Best Global Brands 2008 report: click here.
…or why, in the end, it doesn’t really matter. Just choose it, use it and make it work.
Often, I write for people who are just starting up a business. They need the works: web copy, sales letters, press releases, brochures. But before any of that, they have to make one crucial decision.What should they call the business?
Next to naming a business, naming a baby looks like … well, child’s play, frankly. Nobody really wonders what the market will think of Mark, John or Peter, Kelly, Sarah or Jessica. (The same may not quite be true of Brooklyn, Apple or Peaches.) A baby’s name is just a name. It doesn’t have to convey a USP or a marketing message.
But a business? Well, that’s a whole different business.
People agonise. They make up their mind. They change their mind. They change it back.
I know. I’ve been there. But in the end, you simply have to choose a name and go with it.
Really? Yes, really. After all, let’s look at some of the names we all know and love (or hate). Let’s pretend we’ve never heard them before. And now, let’s see what we make of them.
Some names instantly suggest what they do – easyJet, for example. But what about Ryanair? It’s named after the Ryan family, who founded the airline. If I were starting an airline, I’d think long and hard before calling it Walshair. But that’s just what they did, and today, it’s synonymous with low-cost air travel.
Let’s look at Amazon. Yes, it’s A to Z (look at the arrow on their logo, which doubles up as a smile). But why a South American rainforest? Does that suggest books? Surely it strays dangerously close to an alarming truth about books – that you need to cut down forests in order to make them?
How about Virgin? Say the word and you think of megastores, planes, record labels and Richard Branson. Not a virgo intacta or the mother of God. It’s hard now, with the name embedded in our psyche for over 20 years, to imagine how radical it must have been when it first appeared.
Some names indirectly refer to what they do: Surf and Tide wash away those nasty stains. Bold is brave and fearless in the face of dirt. But Daz? Omo?
Often, the more you look, the less sense a name makes. For every obvious one (Innocent Drinks, North Face, Laptops Direct) there’s one that means nothing (Skype, Asda, B&Q).
Some names are too clever – The Body Shop, for example, is a pun that virtually nobody in the UK gets. Why? Because this side of the pond, when your car is damaged you take it to a panel beater, not a body shop.
But in the end, none of it matters. Obvious names fail (Skytrain, On Digital) and not-so-obvious names are runaway successes (Starbucks, iPod).
The moral of the story is simple: it’s not the name – it’s what you do with it.
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