Monday, April 7, 2014

Learning from Branding Disasters

I tell all of my clients to learn from the branding mistakes of others. Why? It is less costly. There is always something to be gained from failure, regardless if it is your own or someone else’s. 

Pepsi unveiled the latest company logo redesign, which simply meant rotating the iconic circular logo and adjusting the tilt of the white stripe. The entire rebranding effort cost the company $1.2 billion over three years. Yes, that is over a billion dollars for a tilt and a rotate. Do you think people cared? No. Do you think Pepsi’s investors and stockholders cared? Yep! This wasn’t money well spent and the story on the money spent was a public relations nightmare.  The slight change in brand meant nothing to customers and everything to the media. 

Capital One added a "swoosh" to its logo hoping to capture the attention of people who love Nike. Why? Was there some large number of sneaker wearers seeking to change banks? The cost to add the “swoosh” was millions and customers didn’t care.  Why? The superficial real doesn’t get customer attention – at least not at first. Customers worry about experience, sustainability, price point and then branding. Yes- in this order! 

Learn from the branding mistakes of others. Your image is important. It, however, is not as important as substance. 

Until tomorrow, 

Coco the CEO 

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