I read somewhere that out of approximately 25,000 new products launched every year, 22,000 fail to survive more than 18 months. That’s not a great record and one that brand builders should be ashamed of. Now you probably think I’m about to launch into a monologue about using advertising to build a brand. I’m tempted to but it’s Friday so I’ll spare you the rant.
Instead here’s a nice list (well nice, except for number 16) of 16 brands that made it past the first 18 months but eventually despite millions spent on advertising (oops, sorry) they died and went to brand heaven. What’s so unique about this list is that all of them have come back from the dead and, certainly in the case of number 16 are haunting us once again.
Moleskin died, went to heaven, came back 10 years later and now earns £76 million a year
Anyway thanks to the Daily Telegraph for the list. I’m sure the old codgers amongst you will smile at the memory of some of these brands.
Advertising campaigns are as common as muck. We’re oblivious to most of them and even when we see one we like, we very rarely buy the product. And it doesn’t matter whether it goes out across social or traditional media, the reality is most advertising is simply noise.
Even if we do buy the product, we’re often let down at some stage of the experience. Because most firms don’t spend enough time and money on looking after us once we’ve bought something, even if the product works well, any positive perceptions created early on are destroyed later when there is an issue and the brand doesn’t respond well. When this happens, many of us become brand activists, for all the wrong reasons.
In the social economy, this can have a devasting effect on the brand. Harvard Business Review went as far as to say, “Traditional marketing — including advertising, public relations and corporate communications — is dead.…in today’s increasingly social media-infused environment, traditional marketing and sales not only doesn’t work so well, it doesn’t make sense.”
The book has been selling well and there is a lot of interest in Asia. Recently the prestigious CMO.com interviewed me and you can read the full interview here.
I think the interview works well and anyone who runs a business and is looking to build a brand should read it and if you like it, buy the book. Seriously I think you will learn a lot.
Thanks to Bobby McGill at Branding in Asia for doing the interview.
Two days ago I posted this blog post about what I called a minor yet significant step by Malaysia Airlines to rebrand by engaging me.
I was asked by some people why the email I got has anything to do with the Malaysia Airlines brand. I explained that in the social economy of today where consumers not companies define brands, it is the little things that brands do when interacting with consumers and how those consumers share their thoughts on those experiences, that build strong brands today.
I used as an example how much money Malaysia Airlines had spent over the previous 10 years on advertising whilst driving the brand experience into the ground. This meant that the brand had no equity in the bank and that if anything were to go wrong, it may struggle to rebuild its brand.
From the outside it looked like management had come to believe that the brand was defined by the company and as long as the company kept creating messages that the management liked, the brand would one day bounce back.
And then came the tragic events of 2014. The out of touch management didn’t have a clue how to address the issue and could not engage with relatives and other stakeholders. I compared their reaction to that of Tony Fernandez following the terrible Air Asia Indonesia accident of the same year and how his response was so ‘human’.
Following the twin events and with no equity in the bank because few customers were talking positively about their experiences with the brand, Malaysia Airlines had to be bailed out by the government and is still lurching from one problem to another.
I explained that whilst the interaction I had with Malaysia Airlines was small it was nevertheless a step in the right direction and if it was part of a strategic plan to start delivering value in key customer facing areas, it was a step in the right direction to save the brand.
I went on to explain that brands are not built with a big idea, a creative campaign or a one off interaction. They are built organically, over time and through little interactions at nearly every touchpoint. This isn’t rocket science but it is amazing how many firms still think they can build a brand through a creative programme.
And then today I read this article about a Virgin employee who works at San Francisco airport. Over the years he has adapted flight information boards to include famous quotes, jokes and irreverent announcements.
branding is not about the big idea, its about experiences
Rather than discipline the employee Steve Freitag, Virgin actively encourages him to make passengers smile. Passengers who encounter Steve Freitag will envariably talk about the experience and tell their friends.
No big idea thought up over a six month period and then turned into a slick advertising campaign. Just a real person doing real things and making life better for a minute for those people flying with Virgin.
In the case of my little experience with Malaysia Airlines it meant that instead of clicking my heels and the airport and wasting time I could ill afford to waste, I could spend an extra 45 minutes in the office.
And here I am sharing my experience with you through this blog and on Twitter and Facebook. And some of you are sharing my story with your friends. And together we are rebuilding the Malaysia Airlines brand.
Malaysia Airlines has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising campaigns in an effort to convince us that it’s a top carrier and we’ll all have fun flying the airline etc. You can read one of my scathing attacks on the marketing department here and another one here.
Unsurprisingly this 1960s approach to building a brand didn’t work so they focussed instead on cutting costs wherever costs could be cut, without giving much thought to the effects of these cuts.
Most recently the carrier was ripped apart in the Malaysia media because it has stopped serving alcohol on any flight of less than three hours and not just in economy but in business class as well. What appeared to be most galling to the hundreds of consumers who commented on the ban was the fact that the airline had implemented the rule below the radar. Without apparently any formal announcement. Scores of furious business class travellers took to Facebook to air their frustrations and to swear never to fly the carrier again.
And then a few days later the CEO stepped down, nearly two years before the end of his lucrative contract. We’ll come back to that in another post. Because this post is a positive one.
This afternoon I received an email from Malaysia Airlines telling me my flight was delayed. Now I know a lot of you are going to ask what is the big deal but this is the first time, for as long as I can remember that MAS has emailed me to inform me that my flight was delayed.
Rebuilding the Malaysia Airlines brand, one baby step at a time.
It’s not perfect. For instance I would also like to have received a text notifying me of the delay because I might not have checked my email before leaving for the airport. And of course you’d think that after more than 20 years of being a customer, they could address me by my name but that doesn’t matter.
What matters is that rebuilding the reputation of the Malaysia Airlines brand will require a greater investment in improving experiences at every touch point than in advertising campaigns that are lost in the sea of noise. I’m not holding my breath, but I hope this is the first step in the rebranding process.
Rumour has it that Malaysia Airlines CEO and managing director Christoph Mueller is quitting the airline before the end of 2016.
If this is true it’s a major blow for the carrier that announced its first monthly profit in years in February 2016. Although it won’t come as a surprise to many who spotted tension between Mueller and Khazanah late last year when he announced the new Malaysia Airlines brand would be launched in December 2015.
The CEO was quoted as saying, “The entire brand needs a ‘refresh’ and will be like a start up with a new culture, values and ideas” However, the brand continued in the same livery with little change to the product or values and ideas. Well little positive change anyway.
And then in January 2016, Khazanah Nasional Chairman Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar said “undertaking a rebranding exercise without having a strong foundation would create a vacuum in the carrier.” This comment can’t have gone down well with Mueller.
This comes at a time when the Malaysia brand is struggling to overcome numerous negative issues and is a massive setback for the carriers reputation and that of the country.
RapidKL the operating arm of Government ownded company Prasarana recently took 8 corporate leaders on the Light Rail Transit (LRT) so that they could experience public transport and more importantly, be seen to be taking public transport in an apparent effort to “encourage the culture within their organization(s) and the public in general, as well as obtain their feedback for further improvements. This is a continuous effort from our end to get key leaders more involved in understanding the need to further enhance public transportation services in the country.”
However, The Heat Malaysia, an increasingly popular source of news for Malaysians called the event a ‘failed PR stunt’ and wrote a long article critizing the event and suggesting Prasarana misled the public by claiming it took place during peak time when in fact it happened between the hours of 11am – 2pm which can hardly be considered peak time.
Prasarana responded quickly with a decent explanation that was duly published at the end of the article. The Heat Malaysia site doesn’t appear to allow comments and it’s not possible to tell how many people shared the article on social media.
But never mind, all well and good so far and for many stories, this is quite often where it ends. Unless of course it is related to an issue that is close to commuter’s hearts. And public transport is definately close to the commuter’s heart. Which is probably why the Heat Malaysia didn’t leave it at that. They know a story with legs and so they also published the article on Facebook. And that’s when things started to fall apart.
Once the story gained traction online, instead of participating, Rapidkl went awol
Within hours, there were more than 50 comments on the post, nearly every one of them negative. By 2.30pm in the afternoon, Rapidkl cobbled together a predictable, corporate response, “Dear The Heat Malaysia, the recent online reports by the media covering 8 key corporate leaders riding the LRT during “peak hours” was inaccurately reported and had caused anxiety among some of our commuters. Please allow us to correct the facts and inform that the hour spoken refers to the afternoon “lunch crowd” and not peak hours as mentioned in the reports. The leaders were given an opportunity to experience taking public transportation as an effort to encourage the culture within their organization and the public in general, as well as obtain their feedback for further improvements. This is a continuous effort from our end to get key leaders more involved in understanding the need to further enhance public transportation services in the country.”
This typically contrived, corporate driven, out of touch and dated response generated even more negativity with Evelyn Toh asking what all of us were thinking would have been the right approach from the start:
Great question Evelyn
24 hours later there was no let up in the abuse. And when Halim Hassan uploaded this image of the VIPs sitting in seats reserved for the elderly and disabled, what started out as a good idea, became an unmitigated disaster.
Not a good idea to sit in the disabled/special needs seats
However, there was still a chance for Rapidkl to salvage the situation. If it had shown its human side, put it’s hands up and apologised, explained how their intentions were honourable, how they were trying to get more cars off the road, increase use of public transport and make life better for everyone and that in future they would go out and meet with real, genuine commuters and not chauffeur driven VIPs and done a few other things it could have recovered the initiative.
But they did what far too many firms do and ran away from the problem. Despite The Heat Malaysia Facebook post getting more than 500 Likes and 164 comments, Rapidkl refused to participate in the narrative. Hoping it would instead go away. This is a classic example of how not to approach social media. Social media is your friend but the best bit of advice I can give any company is that if you intend to use it as part of your brand strategy then the first thing you have to understand is that you must be social, not do social.
Too many brands think that social media is to be used in the same way as they’ve been using traditional media – as the base for a series of poorly thought out ad hoc tactics pushing a corporate driven message. Social media is not something you do, it is something you are. Which means that the people responsible for your social media communications must know what they are doing. Being young does not qualify you for managing a firms social media communications.
And any social media initiative must be part of a clearly defined brand strategy. This is not rocket science yet so many companies feel they can simply jump into social media with an idea and announce the idea and expect it to spread out across the eco system in a perfectly choreographed, positive manner. This of course rarely happens. But until senior management learns and understands social media, and actively participates in social media, most social media projects will fail because the corporate culture dictates social media competencies and if the CEO is non committal then the culture will be non committal and that’s the wrong place from which to start.
The strategy is so important. All bases must be covered. The ‘what if’ scenarios must be carefully thought through and prepared for. And the team designated to develop the narrative must have the skills required to address any issues and communicate effectively and in tandem with the overall goal.
The irony is that Rapidkl had a good idea but they didn’t understand how to implement the idea and certainly didn’t know how to develop the narrative around the idea on social media. And as soon as it went wrong, they panicked and shut down. Nevermind, all is not lost. The public are a forgiving lot. The next steps though will be crucial. Let’s see what happens.
Sticking with the Nation branding theme of the previous post, the 2016 World Happiness report is out. You can download the full report here. Of the 157 countries that participated in the project, Malaysia is the 47th most happy country, 25 places below Singapore at 22 and way above Indonesia at 79.
Denmark top of the world happiness index
The sample size is 3,000 and its purpose is to, “survey the scientific underpinnings of measuring and understanding subjective well-being.” One section of the methodology caught my eye, “..continued with our attempts to explain the levels and changes in average national life evaluations among countries around the world. This year we shall still consider the geographic distribution of life evaluations among countries, while extending our analysis to consider in more detail the inequality of happiness – how life evaluations are distributed among individuals within countries and geographic regions.” It caught my eye but I’m not sure what it means!
One argument in the report suggests “people are happier living in societies where there is less inequality of happiness.” Which I think means “People are happier where everyone is happy.” If I’m right, I don’t think that’s particularly ground breaking information.
However, the section on Measuring and understanding happiness is interesting and worth a look. In fact the whole report is worth a look but I won’t be taking it too seriously. Oh, and the happiest country in the world? Denmark. Why, because everyone looks out for everyone else. The government’s social policy really is social and embraces everyone which has created a civil society where everyone has the freedom and income to make their own life choices. Food for thought there.
Place branding is a generic term for all the elements of a nation or country brand, cities, states and regions and even destinations within those areas. In South East Asia alone there are more than 600,000 destinations competing for investment, talent and tourists. In an effort to match their destinations to stakeholder requirements for value, smart places are developing brands that investors, talent and tourists embrace.
Our company Fusionbrand is working on a brand for one state government in Malaysia and in the past have worked with other state governments, tourism boards, enterprise zones and the Malaysia Tourism Board. It’s always a privilege when we win a destination or place branding project because such projects have a major impact on society.
Many nation brands are victims of the politician’s need for quick wins
The Place Brand Observer heard about our work and got in touch with me in February and suggested an interview. The Place Brand Observer is a fantastic resource for anyone responsible for branding nations, cities, states and regions, public diplomacy and reputation management.
The site features insights into the industry, interviews with experts in destination branding from around the world as well as tutorials and case studies of successful branding of countries, regions, cities and destinations. It’s a meeting place for the brains and the brawn of the place branding industry. If you are involved in place branding or simply want to know more about the industry, I strongly recommend you sign up for their excellent news feeds.
You can read the full interview here . I thought it was a really good interview and we discussed data driven branding, country brands, Malaysia airlines and the link between the legacy carrier and the country. I hope you find the time to comment, good or bad!
Malaysia’s January automotive sales nose dived 12% to 44,591 units although this was expected after the record highs of December 2015. Japanese firms were hardest hit with Toyota sales down 27%, followed by Nissan 22% and Honda down 12%.
It’ll take more than a new logo and a dubious tagline to stop Proton’s slide
Proton continued its slide with sales down 13%. And even though Perodua sold less cars this Janaury than it did in 2015, the relative newcomer to the industry saw its market share increase to 35% giving it more than double Proton’s market share. In an effort to stem the bleeding, Proton has created a new logo and tagline but Perodua is undeniably Malaysia’s number one automotive company.
Mercedes Benz sales went through the roof with a year on year increase of 139%. Mercedez Benz sold 1,027 units in January 2016, up from 430 in January 2015. Mercedes Benz was the only top 15 brand to sell more cars in January 2015 than it did in December 2015.
BMW and Audi probably spend more on traditional advertising than any of the other luxury brands and have been particularly active recently but neither brand was able to match the performance of Mercedes Benz. Audi sales were down over 40% in January over the previous month although they did manage a modest 9% gain over January 2015.
BMW fared better with a gain of 23% over January 2015 but compared to December 2015, sales were down 25%. This fall in sales would probably explain why BMW is now offering a longer warranty although anecdotal evidence suggests the BMW brand is losing its lustre in the local market.
But of most interest to me was the performance of Mazda. Mazda has come from nowhere to take 3% of the market share in Malaysia, up from 1% five years ago. This is an extraordinary feat because Mazda spends very little on advertising. Which is probably just as well because the advertising they do revolves around the words ‘ZOOM ZOOM’ and poorly written copy.
Seriously, what is this ad saying?
For instance ‘A new era of driving experience’ doesn’t make sense. The copy begins, ‘New levels of freedom, new levels of versatility. New levels of pure enjoyment on the road.’ Obviously the person who wrote that doesn’t drive on the roads of KL. Certainly not during the daily commute or on a wet Friday afternoon.
The copy also breaks the cardinal rule of not providing any solutions to problems but instead rambles on about nothing. I mean seriously, how can the CX-3 really be ‘designed and engineered to evoke emotions by closely matching human sensibilities?’ Get real. The copy is cold and doesn’t talk to anyone and ends with Zoom-Zoom is unique. It certainly is. I could go on but I’ll spare you the pain.
This is what I meant when I wrote my book Stop Advertising, Start Branding. It’s not that you should stop advertising, it’s that you should stop poor or weak advertising. Mazda is doing really well at the moment in Malaysia and globally. It has tripled its market share and could be on to something spectacular. But it needs to do more than churn out this sort of advertising because it is wasting money and it may have a negative effect on the brand. It needs to Stop Advertising, Start Branding.
I am yet to visit a Mazda showroom so can’t tell you about the experience. I will endeavour to do so and we’ll do some research and report back to you.
Back in July 2013 I wrote a post about how Proton must fast track its branding activities. You can read the full article here. Two years before that in 2011 I wrote about that the first rule of auto advertising was ‘to keep it real’. You can read that post here. More on this in my next post.
The first post quotes then Proton Edar CEO Hisham Othman as saying that the company, “Would pay greater attention to product quality and customer service.”
Fast forward to March 2016 and Proton Chief Executive Officer Datuk Abdul Harith Abdullah is promising, “new product introduction, network rationalisation, the introduction of new dealers and upgrading of services at our centres.”
Proton is in big trouble. Its market share has dropped from close to 80% to 17% in little more than 20 years. Proton service centres rarely deliver on promises made and many consider the cars to be inferior to the competition and over priced.
In other words, the brand and its reputation is in tatters. Abdul Harith has acknowledged the problem and has vowed to “reform and rebrand.”
What we don’t know at this stage is what Abdul Harith and his team consider to be a rebrand. Certainly some of the noises coming out of the firm are good.
For instance he stated at the weekend, “We have an audit team going out there to make sure that key performance indicators are met.” That’s a good start. The service centres and their ability to look after customers are key to this rescue mission. On this matter he said, “To address the poor quality of our customer services at after-sales operations, key improvement initiatives will include network rationalisation, the introduction of new dealers and upgrading of service at our centres.” Owning up to the faulty hose deception is another good start. As is getting rid of crap dealers, as long as they aren’t replaced with more crap dealers.
Meanwhile, Hong Leong Investment Bank wrote in a report that, “negative consumer perception on Proton’s quality has been a major blow to the national carmaker for many years.” The report adds, “various programs have also been introduced to improve (the) customer experience and provide more value-add services, such as courtesy car service, pick-up and delivery service, quick service money-back guarantee, mobile assist service and one-stop customer care line.” I know what you are thinking – this isn’t the first time Proton has gone through this process.
So can Proton survive? Provided the new Proton cars really are exceptional and meet target market requirements for value. If they are still poor and the team tasked with implementing the rebrand don’t know what constitutes the level of service consumers are looking for and they are able to train the service centre owners and staff to deliver meet those requirements for value at every touch point and every time, it has a fighting chance.
In other words, a rebrand is not the CEO standing up and repeating what his predecessor said 3 years ago. It’s not a change of logo or an advertising campaign. It’s a ‘fit for purpose’ product that is able to deliver on promises made. It’s a comprehensive overhaul of all the processess and systems involved in delivering the value the customer needs.
It’s the collection of data and having the knowledge to interpret and use that data. It’s the ability to deal with issues and crises in an open and transparent manner. It’s the ability to work with potential customers, assuage their fears with solutions that matter to them, and often only them. It’s about going the extra mile, time and time again and often in different ways.
It’s about communications that resonate. Not about a ‘big idea’ created by an advertising agency or the CEO. It’s about talking to customers in a language that they understand and will address their concerns.
It’s an ongoing relationship with the customer that turns them into fans and advocates. If all these are in place then Proton could achieve it’s target of 150,000 vehicle sales this year and start to reverse the decline in its market share.
This is the first in a series of articles where we will track Proton and see how it is doing.
brandconsultantasia.com 