BrandSimple | BrandDigital: The Blog

It was about 25 years ago that Johnson & Johnson suffered one of the worst nightmares a consumer products company can face. Seven people died from ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol capsules that had been laced with cyanide. It was the first known case of death caused by deliberate product tampering. This incident recently came to mind after a number of people (too young to remember the Tylenol scare) asked me if brands suffer permanent damage when there’s a consumer product quality problem like the recent Mattel situation where it was discovered that many of its popular toy brands were manufactured with toxic components. My answer to their question is “no, not if.” Brands can actually come out stronger if they do two things very well.

The first thing a brand must do to save its good name is to react really, really fast – jump in and quickly address the situation frankly and honestly. Now, reacting really, really fast these days is really, really hard. Given the Internet and its finger-happy bloggers, the whole world knows what’s going on within seconds of its happening. To stay ahead of the busily pointing fingers, brand organizations have to be closely connected to what’s going on in the blogosphere. Good companies have teams in place to monitor and listen to the incessant online chatter about their brands. They have contingency plans in place and people empowered to act promptly and aggressively should the need arise. Seemingly nanoseconds after news of Mattel hit Wi-Fi networks, for example, its CEO issued a statement that the company would immediately recall millions of toys from retailers’ shelves along with put into place significant new manufacturing procedures. While this will cost the brand millions of dollars near term, these instantaneous actions should help mitigate brand fallout in the long term.

The second thing a brand should do in challenging times is to do more than consumers expect it to do. In the case of J&J’s Tylenol, this meant not only an instant recall of the product but the development of new tamper-resistant bottles along with the development of tamper-resistant caplets. While the company’s share price and its share of market took an immediate plunge right after the scare, its more-than-expected actions helped it regain its number one brand position by the end of the year. It remains the top-selling analgesic in the country.

Stuff happens. There are all sorts of potentially damaging situations a consumer product brand can face in its lifetime. Whether it allows itself to be defeated by the situation depends on how quickly the brand reacts and if it does more than people expect it to. While it may be an expensive proposition, saving a strong brand name - whatever the cost - is priceless.

A couple of months ago I wrote about Ford’s new Bold Moves branding campaign. I lauded the company for taking the initial steps required to revive its brand after years of tepid performance. Among the initiatives I cited was the introduction of the hybrid Ford Escape, a vehicle both fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly. I suggested that a really bold move for Ford would be an offer to replace New York City’s entire gas-guzzling, emission-spewing taxi fleet with these green vehicles – a public relations branding signal that would be good for Ford’s brand and great for the planet. While Ford was in no position to do so at the time, it seems that my suggestion was not all that preposterous. It appears New York City’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, has a similar idea. In fact, he’d like to see all New York City cabs replaced with hybrid vehicles within the next five years as part of his PlaNYC which calls for reducing greenhouse emissions in the Big Apple 30 percent by the year 2030. In response to the challenge, Yahoo! immediately donated 10 Ford Escapes to get things rolling. While Ford may not have been in a position to do so a few months ago, I’d say there’s never been a better time than now for them to take the position of change agent in the quest to slow global warming. New York City’s environmental plan is far more extensive than that of any other major city. Converting its fleet of 13,000 yellow cabs to green would send a very strong signal to the world. Ford, by playing a significant role in this effort, would send, in turn, a very strong branding signal. A signal that would be an extremely hard one to equal in its category.

In my book, BrandSimple, I talk about JetBlue. Over the past few days everyone has been talking about JetBlue, but not for any of the reasons I chose to talk about it. I used it as an example of a brand that succeeded as a result of identifying something meaningfully different to offer people who want or need to fly. Unlike the big, ambiguous airlines, JetBlue found a way to put the “humanity back into flying.” This phrase became the driving force behind everything the little brand did to make flying fun, from its airfares to its personnel, to its in-flight entertainment. Last week, as thousands of people were stranded at JFK and cancellation reports multiplied as quickly as news reports, flying JetBlue was anything but fun. It proved to be no different than any other airline – any other big airline that is.

CEO, David Neeleman, took on the immediate challenge by doing exactly what he should have done. He apologized and took the hit as the company’s most senior officer without any excuses. His business model was off course and he would do whatever necessary to fix it, no easy task now that the company has grown from a small team of mavericks to a sprawling organization. While this is all well and a very good start, it’s nowhere near the size of the challenge the airline has ahead of it as a brand. It wasn’t the fact that passengers were left on the tarmac that made it a newsworthy story. It was that JetBlue had broken its brand promise. To repair its promise, JetBlue has to figure out how to “put the humanity back into flying,” but this time as a larger company – something that will be very hard to do at its value price point. The proof of its newly repaired promise will require more than Mr. Neeleman spontaneously showing up to greet passengers. And while a noble gesture, it will take more than a passengers’ Bill of Rights which only serves to placate flyers if the experience gets too bad. While immediate crisis control will help JetBlue survive in the short term, it’s the longer term the airline must consider. It must find a meaningfully different way to make its original brand promise fly again, this time on a higher level. Don’t underestimate the JetBlue team. It’s in their company culture to make this happen. And I, for one, have full confidence they will.

There are two tricks to using PR in Brand building. The first and most difficult is to get the media to cover the story. The second is to make sure the story is told the way you want it told. Not the way they want it spun. As I explain in my book BrandSimple, Dove is great at getting PR to work as a powerful branding tool.

The recent rapid-movement video of a young woman being transformed from perfectly fine to perfectly fabulous through tricks of the beauty and technology trades is a perfect example of PR as branding power app. The core message of the video is, course, that models don’t really look the way we see them in ads. It beautifully underscores Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty.

Over the past few weeks the video has made the media rounds from Oprah to Ellen to Leno. It went on to become among the most-watched videos on You Tube – the latest gauge of public opinion. Dove got millions of eyeballs without having to spend millions on advertising, underscoring the power of its PR. It was able to get its tale told and retold - the way it wanted it told.

I thought Dove had gone as far as they could go using PR when they launched the real Beauty campaign last year, but they figured out how to take it to the next level and ride the You Tube wave to unlock even more PR horsepower….Wow.