BrandDigital | BrandSimple: The Blog

As investors line up with bids for Chrysler, I’d like to offer a bit of advice from a brand perspective. While the company has many fine autos on its assembly lines, I’d hazard a guess that there are few consumers who could tell you exactly what the Chrysler brand stands for. Mention that Chrysler is introducing a new model and ask people what they expect it to look like, who it might appeal to, and how it would drive, and you’d most likely get a blank stare. Blank stares are not good when it comes to branding.

The first rule of building a successful brand is to simply and crisply define what you want it to represent in the minds of consumers. If you can’t clearly define what makes your brand different, you’re never going to have a brand that’s worth more than an “Oh yeah. I think my uncle owned one of those.”

Second, once the new owners of DaimlerChrysler establish a differentiated meaning for the Chrysler brand, they’ve got to focus relentlessly on bringing it to life. The way Chrysler automobiles are engineered, the way they drive, the way they look. This means being ruthless about examining the entire portfolio of current offerings and determining which deliver on the Chrysler brand and which don’t. While PT Cruiser, Sebring, Town and Country, and Crossfire are all nice cars with nice names, nice doesn’t win in the brand game. If these sub-brands don’t have what it takes to drive home the Chrysler name they’re not worth having on the lot. Those who bid for Chrysler must be willing to put every dollar behind defining and supporting the Chrysler name, and the Chrysler name only.

While this advice is a lot easier to offer up than it is to achieve, it’s essential that those reaching for their checkbooks take heed. Before considering a bid for Chrylser, they must figure out what they’re going to do with it once they own it. The most powerful brands on the planet succeed because they stand for something different and relevant. Just as all the advertising in the world can’t help a brand with an identity crisis neither can the deepest investment wallet. Spend - and brand - wisely.

Yes, this YouTube clip of Stephen Colbert’s explanation of Cingular’s name change to AT&T is funny. Even as a branding guy, I laughed. However, as a branding guy, I also recognized how well it underscored the confusing nature of the telecommunications industry and, specifically, the challenges inherent in building a strong telecommunications brand.

Despite the audience laughter, the name change is actually the easiest branding challenge this new AT&T will face. From a business strategy perspective, it was the right decision. While not perfect for all sorts of reasons, the AT&T name is simple to remember, has higher awareness on a global basis, and a decent amount of trustworthiness. With enough advertising, people will forget about Cingular. The bigger branding challenge for AT&T will be its ability to imbue its brand’s name with something consumers will recognize as being different and relevant to their telecommunications needs – relevant differentiation being at the heart of every powerful brand. AT&T may be promising our world delivered. But if it can’t deliver its brand promise in meaningfully, tangible ways, I’d stay tuned for more fun courtesy of Stephen Colbert. Which, from my branding guy point of view, would be no laughing matter for AT&T.

Will making an airline bigger make it better? That’s the obvious question being asked by any number of people regarding the news about the US Airways bid for Delta. The answer is yes, if – and if.

The first “if” is the business “if.” If the merger between US Air and Delta creates operational efficiencies of scale then there’s a chance bigger could be better, for both the combined company and the passengers. In this case, bigger could solve some big business issues. (And, by the way, calling the new company Delta, given the fact that it’s a stronger name from a global perspective was a good first move.)

Okay, let’s say this is done successfully. The second “if” is the branding “if.”

The real challenge for those in favor of a merger between US Air and Delta is how to make the experience of flying this big, new airline relevantly different – relevant differentiation being the key to all successful brands. I’m not talking about flight attendant uniforms or in-flight entertainment. I’m referring to things that bring the new operating efficiencies to life for passengers. Things that have a tangibly positive impact on the entire flying experience, from the reservation process, to the routing choices, to the baggage retrieval. This is what really distinguishes one airline from another. In other words, if the tickets are cheaper and I’m treated like I bought the cheap seats, forget it.

If bigger fixes the business model, that’s good. If the new brand can’t figure out how to deliver bigger as better, that’s bad. While bigger may address the benefits of scale, if there’s nothing different about how the new airline executes bigger from a branding standpoint, the whole thing could be a big dud.

When one company acquires another, the conventional business strategy is to hold off making any changes until you gain an understanding of the new company, its operations, its culture, everything. The conventional wisdom accompanying this sound business strategy is that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. In most cases I would support both of these conventional pieces of advice. In the case of Google’s acquisition of YouTube, however, I’d recommend something completely unconventional. Jump right to your brand strategy. Replace the name YouTube with GoogleTube, do it fast, and drop Google Video altogether. Google currently has a huge advantage over its competitors based on both its scale and its status as a verb. It’s become almost utility-like in its ubiquity and functionality. Google’s dominance as a computer experience is huge and it’s becoming increasingly apparent that whoever has the most bandwidth wins. It’s also apparent that life in the Internet world moves at warp speed. I respect Google’s desire to respect the happy guys at YouTube but, from a branding point of view, it should quickly and seamlessly integrate YouTube into the Google user experience thereby expanding its bandwidth exponentially. Anyone looking to play catch-up would have to be able to run pretty darn fast (if they had the money to get into the race for eyeballs in the first place). While conventional wisdom has its time and place, the time isn’t now and the place isn’t on the Internet. Call it unconventional if you will, but call it GoogleTube. Google’s business strategy and its brand strategy have always been ahead of the curve. My advice is to concentrate on the brand. I have no doubt the business will follow.

Retailing is a tough business. Start to fool around with things that have drawn people to a particular store for generations and it becomes even tougher. Fool with the very name of the store and it has the potential to become downright unpleasant. When Federated Department Stores merged with May Department Store Co. last year, it acquired a number of venerable brand names, Marshall Field’s among them. For those of you unfamiliar with the venerable city of Chicago, Marshall Field’s is more than a place to shop. It’s one of the cherished symbols of the Windy City. It’s a department store associated with all sorts of traditions, from the landmark-status architecture of its flagship store, to its clocks, to its luscious Frango mints. When Federated announced that it was going to rename its newly acquired Marshall Field’s stores as Macy’s, it signaled some very unwelcome winds of change. People were up in arms, staging demonstrations, signing petitions. How do you successfully change the name of an institution, in essence rebrand it, without losing equity, not to mention new generations of patrons? You take a good look at what made the store an institution in the first place. You identify the things that drove the emotional connection people had with the store, and do your best to keep these traditions intact. In the case of Marshall Field’s, now Macy’s, it means keeping up the tradition of the elaborately decorated Christmas windows. It means selling made-in-Chicago mint-flavored, Frango cheesecakes. It means keeping the store’s designer boutique, 28 Shop, right where it’s always been. Perhaps most important, it means communicating to the loyal employees that they are a vital reason the store has been so many loyal customers.

There’s no question that the Federated decision to change the names of over 400 of its newly acquired stores to Macy’s was a very smart and extremely rational business decision. Being able to focus resources on Macy’s as a national brand rather than fragmenting resources across multiple brand names affords it great economies of scale in advertising, operations, and manufacturing. Its ability to attract thousands of people to Macy’s who have experienced it only through the Thanksgiving Day parade is a tremendous opportunity. Its ability to keep those loyal to their local shopping destination is a bit more difficult. By recognizing that people care more about store traditions and values, rather than the name on the awnings, was an incredible insight. Keeping the emotional connection will, hopefully, keep these partisan shoppers coming in. While the Marshall Field’s name will appear on, yes, one of its traditional bronze plaques by the front door, the bigger signage will clearly state Macy’s. Federated understood that the “way to shop” a name change was from the inside out.