2009's Biggest Branding Successes!
I've frequently pointed out examples where branding wasted time and money. (See: "10 Worst Brand Blunders of 2009.") This time, I've compiled a list of five big successes in branding that took place largely over the past year.
Each of these branding efforts is, in its own way, a stroke of marketing genius, with an important lesson to teach us all.
As always, I'm open for suggestions about other examples I should have included. There's a poll on the final page of the post so you can vote on which branding effort has been most successful.
CLICK for the first branding success »
General Motors' Volt-Face
For General Motors, 2009 started out as a true annus horribilis, with the company forced to accept a government bail-out and to file Chapter 11. While most pundits blamed the Great Recession for the carmaker's woes, the real problem was the company's belief that brand was more important than product quality. (See: "What Killed GM? Brand Marketing")
GM had TWELVE brands, each vying for buyers' attention and many of them targeted at the exact same demographic. The obsession with strategic branding (the apotheosis of useless marketing) obscured the fact that even loyal GM's customers would eventually figure out that GM's products were boring and low-quality.
All that started to change, though, as the year 2009 progress. Despite the turmoil at headquarters and the financial instability, GM began announcing products, like the Chevy Volt, that galvanized their brand image. Suddenly GM began to look cool.
At the same time, the company winnowed down its collection of brands to four -- Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC -- and (most importantly of all) folded marketing responsibility in the United States under the company's Chief of Sales.
While GM still faces challenges, it's future is bright enough that the company is now looking at an IPO in 2010.
Lesson Learned: When it comes to brand, less is more.
CLICK for the next branding success »
Al Qaeda Co-Opts Islam's Message
You'd think that an organization committed to turning back the clock to the dark ages would have problems making its message heard in today's hyper-wired world. Quite the contrary. Over 2009, Al Qaeda continued its highly successful campaign to position itself as the only "true" form of Islam.
While Al Qaeda goals and methods may be disgusting and stupid and its claims to religious legitimacy completely ridiculous and ahistorical, there's no question that their leaders -- many of whom were educated in the West --have created the most brand-savvy religious group on the planet.
Barred from TV ads, billboard, direct mail, trade shows and other traditional lead generation methods, Al Qaeda launched a three part "guerrilla marketing" plan:
- Build a strong presence on the web. Compare to the boring "brochure ware" that's common for most religious and terrorist group, Al Qaeda has gone for the Sales 2.0 approach, big time, leveraging social networking, blogs, and email marketing to build a loyal following and cultivate big money contributors.
- Create a compelling narrative. The entire Al Qaeda/Radical Islam story, while completely ridiculous to non-believers, obviously has real appeal to those who take the Koran really, really seriously. It's one thing to have a product that people will kill to get; it's quite another to have one "to die for."
- Stage dramatic "street theatre" events. Say what you will about the morality of it, there's no question that Al Qaeda has mastered the art of creating publicity. They've done such a great job that in 2009, they convinced the U.S. to launch a major troop increase in Afghanistan, even though Al Qaeda has only a handful of operators there.
CLICK for the next branding success »
Apple Turns the iPhone into the New PC
Just a few short years ago, the Apple iPhone was widely seen as next Apple Newton. While it looked cool, it lacked a keyboard and was tied to AT&T, one of the worst cellular networks on the planet. Odds were that Blackberry, Palm or Motorola would capture the smartphone market and the iPhone would go to the well-populated graveyard of tricorder wannabes.
Well, it didn't work out that way, did it? By making it easy for developers to create and distribute new applications for the iPhone, Apple turned the iPhone from an also-ran into a gotta-have. Even with AT&T dragging it down, the iPhone has become the device to beat. Even Google, with all its Internet might, is struggling, so far unsucessfully, to come up with an iPhone killer.
What looks likely now is that Apple will cut deals with the other carriers and the iPhone will become like the PC -- a general purpose tool that does whatever you want it to do. Other vendors will launch products that are marginally superior in one or two aspects, but the momentum of a hundred thousand applications will keep the iPhone in the lead.
Lesson Learned: Great products create great brands.
CLICK for the next branding success »
Health Insurance Wins the Reform War
Brands aren't limited to individual companies and organizations. Entire industries have "brand image" which govern how the public reacts to them -- and thus influencing how much money they can extract from consumers and other businesses.
Now, you'd think that an industry that regularly condemns people to die painfully in order to create profit would have a big brand image problem. And you'd think that an industry that regularly raises prices while decreasing services would have consumers up-in-arms.
But you'd think wrong. In 2009, the Health Insurance industry successfully deflected blame by playing on knee-jerk conservative fear of big government. Even though almost every thinking person in the United States believes in publicly-funded education and a publicly-funded military, the insurance industry successful demonized public-funded insurance, the one thing that actually threatened their predatory behavior.
Thus, instead of a reform bill with a public option, the insurance industry looks likely to get a law requiring that everybody buy insurance, thereby increasing the number of people who the insurance industry can royally screw. Insurance stock went sharply up on the prospect of even more blood money flowing into industry coffers.
Lesson Learned: If your brand sucks, compare it to a worse one.
CLICK for the final branding success »
Michael Jackson Revives his Career
If ever there was a brand in need of a major makeover in 2009, it was Michael Jackson's. It had been decades since he'd had a real hit, and meanwhile he'd managed to rack up a brand reputation as the creepiest person on the planet.
What with the child molestation charges, Skeletor-inspired plastic surgery, the albino-wannabe skin dye, the obviously-not-his-DNA children, the baby dangling, the lawsuits, the boy-toy magnet private amusement park, buying the elephant man's bones -- you'd think that there was nothing in this world that could resuscitate the Michael Jackson brand.
Not so! Say what you will about Michael Jackson, he understands self-promotion. In what's got to be his most brilliant career move, he removed himself entirely from the picture.
While his death was probably an accident, with Michael Jackson we're in a realm of such spectacular weirdness that it's possible that the act was, at least in part, the result of a realization that dying was the only way to win back the popularity he had long since lost.
Lesson Learned: When all else fails; go for broke.
CLICK to vote for your favorite »
If you liked this post, you'll like: