http://www.youthedesigner.com/2012/02/08/the-rise-and-fall-of-famous-brands-why-do-they-fail/
We are living in a world where water is sold with a name, clothes are being marketed with signature signs and food items are being promoted with trademarks. The concept of branding has completely shaped the way people consume commodities. Customers in this day and age prefer status symbols over necessity. This shows the importance of branding and its influence on businesses.
It takes years to erect a successful brand identity, but only an instant to destroy it. All the famous brands and corporations have risen to their current status after a lot of painstaking effort. Failure is common for small businesses and start-ups, but have we ever wondered how famous brands falter? Today, I seek to uncover some of the most common reasons why renowned brands fall by illustrating the cases of some famous brands.
1. Confusing Brand with Product:
One of the most common reasons why some brands fail is that they confuse a brand with product. However, the reality is otherwise. Both the terms “brand” and “product” are dissimilar and each must exist separately in front of the consumers. For instance, Nike may not be able to send as many products and merchandise without its renowned swoosh and trademark. For Nike, the product is the merchandise they offer, but their brand constitutes the quality and reliability they guarantee.
2. Short-Term Approach:
For a successful brand, the short-term approach is always hazardous as it restricts the domain and vision of the company. While it is an inherent truth that all companies are there in the market to make money, one cannot keep such a short-term and narrow-minded mindset if it wants to win customers for a longer period of time. A recent case in point was British Petroleum that didn’t accurately forecast the repercussions of its business on the environment and ended up becoming the bad company in the eyes of the general public.
3. Fall Short of Customer Expectations:
For a brand identity system, brand promise is critical to gain customer loyalty. When people start believing in a particular brand, they have certain expectations and satisfaction levels attached to it as well. If the brand fails to meet these intrinsic expectations and fall short of what the customers believe of them, they are bound to fail. Coca Cola met a similar fate when they introduced “New Coke” that failed to live up to their customers’ expectations.
4. Too Slow to Change:
In this day and age, companies cannot afford to lag behind in technology and advancement. Those who were too slow to adapt to the changing environment lost the race in the long run. I remember a 64-Bit Commodore system lying in my attic that was once used by our grandparents for computing and entertainment purposes. The company was too slow to update their systems and lost the race to giants like IBM, Compaq and Apple.
5. Going Against The Image:
Honda, Toyota, Ford and Ferrari – all of these brands have built an image of being reputable car manufacturers. This brand image is attached to the company and affects their future operations as well. If one of these car manufacturers decide to enter a totally diverse field, let’s say, perfumes, would it be appropriate? Most certainly not! A similar case happened in 1999, when the famous women’s magazine, Cosmopolitan, introduced its own line of low-fat yogurt. The brand failed badly since the customers were reluctant to accept a yogurt linked to a female magazine.
To wrap up, brands must not be treated as mere products or items of physical value. They have an intrinsic value that completes the whole brand personality. Companies must align their branding efforts according to the expectations of their customers.
About the Author
Nora Reed runs Logoblog.org, where she writes about logo design trends, tips for logo designers, famous logos and inspiring logo design collections.
by Natalie Wolchover, Life’s Little Mysteries Staff Writer
Try to imagine reddish green — not the dull brown you get when you mix the two pigments together, but rather a color that is somewhat like red and somewhat like green. Or, instead, try to picture yellowish blue — not green, but a hue similar to both yellow and blue.
Is your mind drawing a blank? That’s because, even though those colors exist, you’ve probably never seen them. Red-green and yellow-blue are the so-called “forbidden colors.” Composed of pairs of hues whose light frequencies automatically cancel each other out in the human eye, they’re supposed to be impossible to see simultaneously.
The limitation results from the way we perceive color in the first place. Cells in the retina called “opponent neurons” fire when stimulated by incoming red light, and this flurry of activity tells the brain we’re looking at something red. Those same opponent neurons are inhibited by green light, and the absence of activity tells the brain we’re seeing green. Similarly, yellow light excites another set of opponent neurons, but blue light damps them. While most colors induce a mixture of effects in both sets of neurons, which our brains can decode to identify the component parts, red light exactly cancels the effect of green light (and yellow exactly cancels blue), so we can never perceive those colors coming from the same place.
Almost never, that is. Scientists are finding out that these colors can be seen — you just need to know how to look for them.
Colors without a name
The color revolution started in 1983, when a startling paper by Hewitt Crane, a leading visual scientist, and his colleague Thomas Piantanida appeared in the journal Science. Titled “On Seeing Reddish Green and Yellowish Blue,” it argued that forbidden colors can be perceived. The researchers had created images in which red and green stripes (and, in separate images, blue and yellow stripes) ran adjacent to each other. They showed the images to dozens of volunteers, using an eye tracker to hold the images fixed relative to the viewers’ eyes. This ensured that light from each color stripe always entered the same retinal cells; for example, some cells always received yellow light, while other cells simultaneously received only blue light.
CREDIT: Life’s Little Mysteries
The observers of this unusual visual stimulus reported seeing the borders between the stripes gradually disappear, and the colors seem to flood into each other. Amazingly, the image seemed to override their eyes’ opponency mechanism, and they said they perceived colors they’d never seen before.[The Most Amazing Optical Illusions (and How They Work)]
Wherever in the image of red and green stripes the observers looked, the color they saw was “simultaneously red and green,” Crane and Piantanida wrote in their paper. Furthermore, “some observers indicated that although they were aware that what they were viewing was a color (that is, the field was not achromatic), they were unable to name or describe the color. One of these observers was an artist with a large color vocabulary.”
Similarly, when the experiment was repeated with the image of blue and yellow stripes, “observers reported seeing the field as simultaneously blue and yellow, regardless of where in the field they turned their attention.”
It seemed that forbidden colors were realizable — and glorious to behold!
Its name is mud
Crane’s and Piantanida’s paper raised eyebrows in the visual science world, but few people addressed its findings. “It was treated like the crazy old aunt in the attic of vision, the one no one talks about,” said Vince Billock, a vision scientist. Gradually though, variations of the experiment conducted by Billock and others confirmed the initial findings, suggesting that, if you look for them in just the right way, forbidden colors can be seen.
Then, in 2006, Po-Jang Hsieh, then at Dartmouth College, and his colleagues conducted a variation of the 1983 experiment. This time, though, they provided study participants with a color map on a computer screen, and told them to use it to find a match for the color they saw when shown the image of alternating stripes — the color that, in Crane’s and Piantanida’s study, was indescribable.
“Instead of asking participants to report verbally (and hence subjectively), we asked our participants to report their percepts in a more objective way by adjusting the color of a patch to match their perceived color during color mixing. In this way, we discovered that the perceived color during color mixing (e.g., red versus green) is actually a mixture of the two colors, but not a forbidden color,” Hsieh told Life’s Little Mysteries.
When shown the alternating stripes of red and green, the border between the stripes faded and the colors flowed into each other — an as-yet-unexplained visual process known as “perceptual filling in,” or “image fading.” But when asked to pick out the filled-in color on a color map, study participants had no trouble zeroing in on muddy brown. “The results show that their perceived color during color mixing is just an intermediate color,” Hsieh wrote in an email.
So if the color’s name is mud, why couldn’t viewers describe it back in 1983? “There are infinite intermediate colors … It is therefore not surprising that we do not have enough color vocabulary to describe [them all],” he wrote. “However, just because a color cannot be named, doesn’t mean it is a forbidden color that’s not in the color space.” [Fun Video: Pink Light Doesn't Exist]
Color fixation
Fortunately for all those rooting for forbidden colors, these scientists’ careers didn’t end in 2006. Billock, now a National Research Council senior associate at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, has led several experiments over the past decade that he and his colleagues believe prove the existence of forbidden colors. Billock argues that Hsieh’s study failed to generate the colors because it left out a key component of the setup: eye trackers. Hsieh merely had volunteers fix their gaze on striped images; he didn’t use retinal stabilization.
“I don’t think that Hsieh’s colors are the same ones we saw. I’ve tried image fading under steady fixation … and I don’t see the same colors that I saw using artificial retinal stabilization,” Billock said. In general, he explained, steady eye fixation never gives as powerful an effect as retinal stabilization, failing to generate other visual effects that have been observed when images are stabilized. “Hseih et al.’s experiment is valid for their stimuli, but says nothing about colors achieved via more powerful methods.”
Recent research by Billock and others has continued to confirm the existence of forbidden colors in situations where striped images are retinally stabilized, and when the stripes of opponent colors are equally bright. When one is brighter than the other, Billock said, “we got pattern formation and other effects, including muddy and olive-like mixture colors that are probably closer to what Hseih saw.”
When the experiment is done correctly, he said, the perceived color was not muddy at all, but surprisingly vivid: “It was like seeing purple for the first time and calling it bluish red.”
The scientists are still trying to identify the exact mechanism that allows people to perceive forbidden colors, but Billock thinks the basic idea is that the colors’ canceling effect is being overriden.
When an image of red and green (or blue and yellow) stripes is stabilized relative to the retina, each opponent neuron only receives one color of light. Imagine two such neurons: one flooded with blue light and another, yellow. “I think what stabilization does (and what [equal brightness] enhances) is to abolish the competitive interaction between the two neurons so that both are free to respond at the same time and the result would be experienced as bluish yellow,” he said.
You may never experience such a color in nature, or on the color wheel — a schematic diagram designed to accomodate the colors we normally perceive — but perhaps, someday, someone will invent a handheld forbidden color viewer with a built-in eye tracker. And when you peek in, it will be like seeing purple for the first time.
They reckon they’ve gone back to their roots with a more traditional design that better utilises the brand equity.
I think using the huntsman icon jars with the contemporary feel of the rest of the can. The range extension doesn’t work for me either. A more consistent use of the lower part of the can would have been better.
It seems to have swapped the sporty direction it had for a more timid, middle of the road approach.
http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2011/12/12/before-after-tetleys.html
The team at TAG decided to share a bit of banter about our weekends. What did we get up to? With whom?
Then we typed our answers into a Wordle which we present below for your viewing pleasure.
Does it mean anything?
No.
ENJOY!
What we got up to this weekend!
Understanding Branding - by TAG
Bored with Branding?
Every day, the human brain is bombarded with as many as 3,000 different sales messages. Radio, television, internet, advertising, packaging, clothing, even the tiny name printed on the face of your watch is fighting for your attention – making promises about the brand.
We use the word brand all the time now – but it’s actually quite a new phenomenon. Until fairly recently a brand was a mark, usually burned onto the outside of livestock; quite literally a pain in the backside! It served two purposes – firstly to clearly show ownership of the animal and secondly to imply the repute and quality of the owning farm or ranch. And it is this second usage which has given rise to the term now synonymous with marketing.
What isn’t a brand?
Well it might surprise you to learn that a brand is not a logo. There is no doubt that a good logo is incredibly important. Just think about a golden ‘M’ and your brain automatically conjures up a Big Mac and Fries. But there’s far more to a brand than just that.
A brand is not a strapline. Did you know that “Vorsprung Durch Technik” was originally scrawled on the wall in the staff canteen at the Audi factory in Germany, long before it was adopted by an advertising agency to epitomise the values of the company. Straplines can help to underscore what a company does, but it isn’t a brand.
A brand is not a colour. Research shows that we do indeed associate colours with products. Purple suggests Cadbury’s chocolate, blue suggests Walkers Cheese & Onion crisps and red suggests Coca-Cola. Colour can enrich and support the marketing mix, but it’s not a brand.
A brand is not a company mission statement or vision. There’s nothing wrong with having business objectives and setting out a route map for achieving your goals. For example, consider this vision statement from decades ago, “Man is the creator of change in this world. As such he should be above systems and structures and not subordinate to them.” Recognise it? It’s Apple. It’s important – but it’s not their brand.
A brand is not a company’s core values or philosophy. These too are important and should be clearly communicated to consumers. Think about Innocent Smoothies and you will likely envisage a friendly, healthy team of fun-loving people with a sense of humour and a care for the environment. Significant investment has been made in portraying their philosophy. But this alone is not their brand.
So what is a brand?
It’s simple. It’s everything.
All of the front-facing strategic marketing gobbledegook above is part of a brand, yes. But so is the office receptionist who was out on the tiles last night and greets your visitors with an abrupt grunt.
That gorgeous photograph of your new product on the side of the bus is part of a brand. So is the customer service assistant who answers the phone after a rough journey into work and who can’t really be bothered to help.
The lovely graphics you had fitted to your fleet of vehicles is part of your brand. So is the delivery driver who throws the customer’s parcel over their fence and breaks everything inside.
The investment in product development to meet all the latest EU safety regulations is part of your brand. So is the assembly line widget fixer on minimum wage who really couldn’t care less if he screws the widget in correctly or not.
The high-impact training course you sent your sales team to in Las Vegas is part of your brand. So is the salesman who is more interested in the next Tottenham game than attending to the patiently waiting customer in the showroom.
The hours of scrutinising tenders to ensure you get best value from your suppliers is part of your brand. So too are the people in your organisation who deal with those suppliers on a daily basis. Often thought of internally as second-class citizens, it’s easy to forget that they too are human and have friends! If you treat your suppliers like cattle, they won’t hesitate to drag your reputation through the mud. How you handle your suppliers should be at least as important as how you handle your customers.
These are ALL part of your brand. They ultimately affect how the consumer experiences your company. And the rather sobering thought is that all of the marketing budget in the world won’t fix your miserable receptionist.
It’s everything.
A brand is the ENTIRE experience a person has with your company from start to finish.
Notice I said ‘person’ and not customer or client. I may never purchase a can of Dr. Pepper in my life, but I have still experienced the ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ advertising message. I’ve drawn a conclusion about that product and the company that makes it – even though I have never been a client or a customer.
Note too that I said from start to finish. This means from the very first exposure to your company – whether this is an advert on the radio, a newspaper review, a visit to your website, or a comment made by someone else. I’ve never owned a Toyota, but two of my friends do and what they’ve told me about the recent recall means I probably never will.
And it doesn’t end when I have made my decision to buy. My experience of your company will continue beyond the delivery process, well into the future – maybe many years after my investment in your product. I recently signed up for a ‘Graze’ box to be sent to my office. I enjoyed the whole experience so much that I recommend it to my friends, even though I only tried it for a few weeks!
Like it or not, branding is here to stay. So the next time you buy a Big Mac, smile at the person serving you and see if they smile back
The team took a well-earned break last night and headed into Cambridge for a spot of Far Eastern cuisine (or the Japanese equivalent of a Big Mac) in the form of Yo! Sushi!
Much fun was had by all as we tried frantically to chase our required dishes around the conveyor belt. The Miso Soup was delicious, but what’s with the little cubes of condensed snot?
The team at TAG enjoying a night out at Yo! Sushi in Cambridge
