Brand Resilience
Mostly good article on branding at Thought
Leadership: 4
Surefire Ways to Destroy Your Brand.
But, they get one thing wrong. I would disagree with the
upfront premise about how easy it is to destroy a brand. Once you
establish a really strong brand, you can actually weather those
storms if you stay true to the promise.
They use Apple as an example. But, many people had
problems with the new Iphone. Yet is is wildly
successful. Apples customer service is famously bad. Yet they
have the most passionate brand evangelists anywhere.
Or, to take another leading brand, check-out at IKEA is often
unpleasant, especially now that they have self-checkout but not
always someone to help if your items don't scan. And, you have to
pay for bags. But the same people who complain about these things
still love IKEA and go back time and time again.
The question is whether you consistently live up to your brand
promise. Apple's simplicity, elegance, and just general coolness
was still true even if you got a phone that didn't have good
reception. Or had an ipod touch that stopped working because you
used it to work out and got sweat on it and the person at the apple
store told you that it is a hard drive and shouldn't be exposed to
water so tough. (I experienced the latter but not the former)
IKEAs quirky swedish nature and great value for furniture that
expresses a personality is true even if you can't always get out of
the store.
The point is, be true to the core promise to build the brand, and
sometimes the best way to be true to the brand promise is to focus
on it even if that sometimes means you don't excel in other
areas.