BrandDigital | BrandSimple: The Blog

I have a friend who used to say that as long as Walter Cronkite was on the air he felt everything was going to be okay—even when he knew the world wasn’t okay. Well, the world isn’t okay and Walter Cronkite isn’t on the air anymore. But, based on recent ratings numbers, it seems that a lot of people these days feel about ABC’s Charles Gibson the way my friend felt about Mr. Cronkite. Why is the Charles Gibson brand clobbering the Brian Williams and Katie Couric brands in the evening news branding derby? It boils down to a BrandSimple answer; the essence of his brand. The Charles Gibson brand is all about authenticity. And in the evening news space authenticity is the gold standard of brand promises. It’s the most important brand benefit the anchor of a prime time news program can have. Charles Gibson, man as brand, looks and behaves like someone who’s been in the business for awhile. Someone who might have earned his stripes at a small town newspaper. Just the facts delivered with an appropriate degree of compassion. His branding is as real as his brand.

While the Brian Williams brand has a smooth and polished essence, it may be too smooth and polished, especially for viewers who want information, not a sophisticated performance. And, no matter how fervently she tries to distance herself from it, the essence of the Katie Couric brand is one of friendly conversationalist. A great brand for morning coffee, but not right for those seeking hard news from someone who comes across as having been in the trenches. Even in his Good Morning America Days, Mr. Gibson was genuinely self-effacing. No matter how much Brian Williams and Katie Couric try to close the branding gap, it’s going to be hard to do. They’d have to change the very essence of their brands which would hardly ring true. The reason Charles Gibson is winning the evening news branding game is that he has the right brand essence for the space and for the times. Charlie, as he’s referred to, is authentic.

The fashion world is tough. Branding in the fashion world, where it’s hard to differentiate on design or quality, is tougher. This seems particularly true, of late, in the world of fashionable watches. How can I tell? Copycat celebrity branding.

Yes, for lack of more innovative brand-building ideas, too many watch brands have reverted to using pretty faces to sell their pretty timepieces. Open any high-end magazine and you’ll see what I mean. Beautifully shot, two-page spreads of Eric Clapton, of Uma Thurman, of Nicolas Cage, of Kiefer Sutherland, of Meg Ryan. All wonderfully talented people, distinguished in their fields, but none doing an especially wonderful job at distinguishing one brand of watch from another. These folks are great borrowed interest, but borrowed interest isn’t great at building brands – especially when so many interests are being borrowed simultaneously. In other words, it’s time for some imagination.

We all know that using celebrities in branding and marketing is commonplace. To be successful, however the personality of the celebrity must be in sync with the personality of the brand. There has to be a credible reason for us to believe the celebrity’s spiel. Karl Malden was credible when he admonished us to take American Express Traveler’s Cheques on the road, for example. Wilford Brimley was credible when he admonished us to eat our Quaker Oats. As much as I appreciate a Clapton riff as much as the next guy, is this really a credible reason for me to appreciate Rolex watches more than other watch brands?

Celebrity branding should be considered the exception, not the rule, as a brand builder. It requires a long-term commitment on the part of the celebrity. More important, it requires compatibility. I’m willing to buy into John Travolta as a pilot, not an actor, endorsing Breitling’s “instruments for professionals.” But as for Uma and her Tag Heuer, or is that Nicolas and his Tag Heuer — when celebrity branding becomes copycat celebrity branding, it’s time to reconsider your branding tactics.

Bill Clinton is back in the news ? big time. There he is reaching across the ideological aisle to join in tsunami relief with President Bush the elder. There he is with the wife of the current President Bush during the recent events at the United Nations in New York. There he is applauding a speech given by his own wife with an adoring Chelsea by his side. And, yes, there he is with none other than Sir Richard Branson as Sir Richard announced a pledge of $3 billion during a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, a major new force in the philanthropic world. Bill Clinton is powerful. More to the point, Bill Clinton is a powerful brand. (If you don’t think people can be brands, ask Oprah, Donald or Martha.) What does former President Clinton know that all powerful brands know? While it’s one thing for a brand to establish itself by representing something different, yet relevant, the difficult part is to stay relevant. And, what could possibly be more relevant than worldwide efforts in the name of AIDS relief efforts, global warming, and human rights? While Bill Clinton may have made a few egregious errors along the way (which is not the premise of this piece), he was a strong and charismatic leader. These leadership qualities are at the core of his brand. In fact they define his difference. He knows this, and is re-channeling these qualities in ways that are relevant to the health and well-being of millions of people. Other former presidents may build libraries to further the social and ideological causes they espouse. Bill Clinton is building his brand to do the same. Exhale, Bill. It’s working.

While all my blogs will relate to brands in the news, this first one is about a brand literally in the news. Katie Couric (Yes, people can definitely be brands, Madonna, J Lo, Martha, the Donald, A-Rod, and Oprah all being good examples. We have very specific feelings about these individuals as brands, and their existence as brands creates lots of profit for lots of people.) Before I get to Katie, let me give you the BrandSimple context for what I’m about to talk about.Quick starting point. A brand is something that exists in your mind. It’s an image or a feeling. In the book, I liken it to a sort of mental computer desktop file folder. Branding, as I said, is the process of creating the things that get us to feel one way or another about a brand. The stuff inside the mental desktop file folders. Branding is not just marketing — far from it. It’s any interaction or experience we have with a brand, from customer service, to product design, to the functionality of its Web site, to the Web sites on which it posts advertising. When a brand is based on a simple idea, its branding is far more effective and efficient because the people responsible for the branding can better understand what it means to create brand-appropriate expressions. Their branding efforts become intuitive, authentic to the brand and, as a result, brilliant.

This being said, once a mental brand file is created and certain feelings about a brand have been “saved as,” it’s pretty hard to delete them. This is generally a good thing because it’s what makes for brand loyalty. What happens, however, when, for any number of solid business reasons, a brand organization decides it wants to re-evaluate the brand images embedded in our mental file folders? What if it believes there may be good rationale for getting people to think differently about its brand. How does it decide what brand images to “delete?” At the same time, how does it ensure it doesn’t delete the wrong stuff? The stuff that created positive equity?

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