Is potential brand damage at P&O down to bad luck, bad management, or poor communications?

Whichever,  there can be little argument that once again a major brand may suffer significant brand damage. 

It doesn’t take a specialist to spot the potential for such injury to the brand. We’ve seen cases in recent history of major names taking serious hits – sometimes enough to destroy the brand and the business.

• Arcadia, owner of Debenhams, Top Shop and others. The brand mired by poor customer value and controversy over finances and its pension fund – not helped by its controversial controller. 
• Anderson Consulting. Its role in the Enron scandal called into question one of the critical brand values – probity. Enron went, and the Anderson Consulting brand with it.
• Uber. Flying high in public approval until it seemed to become a magnet for brand tarnish. From rumours of harassment, to scrutiny of employment practices – brand questions that were certainly not helpful for its disappointing IPO.
• Mighty Facebook has seen its once-loved brand skate from one PR crisis to another.
• Volkswagen, automotive paragon, caught questionably manipulating pollution data.

Such examples raise the question of how you evaluate brand damage. The cost to the business may be quite straightforward to assess – it is in pounds spent on litigation and compensation, lost revenue and forfeited customer relationships. But damage to the P&O brand is more difficult to evaluate as it concerns attitudes, emotions and values – and the actions that may result from them.

There are a number of tried approaches to brand valuation and views on which is the most appropriate and reliable can be quite heated, but there are standard models. However, these models cannot easily be inverted to apply to brand damage.

For example, one approach uses the value of advertising and promotion invested in a brand – this is always a bit suspect to me as it does not take account of the effectiveness or otherwise of the campaigns. Manifestly, this cannot be used in reverse.

A more robust approach has been to calculate the notional cost for an organisation to license the brand in question. This is perhaps more accurate, though it does depend upon a good deal of subjectivity. What is the value of licensing a tainted brand?

Direct financial loss or movement in share price could be included in a formula of indicators, but although these may be a measure of corporate loss, they may not help us assess actual damage to the brand.  The real brand damage is reputational. Financial loss is a result.

Let us return to the example of P&O: as we noted earlier we can already look at the cost to the company of the outcome, and look at the impact on the share price. A more accurate indicator may be sales – though this may take time to become apparent. Customer attitude to brands is often directly reflected in willingness to buy and switching brand choice. But customers are not the only stakeholders and in the case of powerful multinational brands, the reputation amongst governments, influencers, regulators, trade bodies, employees and trades unions will all reflect the degree of brand damage.

In short, reputational damage inevitably results in brand damage. It will be up to P&O’s skill to keep the ship afloat.

4 really good reasons for a brand refresh

A brand refresh can be a powerful tool – so long as it’s for the right reason.

But let’s start with a really bad reason. And this is all-too-common – the owner, or CEO wants a change. They’re fed up or bored with the brand or brand identity – often one that’s taken a long time to become established and build recognition.

A second bad reason is that a new CMO has arrived and wants to make their mark. What’s an easy way to do that? Refresh the brand.

My general advice is to never tinker with a brand that is established without serious grounds.

So here are 4 good reasons that may signal the need for a brand refresh.

1. Your customer base has moved on.

Brand strategy always starts with the consumer. But it’s important to keep reviewing the strategy, because the world doesn’t stand still – and nor do the customers.

The key consumer drivers in place when the strategy was created may have changed. It may be time also to reconsider shopping habits and communications channels. A brand refresh may be needed to ensure that the brand is aligned with current needs and wants.

Messaging may need updating to reflect the demands of new generations of consumers – not just verbal and written messages, but each semiotic signifier – symbols, images, colours, etc. Brand identities that may once have survived 10 years or more may need reviewing more often.

2. Your business has moved on.

Are you brand goals and aims still the same? In the same way that your customers’ requirements may have changed, so might those of your business.

External influences, economic, political, legislative, social etc., may have changed your commercial environment. You may have responded by changing the way you do business or adjusting your priorities.

A retailer may have moved more business into e-commerce, a heating engineer may have moved focus from domestic to commercial customers, an insurance broker may have identified a profitable, specialist niche to concentrate on.

Again, a brand refresh may be required to align the business but also to communicate change to your audiences.

3. Technology has moved on.

As we’ve mentioned already, your brand must provide answers for the needs and wants of your customers. Technological advances may make your solutions less relevant, or your emphasis may need to change.

When mobile phones arrived, for example, at least two sectors needed to look at their brand positioning. The first were landline providers – what unique benefit could they now offer over mobile providers?

The second sector was photography. Digital cameras had already changed how photographs were taken, but mobile phone cameras now changed why they were taken. No longer to store and file memories, but to instantly share fleeting events with audiences.

The place photography now occupied in people’s lives meant brands in the sector to re-think and refresh.

Refresh here means not only reviewing the brand offer, but also your communications. Has technology changed the communication channels you use?

4. Society has moved on.

Social changes, emotional and political, may be subtle or dramatic. For example, attitudes to environmental, racial and gender issues can change faster than we might think. Consider the social attitudes of 20 years ago – and remember a very different societal landscape – and ‘brandscape’.

It can be quite easy for a brand to be caught out, simply by allowing outdated attitudes and social values to persist in their organisation. Corporate leadership and brand leadership should be steering brand values. But also the time may be right to reconsider and refresh brand communications that may not kept up with the times.

Brand leadership is about a business’s passion. There is an intangible quality shared by true brand leaders in fields as varied as manufacturing, finance, food and drink, or fashion – that quality is confidence. It’s often manifested in appearing not to have to try too hard. You can be certain that those brands do try extremely hard – that’s how they came to be brand leaders – but they convey a laid-back sense of presence.

Confidence is a dimension of brand leadership

This confidence is a feature of their brand communication. It can take many forms, but one expression that can be observed is  often, logo size is in inverse proportion to confidence.

Consider some leading brands, though proud of their corporate identity, their logos and corporate signatures are often extremely restrained in size and application.

This is very evident in the automotive industry. Consider the simplicity of the Mercedes logo – a clean three-pointed star in a circle. It oozes confidence.

Skoda exemplifies an evolution in confidence. The post-war Czech manufactured cars had a very poor reputation for build and reliability. By the 1970 – 1980s they were the butt of many unkind jokes. Yet at the same time they sported large, uncompromising badges. In 2000, Skoda was acquired by Volkswagen. Quality improved significantly, followed by sales and then by brand confidence. 

In 2011, the logo was redesigned, simplified, and a smaller, more discrete badge applied. Skoda had the confidence to play with the big boys again.

‘Bigger, Rickenbacker’

Some of you may be old enough to remember the classic Wrangler TV ads, with the unfortunate employee, Rickenbacker. While he was putting up signs with the brand logo, the voice of ‘Mr Wrangler’, off screen, was shouting, ‘Bigger, Rickenbacker’. 

This was entertaining and an ironic tongue-in-cheek reference to the brand’s already significant positioning. It was also perhaps an in-joke by the creatives who produced the ad. Designers and art directors working on leading brands often have to battle with the insecurity of clients who still feel the need to make the logos shout when the brands should be expressing confidence.

Confident enough to lose the name?

Across market sectors brands express their self-confidence with simple, often very small brand signatures. As success grows, so confidence grows and logos and signatures become increasingly simplified and minimised. 

Track back across some recent manifestations of identities such as Microsoft, McDonalds, Tesco, Adidas, Google and more. Self-confidence leads to unadorned brand identities and more considered and self-effacing application.

Self confidence is often expressed by what you don’t say, and perhaps the pinnacle of this state is when overtly using the brand name in the signature becomes redundant. Apple took that decision long ago – you don’t see the name in their stores, simply the monochrome symbol. Nike, McDonalds, Shell, Starbucks and others have dialled back use of their brand name in favour of bare logos. Mastercard was one of the most recent to drop the text from their simple two coloured discs.

Brand confidence and how to express it.

If you own or are responsible for a growing brand what can you learn from brand-confident leaders? Can taking a confident stance in your communications help build your own stature, externally and internally?

First and biggest rule – you must be authentic and relevant. No amount of clever communications can work magic on a poor product or service. The opposite is true. Customers and users are quick to spot fakes and react aggressively to being misled. Confidence is a property of a brand that deserves it. It’s not a starting point, but a consequence.

The issue is whether the brand owners or managers have the necessary level of confidence. If you have the confidence to be a brand leader (even in a narrow niche) – express it, and b like a brand leader.

Most startups and small businesses over-work their brand identity to begin with. However, having outgrown the infant brand image, it’s almost never a good idea to completely change an identity without a very sound reason. Even if it’s only been in existence a short while, it has recognition value and currency. Take your lead from some of the brand-leaders we have already discussed. It’s about evolution, not revolution. Look at how the Apple logo evolved from an apple silhouette with garish multicolor bands, to the same shape, but in cool, confident monochrome.

Look at your direct competitors for brand leadership in your sector. Take into account relevancy and distinctiveness of the offer. Compare their communications materials at key customer touch points. Who emotionally conveys confident ownership of the brand leadership position in the target consumers’ mind and how?

If you are confident you can occupy that position, start building the right attitudes internally and in your communications. Create a brand strategy with confidence at its core.

‘The brand’ is something that’s rarely discussed in the boardroom, unless the CMO (if you have one!) is around.

But let’s just step back a moment – actually the ‘brand’ is often a point for discussion, except it’s rarely referred to as such. Because the business ‘is’ the brand, and vice versa – and that is always the main topic. But by not speaking in terms of the branding lexicon, we’re probably missing an opportunity to enhance performance and focus.

Too often, the brand is looked upon as the territory of marketing, where in truth it is the responsibility of the whole organisation. Not only can every business-function impact upon it, but each can benefit or suffer from its performance.

What is brand leadership?

Of course brand leadership should it be a board responsibility, but it requires ownership at the highest level.

If we look at the leading global brands, from Apple to Microsoft and Amazon, they are all characterised by visionary leadership who take the brand very seriously. It’s got nothing to do with logos or corporate signatures – it’s about what the business does, and how it behaves.

Corporate culture should be led from the top, and the brand is part of its emotional and cultural expression. It is an embodiment of the values of the organisation and is emergent from their execution and operations.

Great brand leaders demonstrate this in their own performance – how they run the business, their attitudes and dealings with employees, customers, suppliers, stakeholders and the world in general. They understand that the brand exists at the point of interaction between the company and the greater population.

Organisations whose leadership is in tune with the zeitgeist of cultural desires and opinions can prosper even in difficult trading conditions.

Why is brand leadership important?

Brand damage can be catastrophic for businesses.  We have seen many examples of organisations irreparably damaged – often disappearing completely, when the brand is compromised. It’s easy to observe the impact on leading brands – which, even when not disastrous, can significantly diminish corporate value.

Take the example of Facebook, ranked by Interbrand as 9th in its 2018 league table of the most powerful brands. It’s valued at $45.17 billion, but lost 6% of its brand value after being embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Put simply, poor brand stewardship can cost a business money, so it deserves its place at the boardroom table.

Brands are very real assets. The takeover of Cadbury by US based Kraft in 2010 is a simple example. What did Cadburys have of real value that Kraft wanted? Very little – apart from a shopping basket of extremely valuable brands.

There is a growing number of approaches to brand valuation, but this fact in itself shows how seriously the value of intangible assets may be taken. Like any business asset, brand value should always be in the scrutiny of management at the highest level.

How do we manage it?

As we have already discussed, it is a task that deserves the highest level of attention and leadership. Just as the CEO should be the steward of the corporate vision and values, the brand is intrinsically linked to these qualities. It’s at this level – top board level – that management and leadership must begin.

A simple step is to ensure that the brand(s) should form an agenda item for each board meeting.

Taking this further, for every business decision, we can ask the question – explicitly or implicitly – “How will this affect the brand?”

What we are really asking is; “How will this affect the business?”

Does your brand know where it’s going? More importantly, are you clear where you want it to go?

When developing a brand or briefing a consultant, it’s critical to consider what you want your brand to look like in, say, five years time, or more. Try not to focus only on where you are now. Change may be incremental, but without direction it’s easy to lose sight of your goals and the organisation becomes simply reactive – and that’s reflected in your brand’s personality.

Where do you hope your future business will be? Will it have grown, or relocated? What mix of products or services would you like it to be providing? What is your dream – indulge yourself in a little dreaming – imagination is a great asset to brand builders.

No crystal balls – vision belongs in the real world.

In today’s fast moving markets, with new and innovative technologies and disruptive change, it’s hard to predict the future. But vision depends upon your desires and goals. There’s nothing wrong with having fuzzy goals – in fact, flexibility allows the brand vision to adapt and stay relevant.

What do you think the world will look like – how will your market change? At the top of the list, think who will your audience be – will you be selling to just the same people or perhaps a wider market, maybe more international – people who want different things from you.

Your brand’s relationship with its audience is primarily an emotional one, so you need to spend some time considering what you want the nature of that relationship to be. What do people to feel about the brand – and how are they likely to feel?

Consider the social changes you can see now – diversity, inclusivity, social and environmental responsibility. How are we likely to progress – what opportunities are presented for your brand?

Where’s the brand going – and where are you going?

You also need to consider what your ambitions are for your business. Will it be a lifestyle business or will you be looking to sell? This could have a major impact on how you want your brand to be.

Consideration of your brand vision can be enjoyable and fun. It’s about looking at a big picture and your wishes and desires for that brand. You may be just at the start of that journey and are having to deal with all the day-to-day issues of the business. Taking time out to crystallise your dreams can re-energise you and your budding brand.

The same is true for a brand that’s been around for some time.  Is the vision that existed at the start still there – is it still relevant for today – is it fit for tomorrow?

Vision is the responsibility of brand leadership and that must rest at the highest level in any business.

Practical steps

• Take some time out to dream. Get out of the office – leave your phone behind – even just for a hour. Visualise – then write down your vision. Allow your imagination to fly, don’t anchor it down.
• Talk to others, discuss your vision. Colleagues may add to and enhance it. The more it’s talked about, the more substance it will have and the more likely to be realised.
• If you are working with outside consultants or specialists, your vision may be the most useful starting point you can give them, and a benchmark against which to measure results.
• Get help and talk with people outside the business. There is no substitute for day-to-day knowledge of the organisation and its market, but it’s true that that you can also be too close. Working in the business can get in the way of seeing the brand as others see it. CEOs and owners can benefit from a little objective brand mentoring.

In fact no brands exist… not even the most famous ones.

Let’s look more closely at what that means. A brand is just what’s called a social construct. That means it’s a concept that we, as a society, invent to help make sense of things. They are ideas, stories if you like – but just inventions.

Think about probably the most famous brand at the moment – Apple. Where does the brand exist? Not in the product – if we destroyed all the Apple products on the planet, the brand would still be there.  Similarly, it’s not in the people or the property. Take all those away – and the brand would remain and could employ new people, build new premises and do something completely different.

Even if we consider the brand as a legal entity – as ‘intellectual property’ – the ‘idea’ of an IP is also just a social construct. The concept of the ‘law’ itself is just a construct too…  but whoa! – now we’re getting into mind-confusing, philosophical challenges. Let’s step back to the simple world.

Does this matter for your brand?

It does, because it reminds us that bands exist solely as stories in people’s minds. They are tremendously powerful ideas that help consumers make choices.

Keep in mind the importance of brand stories.  Those stories are already out there in the brandscape – for better or for worse. People build them – we all write our own – they are based upon how we experience and perceive a brand and how it behaves.

If we understand this we can concentrate upon the important things. We can improve customers’ interactions with the brand. Brands have the opportunity build emotional engagement and attachment. We can help create brand stories that people love and enjoy.

It’s important to be aware of the intangible benefits of the brand and not get too engrossed in the physical product or service. Our brand choices depend as much on what we ‘believe’ they can and will deliver – to satisfy our needs and wants.

Now, that’s pretty powerful stuff for something that doesn’t exist.