Luxury brands, especially those with significant exposure to China have had a tough 2015. Swatch group annouced a 20% drop in 1H2015 profit whilst Prada saw a 25% drop in its 1st half profits, citing a slump in demand from China and Hong Kong. Jaguar Land Rover sales in China have fallen 20% in 2015 and Maserati closed its Beijing financial street showroom.
Growth in Asia was essentially driven by opening more stores, filling them with a lot of stock and mass advertising. On the whole, luxury brands ignored or at best paid lip service to digital.
This was a huge mistake as Asia’s e-commerce market is now worth US$525bn in online sales and is growing at 25% per annum. This article in CMO magazine that I contributed to, explores what went wrong and what luxury brands need to do to engage Asian consumers online.
Flying into Kuching this morning on Malaysia Airlines the haze was so bad the pilot aborted the landing and went around again. The same thing happened last week. The haze isn’t MAS MAB fault but it has a significant impact on its brand.
Last week, the pilot came on the PA and explained the problem, reassuring everyone with his confidence and authority. This time the flight deck was silent. So we the passengers are sitting there wondering why the landing was aborted.
Without any information and aware of the carriers recent issues, we start asking ourselves, “Is there a problem with the aircraft?” or “Perhaps the airport is closed?” In that case, “Do we have enough fuel to go elsewhere?” “Are the pilot and co-pilot ill or even conscious?” An intimidating situation such as this one can have a negative effect on the brand. Yet at the same time, it can be part of the rebranding process.
It’s the little things that make or break a brand. Especially one that is already broken. A simple 30 second explanation was all that was needed to calm everyone down and earn a little bit of respect. Communication is a key part of branding. Successful brands have an emotional connection with consumers.
MAB has a credibility problem and that credibility problem needs to be fixed. One of the problems is the lack of an emotional connection. How can consumers connect with a brand that doesn’t communicate? If there is no connection the rebrand will fail. It certainly won’t be fixed with pressing the flesh, a new name, new livery, new advertising and a new logo.
It’ll be fixed by creating an emotional connection with customers and delivering economic, experiential and emotional value to those consumers.
According to marketing magazine, the new Malaysia Airlines brand was launched with what they call ‘a new branding campaign’. Now personally I don’t think you can have a branding campaign. In my opinion that’s an oxymoron but let’s not go there for now.
Marketing magazine reported that a new hashtag #todayishere is the new tagline. A hashtag is the new tagline? Is that from MAB or is that an assumption? And besides, what does ‘todayishere’ mean? Does it mean we can simply forget about the past? And what about tomorrow? How does todayishere reassure me that it is safe for me to fly or put my kids on Malaysia Airlines?
And how is todayishere going to improve the experience of interacting with Malaysia Airlines? Does anyone know? How is anyone going to build a brand narrative around todayishere? Perhaps the agency Prophet from Hong Kong can share with us the next stage of their rebrand strategy because I want to know if there is anything else to come?
Are the crew going to be trained to represent this ‘new brand?’ What improvements have been made to the key touchpoints of the brand? How will a first time user be engaged at the booking engine? Has the broken booking engine been fixed? If not, why bother with a new hashtag/tagline/rebrand launch? Why not wait till that key component of the experience is at least working properly?
Although I don’t consider ‘todayishere’ to be a tagline, it is borderline criminal to believe you can rebrand any organisation with a tagline. Just ask the Malaysian government. Almost 2 years ago to the day, they tried to launch the Malaysia nation brand with a tagline.
But you can’t retrofit a brand around a tagline. Branding is about delivering value, at every touchpoint and at everytime and on the customers terms. It’s actually very easy, provided you start from the right place, the organisation because the organisation is the brand. Not a tagline, not a hashtag, not an ad campaign, not a campaign, not a new logo. Please, someone pass the message to the Malaysia Airlines board.
I was under the impression that September 1st 2015 was the planned date for the launch of the Malaysia Airlines System (MAS) rebrand. As far as I can see, all that has happened is the name has been changed to Malaysia Airlines Berhad (MAB).
To launch the new company, MAB CEO Christoph Mueller led a team of senior managers around Kuala Lumpur international airport (KLIA) greeting passengers, handing out teddy bears and giving away a pair of business class tickets to Melbourne. This is a nice if old fashioned way of introducing a new product and the internet means these cute if short lived PR tactics can be leveraged online and potentially taken up by users across the ecosystem.
Malaysia Airlines CEO greeting passengers on the first day of the new company Pic credit: NSTP/Aizuddin Saad
Unfortunately I couldn’t find any reference to the airport visit on the Malaysia Airlines Facebook page. Not even a reference to the free tickets to Melbourne. Perhaps I missed it or the airline missed an opportunity to get some valuable positive earned media.
In conjunction with the launch of the new company, the CEO stated “We are very excited to welcome today, the start of our new company. We have been working hard for the past months to ensure a smooth and successful transition and we would like to thank our customers and airline partners for their continued support during this period.”
Interestingly, he added, “the new company was looking forward to enhancing its customer in-flight experiences and give them more reason to visit Malaysia.”
Although his comment suggests he’s more interested in new recreational customers than existing ones and visitors to Malaysia rather than citizens of Malayisa, it’s a reassuring place to start because the experiences (at all touchpoints and not just in-flight) are key to building a successful brand and not advertising, PR, cute PR gimmicks and corporate driven messages pushed out across all media.
Indeed, this is one of the reasons why MAS failed. The company thought it could spend more than a RM1 billion (US$400 million) in the years leading up to 2014 and pass that off as brand building whilst cutting costs that impacted every stage of the experience.
When a crisis hit, the brand was unable to deliver on promises it had made. In addition to gross mismanagement, failures at every touchpoint, lack of appreciation of the importance of existing customers and an inability to engage stakeholders, constituents and customers all contributed to the destruction of the once mighty brand.
So Mueller’s comment about improving the customer experience is good to hear. But I have to say I’m a little skeptical and here’s why. Last week I flew business class to Kuching on MAS and I was shocked at how old the aircraft was. Seats in business class were falling apart as the image below shows. Normally MAS uses new 737s on this sector so I can only hope the new aircraft have been taken out of service for the application of a new MAB livery.
A week before the launch of the new Malaysia Airlines, domestic business class is ready for the upgrade!
The week before the trip above, I flew business class again to Kuching and 10 minutes out from Kuching the familiar alert sound of an incoming text message rang across the cabin. Then another and another. I figured someone in business class had turned on their phone whilst we were on our final approach.
I looked at the already seated stewardess who looked away in embarrassment. At least another 2 messages came in before we landed. When the stewardess got up to close the curtain I asked her if she was going to say anything. She replied yes and then went and hid in the galley.
A quick search online about the use of phones in flight throws up plenty of references. This is a quote from a Directorate General Civil Aviation (DGCA) report dated 2010 that refers specifically to the final approach: “Safety information internationally exchanged reveals specific cases where use of mobile telephones by passengers inside the aircraft cabin has caused erratic performance of aircraft airborne equipment leading to serious safety hazards during the flight. Typical instances include automatic disengagement of the autopilot at an altitude of 400 feet above ground level during an auto pilot assisted approach.”
Boeing the manufacturer of the aircraft I was travelling on has in the past written to all operators to warn of “the adverse effects of electromagnetic emissions on control, navigation and communications systems. Boeing is concerned that portable electronic devices carried by passengers on aircraft do not meet the stringent electromagnetic emission standards imposed on the certified airborne equipment used on its aircraft.”
As the passengers left the cabin the stewardess didn’t say anything. I was disappointed and explained to her as far as I was concerned, she was the boss of that cabin and if someone broke the law she should do something about it. She just looked at me blankly.
The last throw of the dice for the national carrier of Malaysia, a country that desperately needs some good news
So what’s this got to do with branding? Well first of all, the MAS brand is toxic at the moment and especially when it comes to matters of safety. And a new name or identity or logo or advertising campaign won’t change that.
What will change that are examples and experiences, especially those related to safety. And most of those experiences will involve the ground staff or cabin crew. So any rebranding should have started with a brand audit to identify that the MAS crew was in desperate need of training to get them up to speed with dealing with difficult customers.
If the stewardess had been retrained to represent the new brand, she would have had the skill and confidence to take charge of that cabin and seized the opportunity to show to half a dozen leading VIPs, businessmen and me that this was a new era for the brand. That it had a zero tolerance to matters of safety and breaking international law, that the crew is competent, knowledgeable and confident and the safety of the passengers, crew and reputation of the airline is paramount.
Meanwhile on September 3rd 2015, The Malay Mail carried a story about a Malaysia Airlines jet making an unscheduled stop in India because the lavatories on the plane weren’t working. Now I know that this sort of malfunction can happen to any airline anytime but the new national carrier of Malaysia isn’t any airline, not at the moment anyway. These maintenance issues, common and accepted generally will be seen as a reflection of the carriers lack of a maintenance culture and the inevitable question will be, “If they can’t fix the lavatories, what else is broken?”
The Malaysia Airlines Facebook page is bursting with negative comments from frustrated customers made to wait over 2 hours in queues at KLIA, wait days for the return of lost luggage or unprofessional customer service staff. When I checked in recently, I was told by a duty manager that 40% of staff scheduled to be on duty that morning didn’t show up for work.
Even today, four days after the launch of the new firm complaints are coming in about service at the business class lounge at the carriers home airport KLIA.
Has anything been done to improve the Malaysia Airlines experience?
The chances of a company surviving a disaster are small, the chances of surviving two are practically impossible. Little wonder then that Malaysia Airlines passenger numbers are down over a million in the first six months of this year.
The restructuring of the company was a necessity. This rebrand is the last throw of the dice for the national carrier of Malaysia, a country that desperately needs some good news.
As a branding professional and a loyal customer of Malaysia Airlines for over 20 years, my expectations of the rebrand go way beyond the name, the logo, the identity and promises made by the CEO that staff are not trained to deliver on.
I don’t know what has happened to the rebrand but my expectations are an end-to-end rebrand that will see Malaysia’s national carrier back where it belongs, at the top of it’s game. I genuinely hope the people tasked with rebranding the carrier, know what they are doing. Because if they don’t, Malaysia Airlines will fail.
I wrote a blog post recently about print ads and how I was convinced that print advertising was in decline. You can read the post here. I also shared the post on the Advertising Copywriting group on Linkedin and it generated a lot of comment, most of it ridiculing my stand. You can see the thread here.
A lot of people, especially those from the advertising industry were not very happy with what I wrote. And some of them quoted, rather predictably the mighty advertisers Coca Cola and McDonalds. Yet despite spending US$1 billion on advertising in 2014, McDonalds profits were down 15%! And are now lower than they were 5 years ago. Samsung spent US$14 billion on marketing in 2014 and suffered 3 straight quarters of losses for the first time ever.
And I asked how much have Nokia and Blackberry spent on advertising over the last 10 years to get them to the brink of extinction?
Others looked at the quality of ads, with one copywriter stating, “Quite frankly, the quality of most print ads is abominable. They are either badly written or designed, or so “avante garde” that the company’s name and logo are hidden.”
And this is a huge problem in South East Asia where, on the whole what constitutes a good ad – a strong headline or call to action, unique image, and well written copy is often lost in the charge for fast turnaround of materials, low budgets and the habit of marketing professionals not challenging bosses, business owners or even their spouses!
The results can often be catastrophic as immediately forgetable ads that fail to connect with target markets, don’t deliver the right information, are too confusing or worse, look like other ads appear across newspapers and magazines.
The following ads illustrate the approach to advertising in Malaysia over five years of five different companies from telecommunications, hospitality and insurance.
Share or reconnect?
Much of the copy is weak, the messages, if there are any are obscure or try to do too much and the calls to action, if they can be called that, don’t make sense and there are more than one!
But most tragic of all, they have all used the same image to try and connect with their audience.
These ads will accomplish little and are a waste of money. They have very little value for the company and will most likely be ignored by consumers. I suspect they were done in house and no doubt the image is a free download from an image bank.
I cannot imagine any professional marketing director allowing these ads to go out so one can only assume they were approved by bosses who don’t know the importance of a good ad.
Firms wonder why advertising doesn’t work and question why they should have to pay for advertising agencies. Well this sort of advertising is not the solution. Until firms appreciate the importance of a good ad, they would be better off throwing money down a drain.
Memac Ogilvy Dubai and FP7/DXB Dubai, two top tier advertising agencies in the Middle East have come up with a novel idea to sell expensive sugary water.
They’ve taken a group of strangers, sat them around a dinner table in a dark room and got them to describe themselves to each other and then asked them to guess what they look like and the type of character they are.
The video has been viewed more than 8 million times on Youtube and has got over 11,000 Likes in a week.
When the lights come on and the characters are revealed, the results are predictable. And then each participant is invited to reach under the table and take out a box.
As the camera zooms into the box it is opened and we see a (drum roll) box of limited edition Coke cans without the brand name but instead the caption “Labels are for cans, not for people” printed on the can.
Throughout Ramadhan, Coca Cola bottles and cans with this caption and not the brand name will be distributed at events across the Middle East.
It’s neat and is part of Coca Cola’s global ‘Let’s take an extra second’ campaign that encourages people to stop and get to know each other. Coke has seen a rise in sales, certainly in the US but I have a sneaking suspicion that the long term outlook for sugary water isn’t bullish. Nice touch though, what do you think?
The print industry is changing rapidly. Publications are increasingly niche or evolving around new industries such as airbnb. The hospitality company with the largest inventory of beds but doesn’t own a single hotel launched Pineapple last year. It doesn’t aim to market the brand but instead inspire people to travel and of course hopefully use the company.
not selling airbnb but travel
Another new ‘investment and Lifestyle journal’ from Singapore called Cache was created not by a publishing house as a way to generate revenue but by a conglomerate with multiple interests in the luxury and related sectors.
Cache Singapore aims to grow the parent company’s database of contacts.
Although advertising revenue will help to fund the project, the main aim is to generate contacts for much more lucrative deals. These and other new publications have a different take on the publishing industry.
They are not so much worried about readership, rate cards and revenue, but more interested in reinforcing their brand values, enhancing their reputation, generating organic leads, building strategic relationships and adapting the online media platform model of being content sharers not creators.
So when I came across this interesting post called “100 brilliant print adverts” on the influential creativebloq site, I was intrigued because I thought it would be fascinating to see if the ads had a place in the new world order of publishing. Sadly, for me anyway they didn’t. Well certainly not the first 13 or so ads because after the VW ad I got bored.
Sure there was some creative genius in there as well as some comedy gold but there was also a lot of nonsense that just made me think I’d seen it all before. Traditionally, a good print ad must do six things
1) Be memorable and easy to recall
2) Connect with its audience
3) deliver useful information quickly
4) Make absorbtion of information simple
5) Don’t confuse the viewer or force them to have to do any hard work
6) Have an simple call to action
Is this a good ad?
And historically a good print ad should include these elements
1) A strong headline
2) A unique or provocative image
3) No more than 3 paragraphs of well written copy
4) A logo and/or contact information
Is this a brilliant ad?
Advertising companies are ignoring these rules in an attempt to get our attention. But it is very hard to be creative after 150 years of advertising. And even if the creativity, the sexuality, the humour or the horror of an ad gets our attention, it doesn’t mean we’re going to interact with the brand.
Furthermore, consumers don’t engage with new brands the way they used to and besides, we are now carpet bombed by so many messages every minute of every day that most of us simply block out the noise.
Add the proliferation and fragmentation of media, the sheer number of ads, the ridiculous claims made in ads and the changing nature of how we absorb information and news means we don’t really need ads anymore.
Moreover, the concept of the ad that has to be conceptualised, created, approved, produced and distributed means it can take 6 – 12 months before a campaign sees the light of day and in that time, an idea can become obsolete.
However, according to the graph from statista below, worldwide spend on print advertising has dropped from a high in 2000 of US$152.2 billion to US$119.6 billion in 2014. The same report suggests spend on print advertising will grow to US$123 billion in 2016. Admittedly that growth is maginally positive but I can’t help but think that turning up the noise isn’t going to change the fact that we’re not really paying attention to advertising anymore. I can’t help but think that in the new publishing world, we’re not interested in ads, we’re interested in what others like us have to say.
And in this environment, firms would be better off saving the money they spend on advertising and use the money saved to generate content about their business, build relationships with their customers and encourage those customers to share that content. The debate rages about whether print advertising is dying or already dead.
Personally I don’t think it’s dead but it is wounded and unless it reinvents itself, it may soon be irrelevant.
I recently wrote an article on the state of advertising which you can read here. The post went viral and I have been criticised a lot, especially on Linkedin and you can read the comments here.
I still don’t think advertising is effective. Here are 5 more reasons why advertising doesn’t work
1) I’m not looking to replace advertising. Advertising needs to get its s*** together because it is losing credibility. Moreover, much of it is ignored by consumers who spend their lives multi screening and simply tune out when they see ads.
2) Far too many companies advertise for the wrong reasons, often simply because of their ego. They get a kick out of seeing their brand on a billboard or their friends telling them they saw their brand on a billboard.
Or they advertise because everyone else is advertising but for most of them their advertising never makes an impact. I’m not talking about Unilever, Nestle and the other 8 companies that own 80% of the world’s brands because they have the kind of deep pockets most firms can only dream of. I’m talking about the rest of the companies that make up most economies.
3) My personal belief is that because so many advertising campaigns are too short and don’t run for long enough, the vast majority of advertising is a complete waste of money and that money would be better spent on brand building rather than advertising.
4) Technology has changed the way we live our lives yet we’re still doing things (in terms of advertising) the way we always did. Airlines continue to sell themselves with pretty girls and big smiles and white teeth and with a pretty child holding a teddy bear (OK no child with teddy bear in this example but you get the point).
Exotic destinations use white sandy beaches, purple seas and clear blue skies, banks use ridiculously handsome couples and children and cars use all of the above. It’s boring, unbelievable and doesn’t match the experiences of others who have been there.
And we can read about their experiences online or from our friends. And those experiences, not advertising influence our decisions.
5) Firms would be better off focussing on core branding competencies – a) strategic (inspire & aspire) – trust, credibility & communities, leadership & segmentation. b) Communications – building the narrative collaboratively and social engagement through multiple platforms. c) Execution – on brand organisation able to deliver on promises, data collection and use, monitoring &messaging and d) connection, engagement and collaboration with relevant communities and influencers.
How we do that depends on the organisation, the industry, the customers and budgets and other constraints. Advertising is bandied around as a silver bullet. Want to increase awareness? Advertise. Want to change perceptions? Advertise. Want to increase sales? Advertise. Want to increase share of wallet? Advertise. Got a crisis? Advertise. But there is no silver bullet.
Building a brand takes a strategic approach to multiple actions and requires commitment and buyin from everyone. Advertising is a tactic and for most brands – there are some exceptions, such as a new movie launch, or an exhibition or property launch – it simply doesn’t work and money spent on advertising would be better spent on building a brand.
2 days after sending out termination letters to 6,000 staff, MAS is advertising for new staffThere’s a saying in our company that if a client’s employees are happy then that happiness will show in the way those employees interact with prospects and customers, thereby improving their experiences and the reputation of the brand.
When working on an Internal brand audit we’ll take a long hard look at the hiring and firing process and often make small but effective changes to the process. This is particularly so when looking at how firms fire people because unhappy staff often have a grudge to bear when they are let go and in a social media world this can be damaging.
Malaysia Airlines is already a damaged brand which is why it has embarked on a restructuring exercise that includes more than 6,000 job cuts. A lot of effort is being put into helping those staff reintegrate themselves back into the economy but this is not simply about getting them another job.
Keeping all those ex staff after they have left MAS will require very skillful communications and an integrated effort by all departments concerned. The news that 2 days after 6,000 staff were sent their termination letters, the MAS website is still recruiting cabin crew and suggesting there are other vacancies is a huge mistake on the part of those responsible for the brand.
There is no room for error in the restructuring of Malaysia’s finest, most high profile global brand.
Today marks the beginning of a new (and possibly the last) chapter in the life of the national airline of Malaysia. A new CEO Christoph Mueller officially starts work today, 1st May 2015. Many in the aviation business revere Mueller, primarily because he is credited with turning around the Irish carrier Aer Lingus in a stagnant, competitive European market.
MAS is selling it’s A380s & rebranding
But his achievements at Aer Lingus will pale into insignificance when he starts peeling back the complicated cultural corporate layers at Malaysia Airlines (MAS).
What was once one of the most respected, envied and profitable carriers in the world has become a mere shadow of its former self. MAS is under fire from domestic and regional LCCs and if it stops flying to Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris will only be left with a couple of potentially lucrative long haul destinations servicing the kangaroo route from Heathrow to Australia. And these will come under further pressure with the return of British Airways flights to Kuala Lumpur from Heathrow at the end of May 2015.
MAS is hugely inefficient. It’s annual revenue per employee is down to about RM850 compared with RM1,675 at Cathay Pacific and RM2,250 at Singapore Airlines. MAS has 183 employees per aircraft compared with 138 at Singapore Airlines, 125 at Cathay pacific and 31 at Ryanair. Little wonder then that it has racked up debts in the region of US$2 billion since 2010.
Mr Mueller will no doubt focus on improving that revenue per employee and reducing the number of employees per aircraft. At least 6,000 staff are being offered redundancy and the airline has already announced it is selling all 6 of its Airbus A380s and four Boeing 777-200ER super ranger jets. The good news is that he has the support of the government and fuel prices have plummeted but that’s not enough.
He’ll also need to focus on rescuing the MAS brand and its reputation. And that won’t be easy because despite cutting costs and offering attractive incentives to agents in key markets such as Australia, the carrier is struggling to get bums on seats. And after the tragedies of 2014, years of poor management, low staff morale, and little focus on anything other than advertising, the MAS brand is in free fall.
Carpet bombing consumers with weak advertising will not rebrand MAS
Which is why the airline issued a rebranding request for proposals (RFP) a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately the signs aren’t good that the people responsible for the brand understand what constitutes a brand and what is required to rescue the brand and its reputation.
We weren’t invited to submit a bid so I can’t comment on the contents of the RFP but I understand those invited were only given about two weeks to submit a bid as the deadline for submissions is 8th May 2015 with the rebranding supposed to be launched in July 2015.
Those are insane deadlines which is why cynics in the industry are suggesting the advertising agency tasked with carrying out the rebranding has already been chosen but there is no hard data to back up this claim. Rest assured though that the industry is watching developments carefully and if a certain agency gets the bulk of the work, there will be plenty more accusations ‘flying’ around.
Rumours aside, my worry is that those tasked with managing the rebrand will focus on a new name, new livery, new uniforms, new logos, new signboards and mass advertising creative campaigns but place very little attention on the key areas that need to be addressed, such as the ability to deliver economic, experiential and emotional value to all segments, at every touchpoint, at all times and on customer terms.
The first stage in the rebranding of MAS will require a cultural change that may have to come not just from the airline but the country itself. To rescue the brand MAS must move away from a centralized, top heavy organization staffed by employees trained to do as management says and not challenge questionable decisions.
The firm must move away from an ingrained belief that business is a one off transactional, price driven initiative and that every customer is purely a source of money, irrespective of their relationship with the brand, their influence and their loyalty.
In a social media world, where consumers not companies or advertising agencies define brands, changing the name, logo and livery of the airline and announcing the ‘rebrand’ with a global, one size fits all corporate driven communications campaign will actually have a negative impact on the brand and possibly do more damage than the twin tragedies of 2014, the years of mismanagement and the sweetheart supplier deals have done to date.
Instead the first stage of the rebranding must focus on creating a collaborative, personalised, relationship based, retention driven organization that understands customers and their needs.
Failure to focus on the internal branding first and getting it right will make any other investments an expensive exercise in naive futility. Which will see the end, sadly of a once iconic brand.
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