Biggest Brand Winners of the Decade
Last week, I posted "Worst Brand Disasters of the Decade" so here's the other side of the story. This post present five top brands that either came out of nowhere to get suddenly huge, or were in the toilet and recovered spectacularly. As before, I'm talking about "big brands" (not all of which are corporate) because sometimes you can learn more from looking at "out-of-the-box" examples. Enjoy!
CLICK to see brand winner #5 »
WINNING BRAND #5: "APPLE"
Back in 2000, the scuttlebutt on Apple was all "coulda, woulda, shoulda." With PC market shares in the low single digits, Apple was rapidly becoming the Birkenstock of the high tech world, present only on college campuses and inside businesses where Bill Gates was believed to be the Antichrist. Then came the iPod, iTunes and iPhone (and later, the iPad) and suddenly Apple is the juggernaut of the post-PC era.
CLICK to see brand winner #4 »
WINNING BRAND #4: "CLINTON"
When Bill Clinton left office, the Clinton brand was pretty much a synonym for sleaze. Between the cigars, the stains, the lies and the pardons, much of the country had an attitude of "good bye and good riddance". Then Hillary hunkered down and won a senate seat, while Bill laid low and kept his d**k in his pants. By 2008, the pair were almost in the White House again, but to their great good luck, the Clintons lost the primaries, thereby sticking the black guy with the Herculean cleanup of the big Bush mess. Obama's brand promptly tanked, leaving the Clinton brand basking in nostalgia for the boom years of the 90s.
CLICK to see brand winner #3 »
WINNING BRAND #3: "GOOGLE"
Back before Y2K, Google was just a minor contender in the nascent market for search engines. There were about a dozen of the beasties back then, but the huge market share leader was Yahoo, with its massive collection of advertisements and lists of businesses. But Google understood what was obvious to everybody except the marketing guys at the other firms -- the people hate being SPAMmed with advertising. So they kept the interface simple, and kept the ads at a minimum, and hid the fact that they were gaming the search to put money in their own pockets. As a result, they became the dominant force of the online world.
CLICK to see brand winner #2 »
WINNING BRAND #2: "ATHEISM"
Ten years ago, anybody who questioned the value of "faith" was assumed to be either a mass murderer or a serial killer. Today, though, much of the world is embroiled in a religious war, with multiple zealots threatening to go nuclear (literally). Since theological arguments have the same intellectual heft as two toddlers squabbling over whose imaginary friend is stronger, is it any wonder that it's now respectable to hold the opinion that religion might be more bother than it's worth?
CLICK to see brand winner #1 »
WINNING BRAND #1: "CHINA"
Ten years ago, China was desperately trying to copy the successes of the Japan and the United States. Who would have thought that they'd prove so wildly successful? In ten short years, China has gone from a third world country into one of the most dynamic economies on the planet. They've not only remained the manufacturing capital of the world, but are rapidly becoming a source of high tech innovation.
CLICK to see brand winner runner-up »
WINNING BRAND RUNNER UP: "PALIN"
Anyone who thinks Sarah Palin isn't up to being President should consider how well she's managed her brand. As soon as she figured out that McCain was toast, she built her own brand by "going rogue" and basically throwing his campaign under the bus. Then she cleverly abandoned public office right before state-wide financial disaster struck and leveraged her 15 minutes of fame into a job in the mainstream media where she's paid big bucks to take potshots at other politicians. It's the perfect brand strategy for the ultimate outsider. You go girl!
READERS: Any OTHER big brand winners that I missed?
I discuss the reasons behind this post in post:
- Worst Brand Disasters of the Decade
- 10 Worst Brand Blunders of 2009 (my picks)
- More Brand Blunders of 2009 (reader picks)