10: Game Changer 7: Own Your Distinction
Another key component of brand is that it distinguishes one product from another so that customers will seek out a brand that has unique characteristics that are better geared to serve their individual needs than other brands.
If there is no distinction between brands for a given product type, then the product has become a commodity, customers don't care what brand they purchase. Companies in a commoditized market must compete on price, margins and profitability shrink, and a small number of firms whose operations are the most efficient divide up the market.
(EN: A brand marketing professor once remarked that brand and commodity are cyclical. Where an industry has become commoditized, this is an opportunity for a firm to enter with a branded product that is better than the standard offering - and if the product legitimately is better, people will seek the brand and competition on quality will resume. Starbucks is a common example of a firm that entered a commoditized market and made a significant profit from raising the stakes on quality.)
In the market for branded products, victory and market share go to the brands that are most distinguished from the rest, in ways that are important to significant numbers of customers. The key to winning and keeping customers is not to be just like the rest, but to stand out as much as possible from the competition.
Distinction may come from the product/service itself (the item is functionally better for a given purpose), the experience surrounding the core product (it is easier or more pleasant to acquire and service), or the persona of the brand (users feel the brand contributes to their lifestyle or personal identity).
Most germane to the topic of brand recovery, the distinctiveness of a brand is what causes consumers to purchase it in the first place, and to remain loyal to the brand over the long run - they would rather forgive their preferred brand for a misstep than to switch to a competing brand. Companies that produce commodity products provide no such justification for consumer loyalty.
Brand Distinction and Recovery
The distinctive offering of a brand does not guarantee salvation: while people who prefer a brand will not switch if the company is involved in a scandal (that does not affect brand quality), some will, and others will eventually feel awkward or ashamed for patronizing a firm whose behavior in seemingly unrelated ways is questionable.
(EN: The author seems to miss a correlation - that if a brand in recovery changes the things that customers value in order to address the demands of critics, it will lose the customers as a result.)
As such, having a distinctive brand merely buys time to address a problem, and may serve as a buffer to defend against minor and short-term issues that might break loyalty if the brand were less distinctive.
Another benefit of brand is that it sets expectations for the manner in which a brand will respond. People expect a stodgy and conservative brand to behave in a stodgy and conservative manner, with a great deal of bureaucracy and coordination to resolve issues. People expect a brand that claims to put people first to derive a solution that is true to its nature. People expect a sassy, youth-oriented brand to have a similar response (which explains why firms such as Virgin and Abercrombie & Fitch can poke out their tongues at their critics). On the other hand, if a brand's response in crisis is contrary to its image, people lose faith in the brand.
There's a loose bit where the author provides some questions to determine the strength of a bond with customers - though it seems a bit oblique and superficial, they are:
- Does the brand provide substantive differences that are important to the customer?
- Are these differences unique to the brand - and lacking in competitors?
- Are these differences easy to copy, or are there barriers that would prevent other brands from duplicating them?
- Does the brand provide credible proof of these differences?
- Can the firm, or its customers, easily articulate the differences?
- Do the producer's employees embody the brand's character through word and deed?
- Does every communication from the company to its customers reflect the brand's unique character?
Most brands would like to answer "yes" to all of those questions - but when oppressed to prove or substantiate their answers, many fail.
Building a strong brand requires the courage to do things that other firms do not, even if they seem quirky or odd to some people, and resisting those who wish to take the more comfortable route of imitation and conformity. The brand must be defended for the long-term against the pressure to achieve short-term results by acting out of character, and the brand's character must resound in everything the fir says or does.
A successful brand must truly stand out from the pack, in ways that customers value, and in ways that competitors cannot easily imitate.
As a case study, the author considers "Geek Squad," a brand of computer repair services that reveled in the dorky image of the geek, and who recognized that computers are merely a tool that people reluctantly use. It broke from other brands by showing humility - serving the customer in their own home, without the arrogance and imperiousness attributed to most technical professionals.
The company ran into trouble when it was accused of violating software licenses: diagnostic and repair tools that software houses wanted consumers to purchase individual licenses for each computer. (EN: I recall this battle, and one blogger used an apt metaphor: it was like demanding a carpenter buy a separate hammer for every house he builds.) Eventually, the firm conceded and came to an agreement with software providers over equitable licensing for its repair staff.
The firm also came under fire for calling the police on their own customers when technicians found questionable material on personal computers. (EN: There were critics of this as well, and it borders an invasion of privacy. The company was applauded for reporting child pornography, not so much when they reported people for their MP3 collections.) The firm refused to change its stance on this, though in practice has turned a blind eye toward copyright and licensing issues for user software.
Geek Squad was shielded by many for the distinctive value of its services. No other firm would send repairmen to the homes of customers, and provide a technician who was helpful rather than one who made customers feel stupid for being unable to solve their own problems. Given that the vast majority of computer users are not very technically savvy, and aren't involved in pornography and privacy, the firm was able to sustain itself in spite of accusations.
Most significantly, the strength of the brand not only sustained customer loyalty through these issues, but also had customers coming to their defense against their critics.
Brand Distinction as Bounce Back Booster
The author provides a few more case studies of firms whose distinctiveness facilitated their recovery.
The first example is Sun Chips, a snack product that has relied on positioning itself as healthy and eco-friendly, using organic grains and being produced in solar-powered factories. (EN: if you've ever tasted one, it's obvious people don't buy them for their flavor.)
One problem that arose is that the firm claimed to sell chips in a biodegradable bag - which was technically true, though it was pointed out that it would take over 100 years for the bag to decompose. New packaging was introduced, which made so much noise when handled that customers complained and sales dropped 11%, prompting the firm to return to the old, non-eco-friendly packaging, until they could figure out a way to solve that issue with a new bag that was quieter, but still not biodegradable (less than 100 years, but more than the three months they claimed).
In all, it took a long time for Sun Chips to come to an acceptable solution, but by being open about its attempts, partnering with environmental nonprofits to help, and leveraging social media to deal with customer concerns, the firm was eventually able to sustain sales in the meantime, and eventually make a full recovery. Regarding distinctiveness: it likely could not have done so if there were another brand of snack foods that sought to offer an eco-friendly line of chips.
The author also mentions "Fizzies," a brand of tablets that can be added to plain water to create an effervescent fruit-flavored drink. The brand had been popular in the 1960s, but was taken off the market when the FDA banned cyclamates. The brand attempted to revive itself when it reformulated to use aspartame (Nutrasweet) in 1995, but the firm went bankrupt a year later. In 2005, another firm bought the brand, used sucralose (Splenda) as a sweetener, and made a small comeback, but largely as a nostalgia brand. The firm is currently considering ways to reach new customers, and has made some progress in that regard.
While this was not a crisis, per se, the brand had developed a distinct characteristic - there are water flavorings, but none that offer effervescence, but because the brand is so well-known and referenced in pop culture, the makers feel it is more productive to leverage the remnants of brand preference rather than to try to launch a new brand.
Brand Distinction and the Individual Brand
The author considers Pee-Wee Herman as an individual brand that got into trouble. The television show host enjoyed a lot of attention in the 1980s, but when the actor was arrested for "obscene behavior" in an adult theater in 1991, the brand was fairly well sunk. He attempted to poke fun at himself (the infamous "heard any good jokes lately?" at an awards show shortly after the arrest), but ultimately disappeared from the radar.
In this instance, the strength of recognition in a distinctive character enabled the actor to step away cleanly. Few people even knew the actor's real name, or connected the dots when an actor named "Paul Reubens" showed up as a character actor in various films.
Ten years later, Rubens is attempting to revive the character: he's made a number of public appearances as Pee-Wee, walk-ons in a few shows, and opened a one-man show on Broadway in November of 2010.
While there is no certainty of recovery, and it's unlikely Pee-Wee will regain the peak of fame he once had, there remains some profit potential in the character, particularly with fans who recall its quirky and distinctive qualities.