Wow Brands Episode III: "Staying Alive"

Until now we scored the date, established a consistent equity which stole the heart enough to maintain the ralationship yet there is another challenge which is to keep yourself fresh against the test of time so that you can end up with true love...Now the final episode: "Staying Alive and Keeping your Brand Relevant"...Let's start with a nostalgic journey in time...

I was almost a teenager in the 80s: that wonderful decade when synthesizers defined musical brilliance, Duran Duran were actually cool, and girls in fluoro socks and oversized white t-shirts made me drool.  It was the era of Margaret Thatcher, Mutually Assured Destruction, Boy George, Michael Jackson, Gordon Gecko, BandAid, LiveAid and Koolaid.  A time when audio cassettes suddenly accounted for more than 50% of music sales and Prince was still called Prince. I love it more now than I did back then.

Looking back, the 80s really were a cultural highpoint.  OK, so that’s going a little far, because lets face it: little about the 80s remains cool except to those of us who grew up in it.  But one thing, or rather someone, emerged out of the 80s who provides incredible inspiration to marketers who want to know how to keep their brand forever relevant.  And that person is Madonna.   When she bopped to the tune of Holiday back in 1983, did any of us really imagine she would be huge nearly 30 years later?

 

Love her or hate her, Madonna is an icon, and she manages herself as a brand brilliantly.  I can think of very few artists who were big back then that can still sell 5 million albums before breakfast.  Cyndi Lauper? Boy George?  Maybe Michael Jackson?  Heaven forbid his own lack of relevance had anything to do with it.   But Madonna is releasing albums, shooting films, starring in West End, making headlines, treated as mass–cool and amassing an absolute fortune.   Still.

As brand builders we often ask ourselves the question:  how do you turn around an “old fashioned” brand image? For instance we do ask this question in Turkey for our once legendary (or what Barney Stinson would call Legen...wait for it ...Dary) but now dying Tekel brands (Local franchise of BAT in Turkey).   That’s what we are going to look at today, but I want to take a “glass half full” approach and ask “How do we keep our brands always contemporary and relevant?”  Afterall, it’s easier to stay contemporary than try to regain it once its lost.  I think it’s where brands like Madonna have done well.

IT’S ALL A QUESTION OF RELEVANCE

It’s a brand’s worst nightmare:  in demand one day, then suddenly seen as past it, old-fashioned, a “brand

my grandpa used”.   The key is to realise that when a brand becomes seen as old-fashioned, its all a question of relevance.  The brand has ceased to be seen as relevant to the target consumer’s life.   

Consumers simply can’t connect with you anymore.  You have lost relevance, and the signs are all too obvious:  declining share, aging user base, declining image ratings, and less than positive comments in your consumer research.   Your brand becomes the one people feel comfortable with, but wouldn’t think of inviting to a party.  Ouch.

To consider relevance, imagine where Madonna could have gone wrong.   This is the Madonna we first saw when she debuted in 1983. 

It was incredibly fresh at the time.  Teenage girls everywhere were wearing lots of bracelets and even the toughest of guys would agree that she was more than a little attractive.   But imagine if this is how she stayed?   How long do you think she would have lasted?  A couple of years? Maybe three?   (Did somebody say Brittany Spears?)    Instead, consider how Madonna has changed to keep relevant...

Madonna is called to be a chameleon, and I think that is a good description.  She changes to stay relevant to the times.  In fact, she always tries to stay just ahead of the times riding a trend just as it appears and then leaving it before it becomes outdated.  As a result, she may not define cool for the leading edge people, but she certainly defines it for the “masses”.  

Many brands have suffered because they failed to stay relevant to their target because they sometimes fail to be chameleons.  Perhaps the most celebrated is Levis.  Levis defined themselves behind the myth of the American mid-20^th century teenager, and for a long time this really was cool.  But as we headed into the 90s, that “myth” was no longer interesting to teens.  It had lost all relevance, and the more Levis stuck to it, the more their business eroded.   Its only since they started to look behind the myth to really understand the essence of the brand – which I could simplistically state as an idea of teenage freedom – and communicated that in a modern way have they started to be successful again.

Which leads us to our next point:  to be successful at this game, you have to keep your brand contemporary in a way that is consistent with your equity.

CONTEMPORISE WITHIN YOUR EQUITY

Staying relevant does not mean you should change your fundamental equity.  Rather, the secret lies in understanding the essence of your brand, and communicating that in a modern, relevant way.   

Lets go back to the Material Girl….  What is the essence of Madonna as she presents herself to us?   I find it hard to capture it in one word but I think she is about independent sexuality and the “good Catholic girl” with a dilemma:  she wants to be bad and make you uncomfortable but wants you to like her.  There is an angst that wears a veneer of “I don’t care”, but really she does.   And here is the key:  she has remained true to this essence throughout every transformation.  

Brands that stay contemporary do what she does:  stay relevant in a way that fits their core equity.  Lets consider Apple computers.  Everyone loves this case.  When Apple first launched in 1984 they did so with a very clear equity:  as the human-friendly alternative to the faceless complexity of the computer industry, with IBM clearly in their sights.  In a world of DOS, complex programming and square grey boxes it was enormously successful.  But into the 90s the brand started to suffer.  Yes it was human-friendly, but it was also not very powerful.  What to do?  Time to think different. (Sorry, I had to use that).   Here is the key:  they didn’t change their equity.   They just thought about how that equity would manifest itself in today’s world, to their target – the creatively minded computer user.  So they came out with the eBook, with its simple one-touch internet access, and their iMac, with its beautiful design, and ease of use but with the power that people wanted, and positioned this as a power to release creativity.  They remained totally true to the essence of the brand – but how that manifested itself to the consumer was new and fresh. Ipod, IPhone and Ipad followed. Ask most people which computer company is going to be bringing the most people-friendly innovations to the industry in the next 50 years, there is a good bet they’d say Apple.   Unless, that is, they stop being relevant again.

So the key is to contemporise in a way that is consistent with your equity.   Too often we think that because our brand is seen as old-fashioned we must radically change our positioning.  But that throws the baby out with the bathwater.   For most brands that were once successful, the key lies not in playing around with the WHAT you stand for, but rather going back and thinking about the HOW:  how can I bring the essence of my brand to life in a more contemporary and relevant way, through product innovation, communication, PR, targeting… whatever.   It’s a pretty good bet that if your brand was once successful, and its not now, that it’s a case that you have a desirable benefit but you are just not positioning it in a way that makes it relevant to today’s consumers.   

BUT WHERE DO YOU START?  

The secret is through discussions that unleash the answer to this question:  what is my brand really all about?  Some tips:  Review your historical advertising reel and executions.   It’s a great way of understanding how your brand has unfolded.   Talk to “brand historians”, people who have worked on the business for a long time, or worked on it when it was successful.   Talk to consumers – they can usually tell you where the brand sits in their mind, and with some expert probing you can understand the nuggets that make you great.   Now, one word of caution here:  go beyond what your brand LOOKED like (eg white coats or happy mothers) to really understand what that MEANT at the time of success.  

THE “HOW” OF BEING RELEVANT

Once you uncover your brand essence, you are ready for the “how” discussion:  how do I take what my brand stands for and make it relevant to today?   That’s where the work and fun really continues.   Product upgrades (like Apple did); new line extensions (like flavor combinations of Starbucks); repositioning your equity to a new unmet need (what about low smoke less smell);update the look and feel of the brand and its communication at every touchpoint are all just a bunch of ideas to contemporarize the brand. Or there can be some cases where your brand may actually benefit from exploiting its age as long as it is actually intrinsic to its equity (Coca Cola heritage packs, Volkswagen Beetles)

PROACTIVELY RECREATE YOURSELF

The mistake we often make as marketers is that we do not think about our brand’s need for relevance until we have lost it.   Ask yourself – have you ever been on a brand where you had a discussion about how you are going to make sure that you are still seen as relevant 5 years from now?  Never!  Nearly all our brand relevance discussions come when our brand is already down the relevance toilet, and its hard thing to climb out the s-bend. But imagine the power of proactively managing your relevance before you start to lose it.  Wouldn’t it be powerful if during equity reviews we asked ourselves the question “What will we do to be sure our equity will still look fresh and relevant next year, and the year beyond that?”   What a great question to ask!

Again, I think Madonna is good at this.  The funny thing about her is that she rarely creates new trends, but she rides new trends early and with real ownership.   Every new transformation of Madonna feels fresh and a little confrontational for its time – both in her image and in her music.    She makes the edge trends relevant for the masses, and most importantly she dictates to us how we should think about her.  And this is turning relevance into an artform – not just being seen as keeping up with the times, but somehow leading it.

Proactively staying relevant requires three things. Firstly, an acute understanding of what your brand is all about.   Secondly, staying tapped into the changing needs, desires and trends of your target consumer.   And finally, having the courage to often lead those desires.   Sony does this.  In one famous quip the founder of Sony asked “Do you think consumers would have told us about the Walkman?”  They know their consumer but they also come to the consumer and tell them what they should expect from new entertainment technology.  Like Madonna, they are thought leaders.  Chameleons.  And they stay relevant because of that.

So there we go – a look at brand equity through the eyes of a pop icon.  The summary?  Remember that becoming old fashioned is not a question of “is my equity dead”, but rather, “how do I keep it relevant?” Remember to reinvent your brand while remaining true to what your brand stands for.  And if you are riding high now, take time to ask how you are going to keep yourself relevant.    At the end of the day, becoming old-fashioned is a choice you make. 

Sinan Seha Türkseven