The question came up yesterday in Orange Coat’s virtual salon de the: Can a brand become so strong that it can no longer truly evolve? (That isn’t the way the question was framed, but that is how I understand it.) Here are some examples:
Bob Dylan- folk singer: This clearly hurt him when he tried to transition past the folk audience.
Possible business case example: McDonald’s trying to introduce higher end menu items that are, on their merits, good but don’t fall within the McDonald’s brand.
or
Hunter S. Thompson- professional consumptionist: By the end, Thompson became a caricature of himself spending more time eating, drinking, and drugging than doing good work. By most accounts, he squandered some of his talent at the hands of trying to live the life of the Hunter S. Thompson brand.
If you are looking to give your brain a hernia, you can read my reply here. Or… you can read the abbreviated version right here instead. (Your call. Just don’t call me at 3am looking for a bottle of Tylenol. I won’t answer my phone.)
Note: You DO want to read Bear’s post. Just don’t read my 10,000 word comment at the end of it.
So first of all, let me answer Bear’s excellent question: YES. Absolutely. Brands can and do become as unchangeable as George Washington’s portrait on the One Dollar bill.
BUT that this is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be a very good thing. It is the just reward of all enduring superbrands. The Seventh and final state of brand exaltation, just before ascending to brand Nirvana, in fact. In plain Anglais, this is what happens to really BIG, Iconic brands like, oh… let’s see… McDonald’s, Coca Cola, Nike, Chanel, Starbucks, Porsche, etc. So we aren’t exactly talking about struggling/failing startups here. The lack of rigidity is a result of their immense global success: These brands stand for something so specific, so “core,” so universally understandable that they have in a way become immutably framed as the embodiment of… whatever it is they represent. (Fast food, cola, athletic gear, fragrance, coffee, sportscar.) They don’t need taglines. They don’t need to explain themselves or reinvent themselves. They just are… what they are: McDonald’s. Coke. Nike. etc.
What happens when one of these brands attempts to branch out or make a change? Usually, it fails. Miserably.
I’m sorry McDonald’s, but you can’t really get into the premium sandwich business. Coke, your premium drinks won’t work either. Nike, forget trying to get into the formalwear market and Armani won’t try and shake up the world of athletic apparel. Chanel, if you start selling deodorant, you’re done. Starbucks tried the music kiosks a few years ago, remember? (Fail. Stick to coffee. You aren’t a music store.) Porsche, please don’t try the SUV/crossover thing again. Ever. You might as well start making station wagons and sedans. What are you thinking? Let Jeep take care of the off-road stuff for ya. You belong on the road and the racetrack.
Brand erosion starts with that kind of nonsense: One day, you’re the “it” brand in a specific category, and the next, you’re half-assing in five different categories. It doesn’t work that way… unless either Steve Jobs or Richard Branson happen to be your CEO.
So what’s an iconic rigid-as-a-statue brand to do? Are such superbrands condemned to an existence of repetitive tedium? Are their brand managers condemned to an autopilot existence? The answer is of course no. I, the mighty BrandBuilder, hold in my very pink brain the solution to all of your rigid-as-marble brand conundrums. Have yourselves a little taste of superfly how-to-do-the-thingamajig thingie:
1. Sub-brand Kung Fu: If your brand is inflexible but you want to try something new, create a sub-brand that will carry the new idea for you.
Canon does this with its L-Series lenses, identified by the little red disc around one of the bezels. You can buy regular Canon lenses, or you can buy the L-series lenses. Specialized does the same thing with its bikes, shoes and accessories with a premium sub-brand called “S-Works”. This type of strategy allows rigid brands to branch out without running into brand misalignment or erosion issues.
If Cartier or Chanel wanted to create a mass consumption brand, one designed to help them scale to mass market without hurting the premium cachet of their “real” brand, they could for example create edgier, more affordable Cartier-Street or Chanel-Pink Labels. Give some of the proceeds to charity, tweak the logo, the copy, the image, etc. get all social media happy, and target a younger crowd without having to worry about having sold out. McDonald’s could use this technique to create a line of healthy meals that people would truly embrace as genuinely un-Mcified. They haven’t really done that yet.
To some extent, but in a more subtle way, BMW also does that as well with its various series with their own quality and design features and specific pricepoints. It’s a great way to clearly and safely segment and compartmentalize different quality levels within a brand.
Bonus: If the sub-brand fails, the parent brand can distance itself from it and walk away, unscathed. (“Oh yeah… that Green Label thing last year? Ha. Funny you should mention that. It was just a fun little experimental project. We tried but it didn’t make it. Oh well.”) Same with the second option:
2. Create a whole new microbrand: Some ideas are so unique that they deserve an identity all their own.
When Microsoft decided it was going to get into the game console business, the powers that be smartly went completely off the brand reservation with the non-Microsoft “X-Box” branding. They did the same thing with ZUNE, giving it its own look, feel, identity, presence, etc. These aren’t Microsoft sub-brands. They are unique, stand-alone brands that happen to belong to Microsoft. Very smart.
Another example: Lexus and Toyota.
Sub-Brands, offshoots or independent micro-ventures can help contextually rigid brands branch out into new markets without suffering an identity crisis, brand erosion or loss of relevance. Rigidity isn’t bad… as long as you understand the value of it and know how to work around it when you need to.
Have a great day, everyone! 
image credit: Christopher Wray-McCann
Olivier,
Brand extensions tend to serve the company and not the customer. It’s sad how the pressure from stock markets to always be growing causes good business to over extend and fail. Google, for example, is stretching its limits too hard by moving into the mobile business. The brand is associated with content not stuff. It may be all right in the short term, but it’ll cause brand dillution in the long run…
It takes a lot of time to fix an idea inside the prospects mind. Why should we play with it?
Even if the brand’s tree allows you to extend (Virgin’s case), it doesn’t mean you’ll succeed against first-move competition, economies of scale etc…
How long has Al Ries been alerting the Big 3, for example? One of my fav bands is called Everclear. They have a song that says “… you try to be everything for everyone’. This is really bad. Marketing is a battle in the mind. You fight for a place in the consumers’ mind. As i commented on http://www.jellyflux.com yesterday:
“The importance of a single, simple and differentiated promise is more important than ever as consumers gradually suffer from a timeless society. Focus is still the magic concept because we do business with whom we trust and admire. In this case, trustness means specialization.”
Great brands stand for a word in the mind rather than 4 or 5.
Cheers
Gabriel Rossi- Brazil
Olivier and Gabriel,
Excellent points…
When a brand becomes as strong as Coke for instance, it can afford to screw up and make “New Coke”, just as Pepsi can make “Pepsi Clear”. In fact, I think Pepsi benefited from the “Crystal Gravy” skit on SNL!
However, most businesses have ADD (I think I do to – back on track…). They want to get an idea rolling, then move on to the next idea – many times before perfecting the first. Every business, every person, everything has a purpose. When you stray (as Everclear put it) you confuse your purpose.
Now to add to the conversation a bit…. what if you have a brand where success is ultimately predicated on sub-branding? Two industries come to mind. Real Estate and Financial Planning. The former is pretty easy, as most real estate companies want their name and logo out in the marketplace and marketing rules are relaxed. In the financial planning arena there are very strict rules – ad for good reason. Having been in both industries, I can tell you the “franchise” really has little or no bearing on the successes of the individual Realtor or Planner. But each must create their own sub-brand – showing why they are better than the guy down the street – or in the next office…
A distinct challenge in the F.P. arena…
Wow. Such great comments!
I am going to use “brand tree” in a sentence today. I hadn’t heard that in forever. Great term. Thanks, Gabriel!
Yes, the advantage of having individual brand extensions is that when they fail (or fall a bit short) their parent brand can be insulated from the potential backlash or bad press. The snafu basically turns into a footnote or non-event.
The insurance and financial services brand extension is a whole different animal. In that instance, the expectation of customers/clients is evenly split between the parent brand (State Farm, UBS, etc.) and the local agent/office. That’s a good thing. It may not seem like it upfront, but the opportunity there is much greater than for, say, a typical franchise. That will have to be a topic for another day – waaaay too big for a comment – but yeah, we’ll revisit that one very soon.
I keep saying it but it bears repeating: I have some of the smartest readers in blogsville. You guys really impress me sometimes.
Not digging too deep (cuz that will come later…), but there is very little difference between State Farm and Allstate, or UBS and Morgan Stanley in terms of product set and ability. Perception (or successful branding campaigns) is what skews the public viewpoint one way or the other. Really looking forward solving this particular Rubik’s Cube…
Olivier:
i think marketers sometimes confuse the “brand” with the”organization” and implement brand extensions as an easy way to get into new markets, attract new customers and make more money.
I think you’re on the right track, however, by focusing on different brands…not necessarily brand extensions. Organizations can create new brands that are relevant to new customers and new markets.
For example, instead of moving toward “healthy” – which is NOT part of the Mc Donald’s brand – I believe the McDonald’s organization should create a new brand, using its expertise in supply chain management, consistency, marketing, etc. to support that new brand, but feature healthy products in an environment that makes that plausible.
Yes, it’s more expensive, but it doesn’t risk damaging your existing brands.
-Mark True | Brand Warrior
Exactly! McDonald’s is such a great example, isn’t it?
I don’t care how much money McD’s throws at its “eat/live healthy” themed campaigns, it will never truly get traction until it creates a separate brand for its “healthy” products AND the experience around it (from discovery to transaction to consumption). Nobody goes to McD’s for a healthy meal, and no one every really should – unless the brand decides to completely abandon the model that has made it globally successful for decades – which would be pretty stupid.
It would be like Pepsi launching a new line of 100% organic fresh squeezed orange juice and calling it “Pepsi Orange.” It just doesn’t work that way. Create a new vehicle, a new identity, and a whole new company with its own purpose, its own mission, its own culture, etc.
That way, you don’t dilute the brand, you get to meet a whole different community of customers, perhaps you even get to make people’s lives better while making a healthy profit, and you make the marketplace more interesting and fulfilling for everyone. If done well, that sort of thing can truly create fireworks.
I totally agree with Oliver about McDonald’s and its healthy foods. As I was traveling on the highway, I had to stop for gas and food. The only choice was McDonald’s. I was kind of dreading it, because I didn’t want to eat junk. When, I went in, I saw that they had salads. I got the Southwestern one, which was great. However, at the end, I felt like I should get something bad for me to fit my expectations.
So, despite all their efforts to change how I view their brand, I am left to fight my old impressions both going in and leaving. They should embrace their existing brand like Carl’s Junior.
One of the interesting and less-reported results of the Microsoft/Seinfeld ad campaign is it basically reset brand expectations for what a MS ad campaign looks like. Yes, one could say that the ads werent particularly funny or engaging, but they were pretty remarkable, and I would argue they allowed the brand more freedom to define itself, advertising-wise.