“If you get lost, stay put and shelter yourself as best you can.The further you walk, the harder it is for us to find you.”i
In this article consumer strategy expert Tracey Johnson contemplates how marketers can learn a lot from survival experts.
I love watching survival documentaries; marvelling at incredible human instinct and strength in extraordinarily testing situations. Brands are just like people: they sometimes get lost, they can survive for a short while without food and water, they can be small or big, at the mercy of the elements in a fast changing world and they are always required not just to survive, but to grow.
So how do brands get lost?
The number one reason has got to be a lack of a brand champion. Your brand is your single most important asset and demands a champion fiercely protecting it at all times. No, it’s not old fashioned to keep saying this and keep saying this, we cannot say this enough.
Unfortunately not all champions are equal, and some play fast and loose with your brand equity, making changes which.....
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look logical or impressive on a segmentation map...but which end up as a goose chase around that same segmentation map trying to be all things to all people, challenge the competition and in the end, nothing to anyone – category generic
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impress with the sheer energy and volume of activities....but which render the brand unrecognisable to loved ones, heads spinning as they try to understand the third packaging design change in as many years
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use impressive marketing speak to describe flawed research to brand stretch past the point of elasticity, leaving a once loved brand without substance and direction. Top tip: if you need to stray too far from your core brand values to fill that bit of blue or white on the map...you probably need a new brand!
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in an effort to keep up with the Joneses and remain in denial about brand life cycles, there is the inevitable cost cutting exercises that strip out the little performance or image attributes that actually do make a difference
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manifest in an accumulation of little changes made by feckless junior team members because these little changes are in their remit and how else are they going to practice their marketing skills?
You get the picture – brands get lost.
What to do when you get lost
So, we all know the golden rule of ‘what to do when you get lost’: you should stay put, improve your situation to the best of your abilities and wait for rescue. Is this indisputable logic being applied by marketing teams?
You see, it takes courage to choose to stay put and many lost people forget this one golden rule of survival, with deadly consequences.
Don’t panic!
It is said that the difference between ‘not knowing where you are’ and being ‘lost’ depends on how much you panic.
We’re in a real world. It’s not pleasant when your brand doesn’t sell well. It’s a horrible to watch your share and attribute associations decline. Of course we’re going to panic, we’re only human!
It must have been sobering for iconic British fashion brand Burberry to realise that the brand had become a laughing stock in the early 2000’s, now associated with ‘chavs’
ii decked out head to toe in the distinctive Burberry check. It would have been easy to panic.
Burberry: www.theartofthetrench.com
However, what the Burberry team did was determinedly steer the brand back to its core fashion and luxury values by cutting down on the amount of visible check contained in its designs, reducing the brand sku’s, focusing on an international market, associating with image building high fashion designers and celebrity endorsements. Burberry posted recession beating profits in 2011, giving us a master class in delivering a consistent brand vision.
So when you realise that your brand is in trouble, don’t respond with a slew of changes which move you yet further away from your core proposition....you will make it almost impossible for your loved ones to find you! Take the time you reasonably can to properly understand the reasons you might have got lost so that you can improve your situation to the best of your abilities, and survive.
Brands need to have the courage to stay put and the genius of Burberry was in recognising that a return to core values was required, not a brand reinvention.
Stay put and shelter yourself as best you can
A book I return to again and again is Al and Laura Rice’s “Immutable Laws of Branding” which reminds us of the laws of expansion and contraction. That ‘the power of a brand is inversely proportional to its scope...to build a strong powerful brand you need to narrow the focus and contract your brand, not expand it”
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Brand champions are charged with knowing what consumers want, how they feel and what it will take to lead them to your brand. The fundamental parts of being human don’t change, though our lifestyles are changing at a dramatic pace, each generation faced with challenges the generation before them didn’t.
www.waitrose.com
Waitrose, a luxury UK grocery retailer faced with losing shoppers in the economic downturn in 2009 did not respond by moving its core brand image. What the Waitrose team did was to launch 1400 price fighting grocery products, cleverly named ‘Waitrose Essentials’. Delivering high quality, the retailer was able to grow in the recent recession by adapting elements of its mix to better meet the needs of a price conscious segment of shoppers. They did this without in any way damaging the core brand proposition or experience for loyal shoppers who would continue to shop at Waitrose; recession or not, and would not have appreciated deep discounting messages or any dilution of the high service differentiating shopping experience.
If we look at the big brands – those that have stayed the course and demonstrated survival instincts when it mattered – they have one thing in common: the courage to narrow the focus and stand for something, consistently and doggedly. The courage to stay put.
We recognise them, we might stray from them but we can always find our way back to them because they stand strong.
Consider a well recognised global brand like Nike. Over the years the brand has experimented with multiple advertising campaigns; activation channels and categories. However, the core brand values have provided a thread which has helped the brand stay put: the Nike swoosh; the strapline ‘just do it’ and its target marketing. Nike is a brand which understands that fewer consistent associations make your brand stronger. For a brand, staying put means staying who you are and finding subtle ways to remain relevant to your existing market or attract new markets. In an increasingly difficult market, squeezed on costs, the demand for Nike brand allows it to strongly defend brand share in key China and US markets.
Sometimes lost people don’t survive
I hate to end on a sad note but not all brands are destined to survive. Some really should have a shorter lifecycle, its part of who they are. If we can’t find them a better home we ought to launch them, love them and say goodbye to them with dignity and flair......not leave them out in the wilderness; milked, to succumb to the elements and be discontinued, that most unpopular of marketing tasks.
Letter to USA Hummer Owners : www.hummer.com
Think about GM’s overdue 2008 announcement that the Hummer brand had become lost. Part of the change in strategy had to be that GM would no longer focus on big trucks and SUV’s over small cars. Although still trying to find a new home for the Hummer, GM announced that the brand would be discontinued and closed several truck plants. What the future holds for the larger than life Hummer brand remains uncertain; however, it is a brand out of step with today’s consumers who are looking for environmentally friendly, value for money economy in their driving experience, who are making head not just heart decisions.
The further you walk, the harder it is for us to find you
It goes without saying that it’s infinitely better to make sure you are in step with the needs of your shoppers and consumers; planning and managing well enough to not get lost in the first instance. But if your brand does get lost, remember the golden rule of survival. Don’t make a bad situation even worse by moving about. Stay put, have courage.....making insight based strategic decisions, narrowing your focus, standing clearly for something...........your loved ones will find you!
For more information contact
tracey@in-deed.com +44 (0) 7917 808279
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Brands Lost and Found
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Sources:
i Corporal Walt Jones
ii A chav (pronounced /'t?æv/ CHAV) is a stereotype of certain people in the United Kingdom. Also known as a charver in Yorkshire and North East England[1] "chavs" are said to be aggressive teenagers, of working class background, who repeatedly engage in anti-social behaviour (Wikipedia)
iii Al Reis and Laura Reis “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” published 1998, Harper Collins Publishers
