BrandSimple | BrandDigital: The Blog

One of the points I make at the end of my book, BrandSimple, was something I lifted from Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel, who commented “Only the paranoid survive.” His quote referred to those charged with managing Intel. My reference applied to anyone charged with managing a brand. While many factors drive brand success, one of the most critical is the ability to stay relevantly differentiated in your category. To do so takes a bit of paranoia.

I thought about this the other day as I read that Kodak would be dropping its sponsorship of the Olympic Games effective at the end of next year’s summer events in Beijing. A sponsorship that began over 100 years ago with an ad printed in the program for the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens. I thought about it even more as I walked by a local photo processing store on my way to work where a “Going out of Business” sign hung in the window. This store was one of the many in its franchise, all going out of business forever. I think the changes in the photography industry should be a good wake-up call to any brand not paranoid enough to worry about staying relevantly ahead of its category curve.

Shutterbugs used to have one or two relationships with photography brands – cameras and film. There wasn’t too much competition for brand managers to worry about, especially those vying for the amateur market. Kodak was comfortably in a leadership position, doing the sorts of things that leadership brands should do, like sponsoring Olympic Games. The Kodak brand was ubiquitous. Then, in the blink of a shutter, it wasn’t. The problem is that it wasn’t paranoid, or at least didn’t become paranoid enough fast enough to transform its core business in an industry as hyper fast as technology. Today there are dozens of brands competing for attention in this category. Photographers have lots of options in brand relationships, beginning with digital cameras and going on and on and on to camera phones, digital printing a la HP and Canon, online posting brands like Flickr and Snapfish, plus a good number of products from a small brand called Apple. In a market with so many consumer choices and so much change, brand survival isn’t good enough. With a nod to Andy Grove I’d say only the paranoid succeed.

I recently returned from a trip to China where I had the privilege of speaking at the Economist Conferences’ Fourth China Branding Roundtable. The visit coincided with the translation of my book, BrandSimple, into Chinese. On my last day in Beijing, I was having breakfast and perusing China Daily, an English-language newspaper, when I came upon a full-page ad that captured succinctly – better than any economist’s speech could – two of the most powerful signs of China’s emerging economic growth. The photo in the ad was one of the many spectacular skyscrapers rising up across Beijing as far as the eye can see. The copy, brilliant in its simplicity, read, “Believe in the power of brands.”

That China is building buildings is a very visible sign of its emergence as a major player in the global marketplace. More noteworthy to a brand guy like me, however, is that China is starting to emerge as a major player in the building of brands. Chinese companies are beginning to understand that only by doing so will they be able to compete on the world’s economic stage. In fact, I believe that Chinese companies have reached and are ready to jump over – way over - a brand tipping point. In just a few short years the growth of branded Chinese products and services has grown exponentially. From Lenovo to Haier appliances, companies across every category are following world-class, best-in-class branding practices in order to become the formidable competitors they want to be. Yes, international brand presence, Starbucks to BMW, is everywhere you look, a powerful economic dynamic in any language. The logos of familiar global brands dotting the city landscape are as ubiquitous as the new construction projects. However, although not quite as high a percentage as the imported names, the number of Chinese companies represented in this branded mix it is a powerful statement especially given how new the idea of brand competition is to this country. “Believe in the power of brands?” The Chinese do. And they’re beginning to build them almost as quickly as they’re building their cities. From what I’ve seen so far, the power of these brands will be monumental.