[Sigia-l] Brand Creation

[Skot Nelson]

On Jun 7.2005, at 20:16, Listera wrote:

>> To cite an example: Bertelsmann paid $8 million to Napster's  
>> creditors
>> (*after* Napster was out of commission) to acquire the company's  
>> brand.
>> ...
>> The old Napster had over 50 million users, the new Napster is on  
>> the brink
>> of going under. Brand transference didn't occur because they had  
>> different
>> business goals and models, even though they're supposed to share  
>> the same
>> brand.

I can't see how this illustrates the "brand first" example; in fact,  
it seems to suggest that Napster's brand was worthless to me.

>> but
>> even a Martian can tell they share the same brand, which preceded  
>> them well
>> over a decade.

I'm going to post a substantial part of an off list response i  
composed, but first I'm going to point out that any discussion of  
"branding" without a discussion of what phase of a company's life  
cycle the company is in is all but meaningless. Marketing strategies  
for a company such as Lego (which is how old?) are very very  
different from those for a company such as Google in its infancy;  
Google has, in fact, transitioned to a relatively mature brand in a  
remarkably short time - the compression caused by Internet time at work.

Apple has a very mature presence - well known and established, and  
consistently one of the most recognized brands in the world.
PowerBooks and iPods are different products which share very little  
brand transfer at the moment; a good measure of the value of the  
PowerBook brand is the overwhelming number of people I used to deal  
with who thought their iBook was a PowerBook. Apple is aggressively  
trying to transfer the iPod's brand awareness to their other  
products; I hope they succeed.

Now for that pasted message, which I think reiterates my point which  
is - at heart - that the product is the brand, and marketing /  
communications fulfills a supporting role:
>
> branding is worthless without quality product.
>
> google changes it logo on a regular basis...has it affected their  
> brand? what is the google brand? despite the fact that it's getting  
> diluted (gmail; personalized home pages) the search brand remains  
> strong, because the search engine remains relatively pure and  
> unfettered.
>
> just one example.
>
> coke's always a fun one - they had great brand recognition, killer  
> strength. remember new coke? what a fiasco (i actually preferred  
> it, but that's me...i usually drink pepsi.)
>
> american express was a great brand - good marketing etc. they've  
> completely diluted the cachet. still relevant, but not nearly the  
> value that it held in the 80s.
>
> i worked for canada's #1 mutual fund company - consistently  
> produced the best branding and marketing materials really nice  
> stuff. very consistent message. want to guess what happened with  
> the performance of the funds tanked? i mean completely tanked - not  
> the absolute worst 1 year numbers, but almost. guess how long it  
> took them to recover - oh....wait...they didn't...somebody bought  
> the company, the brand is all but gone.
>
> that taught me a lesson; product first and foremost; branding second.

And, Ziya, I suspect that if you changed the sky's colour to green  
the Earth's brand would be substantially diluted; most people, in my  
experience, look forward to a beautiful, clear blue sky on a summer day.
--
Skot Nelson
skot at penguinstorm.com