American and US Airways are merging to become the world’s largest airline. It would be nice if that was a cause for celebration among travelers, but that isn’t likely.
If you believe their marketing, it is the start of a great new era for the new American Airlines. But real change and real renewal is more than just a new identity graphics and marketing. Neither American nor US Airways rate better than average in any of the airline ratings. That means that the largest airline in the world will be a mediocre colossus. I can’t wait, can you?
The Real Brand Message
Since branding is one part promise and two parts experience, there is little to be excited about. As one Tweet put it, “Why do airlines think a new paint job makes up for crappy service [and] operating model deficiencies?” …Read More
My wife brought home a bag of grapes from the supermarket last week with the Welch’s brand on it. I have seen bananas with a Chiquita sticker on them, pineapples with a Dole hangtag, and such, but that was the first time I have seen branded grapes.
We all grew up knowing Welch’s grape juice, of course, so it is not a stretch to see Welch’s grapes as well. But is it a good idea?
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We have too many choices for our own good today. In almost everything.
In my previous blog entry, I discussed how having a bewildering selection of computers, especially with the all the confusing technical choices we have to make, makes purchasing a PC so difficult.
It is not just the bewildering technology that is the problem, it is the amount of choice itself. Psychologists have found that having too many choices actually diminishes our happiness and satisfaction with the choices we do make. …Read More
What do top brands have in common? Consistency. No matter where you encounter their marketing and advertising, or the company, product or service represented by the brands, you immediately know what brand it is.
Consistency is one of the hallmarks of a successful brand. The marketing message, look, voice and personality of the brand need to be communicated with ruthless consistency across media and over time.
The fact that so few companies are truly consistent in their branding demonstrates how difficult this is. What is required is someone inside the company with the knowledge and the authority to keep the brand on course and make sure that consistency is maintained over time. But this is odds with the fact that the average tenure of senior marketing executives is less than two years!* …Read More
In an interview in the May 21, 2012 issue of Fortune, Fred Smith, founder and CEO of Fedex, talks about “reputational intelligence.” It is a concept they use in running the company because “…at the end of the day, we’re essentially selling trust,” he says. Amen to that!
I found more in an article entitled, “The Reputational Intelligence Reward,” written by William G. Margaritis, senior vice president of global communications and investor relations at FedEx, published April 28, 2010 on chiefexecutive.net. Great stuff, and the quotations below are excerpts from that article.
Brand vs. Reputation
At first, I was somewhat perturbed that they think of their reputation as separate from their brand. But then, Margaritis explained that in the research they had done, they found that people tend to view brand as what a company sells and reputation as what a company stands for. …Read More