Growing Strong Brands
November 25, 2009
People seem to be almost obsessed with the concept of “branding” – the idea that an identity and a logo are somehow all you need to achieve massive business success. And while new entrepreneurs with grand ideas might be forgiven for drinking this Kool-Aid, certainly large companies would understand the place of branding in the grand scheme of things. Wouldn’t they?
At least I assumed they would. That is, of course, until I heard an interview last week on NPR. It seems that General Motors has been making some progress in their efforts to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and to get some insight into this development, they were interviewing an executive, Susan Docherty, VP of Sales for GM.
When asked about the current state of affairs, Docherty said, “We’re not declaring victory yet but we’re certainly making progress towards growing strong brands and driving positive business results.”
I thought the order in which she listed the two goals was interesting: “growing strong brands” and “positive business results.”
Because if I’m a GM employee, a stockholder, or the owner of a GM vehicle, I could care less about the “strong brand.”
Oldsmobile used to be a strong brand, around for over 100 years. At one time, the Olds Cutlass, a car I proudly owned in my younger days, was the top-selling car in the world, an honor long since held by the Toyota Camry. The last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line on April 29, 2004.
Ironically, almost five years to the day later (April 27, 2009) GM announced that it would be phasing out Pontiac, another strong brand, by the end of 2010. Pontiac has been building cars since 1926, and was responsible for the famous Firebird Trans Am model, featured prominently in the movie “Smokey and the Bandit” and on the 1980s TV series, “Knight Rider.”
Two strong brands with long and amazing histories of innovation and popularity, both gone in the blink of an eye.
Now if they had been paying attention to changing consumer preferences; if they had taken more seriously the mass exodus of their loyal customers to foreign competitors; if they had focused on numbers instead of brands, then maybe GM wouldn’t find itself in the situation it does now.
And remember, this is a very large company that actually has the luxury (and the budget) to spend the huge amounts necessary to even attempt brand advertising. You do not. And that’s why it’s important that you measure, analyze, and make business decisions based on the direct return on investment of every marketing dollar you spend.
Because I’d hate to read in the paper that your brand was being discontinued.
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One Response to “Growing Strong Brands”
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I always enjoy your newletters and I am almost always shaking my head in agreement with your insightful (and often simple) examples of business decisions gone astray. I am in complete agreement that your typical newsletter reader neither has the time nor money to invest in “branding” but I am not sure I am with you on all your assertions in the article. For example, I would suggest changing “Two strong brands with long and amazing histories of innovation and popularity, both gone in the blink of an eye” to be something like “Two formerly strong brands with long and amazing histories of innovation and popularity, both gone now due to short term focus on the numbers and long term neglect of what attracted consumers to those brands in the first place”. Another point here is that no matter how good your marketing is, without product to back up that marketing, it is money not well spent.
Keep up the great work!
…Rob Tinsley