Being a car enthusiast, I’ve been following the automobile industry bailout proceedings very closely. At the same time, I’ve been thinking about those events, and what led to them in the context of branding.
Here are five branding lessons we can take away from the automobile industry meltdown:
Your brand has to stand for something
What is the difference between a Ford and a Mercury? For the longest time, Mercury vehicles have been Fords with a different badge. In the name of “operational efficiencies” both brands are now almost the same thing.
If you can’t tell what a brand stands for, what makes it different, and what target market it is addressing, that brand probably shouldn’t exist.
Branding signals can change, but not too much
If you put together a 1980’s and a 2008 Mercedes Benz, you could immediately tell that they’re both a Mercedes, because their styling cues have remained consistent over time.
Photo Credits: Dave 7
The Big Three, instead, have tended to change their cars radically, to the point that many of them don’t share the same DNA with their earlier year models. If you put together a 1980 and a 2008 Chevy Malibu you’re going to have a hard time telling that they’re the same brand.
Think about this when you’re about to change anything about your brand (your logo, your colors, your website’s look and feel, etc.). The idea is to refresh the look of your brand without diluting its visual identity.
Beware of “leveraging” your brand where it shouldn’t be leveraged
Sometimes companies squander hard earned brand equity in the name of short term profits. Not so long ago, Jeep placed its legendary badge on the Compass, a car-based impostor that doesn’t share the brand’s core attributes (results so far have been dismal).
Also, a few years ago, GM slapped the beloved Impala moniker to an uninspiring front wheel drive mid-size sedan destined to the car rental lots.
There is a good way and a bad way to leverage a brand. Before attempting to do so, make sure that the new product or service you want to offer shares your core brand attributes.
Your product must match your brand promise
You’ve probably heard this slogan before: Pontiac: We Build Excitement! However, how can you forget that Pontiac is the brand that brought us the heinous and short lived Aztec, probably the least exciting vehicle built in the last 50 years?
If you say one thing and you do another, your customers are going to call you out on it and your brand will lose credibility.
Think about it: if you really wanted excitement, what would you buy: a Pontiac or a BMW?
A strong personal brand requires consistent behavior
CEOs of the Big Three arrived for the first week of hearings in their private luxury jets . After getting rightfully scolded by the media, they changed their tune for the second round of talks. Rick Wagoner, of GM, arrived in a Chevy Volt prototype, carpooling with a couple of senators.
What was he thinking? Not even the average Joe would fall for that kind of obvious pandering…
Never make that mistake with your personal brand. Your credibility and your reputation are your most precious assets. Protect them carefully by being principled and consistent. In this day and age, authenticity is the new professional, and you need more than a nice suit and a carefully orchestrated PR stunt to earn respect.
