Real You: The meaning of brand failure; making scary times scarier still

Posted on | September 26, 2008 |

     I was asked recently what, if anything, branding and marketing have to do with the economic meltdown we’re experiencing in the U.S. Being a marketer, I always have an answer to a broad question like that. (Just don’t ask me for solutions to the crisis at hand or when your home value will be back up to its 2005 high.)

From a branding perspective, the fall of major big name firms is adding to our cultural panic. It just is. Whether or not you personally know anyone who worked for Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual or any of the other soon to be gone entities, these brand names are a large part of our culture. The logos are part of our common shared experiences, just as at one time Enron was or Arthur Anderson. That these entities are capable, with just the utter of their name or the mark of their logo, of dredging up emotion in all of us, some more strongly and personally than others. (I was glad to see the acquistion announcements prominently displayed on each of their websites, and JP Morgan had a friendly welcome greeting posted for Washington Mutual customers. But really, I could use a little more reassurance myself and I don’t have my money with WaMu.)

That’s the point of branding afterall. Instilling the intangible emotions onto an entity, a company, and making it bigger and deeper and more significant over time. Making the brand stand for something. Mean something. To employees, customers and society in general. So what happens when a big brand, and these folks are big brands, disappear overnight or get gobbled up?

It’s scary for everybody in our country right now. It’s horrible for those personally losing jobs, savings, confidence. And it’s also sad, and frightening for us marketers. How can we spend our careers, our lives, building meaning into intangible services and inannimate products and then having them evaporate? The answer, for me at least, is this is my passion. With every company failure comes a new company, space for a new idea. That’s the American way. Those new companies need names, and logos, and belief systems and articulated cultures and, well, brands. And let’s face it, financial services firms have never been good at connecting with consumers in a cozy or friendly way, as Kate Kaye pointed out in her Click Z blog Financial Firms Should Get Out and Socialize. But still, it hurts when they disappear. And starting over is scary.

But as marketing professionals our job, at its heart,  is one of storytelling. We can and will learn from today’s cautionary tales of economic distress, and we’ll help build better brands because of it. Consumers will demand it anyway. It’s no longer ok to just be big, and powerful, and historic. In fact, those may be the attributes that make us frightened in the future. Instead, it will be about authenticity, emotion and connection. And we can help the survivor brands, and the new ones that emerge, lead the way.

A great first step will be through the transparency of social media. According to e-Consultancy.com and the 2008 Social Media Sectors Report, only 30 percent of major financial services organizations have a presence on social media, and 80 percent are the subject of unofficial consumer groups. Hmm. May be time to get the conversation started? Nothing eases fear better than engagement and reassurance.

So take a deep breath. Realize marketing’s power and let’s go out there and build some amazing brands.

Kaira Sturdivant Rouda is the author of Real You Incorporated: 8 Essentials for Women Entrepreneurs. With more than 20 years in the marketing industry, she’s a passionate believer in the power of great brands to make a positive difference in uncertain times.

 

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