I have added a couple of whitepapers to the blog for your interest. The first, ‘Brand and Corporate Personality as Relationships – systems theory’, explores some thinking on brand relationships and some models including the brand-as-person model. The second, ‘Brand Dynamics and Eco-motive strategies’, looks at some ideas of mapping brand psychology on economic cycles.

Check them out on the ‘Whitepapers’ pages above or the links on the right.

British baby buggy manufacturer Maclaren are recalling some 1 million of their umbrella strollers from the US market following reports of children having fingertips amputated by the closure mechanism. Hopefully this will be a lesson on handling brand communications properly, to preserve the brand values of a long-established organization – but I have an uneasy feeling it may be a masterclass in how NOT to handle them.

In the US, Maclaren have been quick to respond – the recall, issuing a safety kit, information on the website, a hotline for worried consumers, and a joint press release with the US Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC).

In the UK, the story so far is somewhat different. Indeed there seem to have been no similar injuries reported so far and we understand there are no plans to recall the product in the UK.  But the response from the company has been more tight-lipped in their home market. When the story was featured on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ programme, Maclaren declined to put up a spokesperson.

Okay, it’s early days, but it is here that brand damage is often most critical. They advice in this area is well known and I cannot believe that Maclaren’s corporate communications team are not fully aware of the proper ’spill drill’.  Any delay and hint of a  ‘no comment’ response is the public’s first perception of the organization’s attitude – and as we know, you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression. Brief the team, have your spokesperson ready, be proactive in supplying information and let your brand ambassadors do their work.

Any product or service that impacts upon children is particularly sensitive. Maclaren has a good brand reputation for its products – my own kids were pushed around much of Europe in them. But the values we expect such a company to encompass and communicate must include consideration and empathy for children and parents. Importantly, we live in a global communications arena: we can’t adopt different standards in different market even though we have to adapt culturally. Cynics may suggest that one approach is applied in the US because of the actions of the CPSC and an intrinsically more litigious culture, while another strategy used in the UK because we don’t.

Damage to sales figures is painful – damage to brands can be terminal.

Noting the imminent demise of the Threshers wine stores and considering two dimensions: firstly pressures on the sector, and secondly differentiation within the sector. This could be a classic case-study question for marketing students!

Since supermarkets first carved a niche for themselves in the drinks sector ( I seem to remember Sainsburys were the pioneers), the high street wine stores have been under pressure. Apart from a small window of opportunity on Sunday evenings when even 24hr Supermarkets lock their doors, competing is an uphill struggle. Competition also comes from the convenience stores with the off-licence counter who have a more diversified offer and not so dependent upon the booze trade. Government and social pressure can also hae done little to help this besieged sector.

Within the sector little has been done to make an offer differentiated from the supermarkets. Take me blindfolded and remove the mask before a Threshers’ rack and I would be hard pressed to tell if I was in a supermarket or not.

There are small specialist wine merchants carving niches at the top end and carefully loading cases of premier crus into their customers’ 4×4s, but there are few differentiated brand offers in this difficult arena.

Oddbins and Majestic have always had rather quirky personalities that have created a measure of differentiation, but this has been a matter of personality, presentation and communications rather than a distinct business model. The sector needs some dynamic thinking if it is not to disappear altogether into the omnivorous maws of the supermarkets.

Sometimes there are big items or changes that affect brands, but more often than not it is an aggregation of little things that come together to make a brand special. Tom Peters used to talk of ’small moments of delight’ – when a brand presents something small, new and surprising. It’s not necessarily going the extra mile, but often just the extra yard… then doing it again and again. Tiny points: slightly more thoughtful packaging, pro-active client service, an unexpected loyalty reward. Think of your favourite brands and what makes them special – I would suggest there may not be one ‘Big Thing’, but half a dozen small things they do very well.

A lot of the discussions regarding branding is actually focused on the external elements, the brand communications. These are of course distinct from what the brand actually ‘is’. One often hears the media confusing, logos, liveries and packaging with the brand. But although the external dimensions are distinct from the internal properties and values of the brand they are, of course, interlinked and interdependent. Let’s consider the matrix below:

The horizontal axis represents the internal properties and values of the brand, where the vertical axis represents the external brand communications. In box ‘C’, the brand is basically weak internally, but also the brand communications are weak so it may take a while before everybody, including the brand stewards, realise the problems.

In box ‘A’ however, the brand fundamentals are still weak, but the communications are strong – we are shouting to the world about a flawed brand. Disaster is just around the corner.

Box ‘B’ is the dream ticket of course: an internally strong brand with good, sound external communication properties.

In box ‘C’, even though the externals may be weak, the brand is still fundamentally strong. Even without the sound external trappings the brand has all it needs to survive. This is the area where a makeover, or a strong communications strategy can move the brand into box ‘B’. But brands in boxes ‘A’ and ‘C’ cannot be rescued with a lick of paint – forget the externals and focus on the internals.

There has been quite a furore about certain online- retailers using differential prices in favour of new customers over loyal ones. In its simplest terms if you have the cookie to show you have bought from the site before, you get a different set of prices from a those presented to a new visitor.

The financial logic is quite straightforward and akin to new customer bonuses and loss leaders. Indeed, there have been various scenarios developed questioning the comparative values of brand-loyal customers who may spend small amounts compared to a disloyal customer who spends the occasional large sum. The arguments go back and forth, but there is also a psychological dimension that asks: ‘Why should I give my loyalty to a brand that values my loyalty less than the business of a new customer?’  Ultimately, any brand loyalty is devalued – but for the brand operator who has already made the decision that the ‘loyal’ customer is just a mug who buys for convenience and out of inertia, brand loyalty is obviously a low value commodity. They have already made that strategic decision, but it is naive to thing the customer will not arrive at similar conclusions.

The important factor here the cost of customer acquisition. It is a truism that it requires considerably less resource to get additional and on-going sales from a current customer than to acquire a new one. There should be a financial imperative to looking after loyal customers as well as a value driven one.  Of course it makes sense to offer bonuses and inducements to new customers, but it makes little sense to penalise existing ones. We have seen the results in the financial sector of advantageous new products not available to existing customers.  The outcome is a cynical churning of customers moving from one brand to another as soon as a more advantageous offer appears.

At least some of these other strategies are to a greater measure overt.  What dismay’s me about the online etailers’ approach is its underhand nature – customers like me feel we are being taken for a ride. It is also sobering to note that some of those embroiled in this mess include names from the UK’s top brands list published just a few weeks ago. All of a sudden their perceived and hard-won brand values have been lost.

Well, I’m off to Tesco now – at least their points indicate that they value my on-going custom – oh, that’s after I have deleted some cookies.

The US Federal Trade Commission has ruled that advertisers, and the celebrities who endorse their brands, will be liable for any untruthful claims made in the adverts. This poses a few interesting dilemmas and one that springs to mind is can celebrities also hold advertisers liable for damage to their own brand? How can celebrities be reassured that the claims are true?

I’m sure that ‘A’ list celebs and the big brands they promote will be seeking all manner of sophisticated cross indemnities, but I guess the big elephant traps will be out for the minor celebs who endorse everything from garage doors, double glazing, security systems and stairlifts in the back pages of our newspapers.

I noted the recent TV ad for DIY chain Wickes, where they were promoting a new range of kitchens by saying they were good enough to carry the Wickes name – in other words they are using the ‘own brand’ as an endorsement of quality. This is an interesting positioning and a phenomenon one sees more often in supermarket retailing. The hierarchy used to go something like: Premium brand, next brand, next brand, next brand, own brand, generic. But increasingly we see customers putting their trust in the retailer, and after the brand leader, the own brand is seen as the next choice. So, if in cash-strapped times we decide not to choose say Fairy Liquid, we may see Tesco’s own brand as the second choice washing up liquid.

But this trust does not extend across the board. For examples, Tesco’s brand trust does not extend to its clothing ranges.  Asda almost succeeded in that arena with George. But it seems  customers separate fashion (for example) from commodities. This makes one wonder how successful Wickes may be with their endorsement. ‘Trust’ may be a dimension we apply where reliability and dependability are the critical success factors. Once we move into less tangible values of style and fashion more complex factors come into play.

It’s that time of year again – Interbrand’s survey of global brands; and for the  first time the total value of the world’s top 100 brands fell – down 4.6% at $1.15 trillion.  Big depressers included the major financial brands (not surprisingly), including UBS, Morgan Stanley, Amex and others. The motor industry too saw big falls in brand values.

The interesting thing for me is that we are looking at brands that stood for reliability and stability. It is as much about broken brand promises as about broken economies. I would suggest that people no longer trust promises – financial institutions are built upon pledges and assurances. Even that most emotional of purchases, the automobile represents a compact… an affirmation (even the value of Audi VW’s brand slumped). The locus of trusted brands has shifted. It is not surprising then that brands that deliver by instant gratification, retail and food for example held up well, including McDonald’s and Coca Cola.

Perhaps this also explains why the other big trend beater, Google, did so well. It is right there in front of you on the screen: what you see is what you get; it delivers.

I’m working on a brand evaluation programme, particularly concerned with emotional attachment to brands. I have used various techniques in the past, including plotting emotional dimensions along pre-determined attributes, using brand cohorts, ethnographic studies and grounded theory. By its very nature, psychological  emotional attachment is not particularly accessible to high involvement processing so techniques are much concerned with overt attachment.

None of the techniques I have worked with so far have been very satisfying and those that seemed to approach the best results are time-consuming and costly. If you have experience of effective techniques or even just a theoretical approach worth exploring I would be very interested to hear.