Building a brand requires visibility to the right audience and, most importantly, the right message, simply and clearly defined around the desires and motivations of your customers.
In this issue:
- How VW learned what those letters stand for. Hint: It's not about edgy-cool ads for adrenaline junkies — what company was that for?
- BGDi: Brands at Work: Whitewater Group branding and Web site — building a unique position for corporate consulting and training: It's really all about clients.
How VW learned what those letters stand for
Some time after VW embarked on a very edgy new ad campaign (one set of ads featured a dark little speed demon encouraging the young male driver to speed, against his female companion's wishes), they abruptly changed direction, firing the branding exec who instigated the campaign. Poor sales led to this about face. VW found out through focus groups that, although consumers often thought the ads were funny, they could not remember who they were for. VW has now gone back to an updated version of their long term message — drive.
One edict stands true with brands and shows why branding and brand building is critical to the long term success of any company — brand consistency. Customers look for the consistent emotional connections that meet their expectations of the brand. When companies veer from this rule, customers lose faith. Faith that's extremely hard to rebuild. And, once you loose customer loyalty you lose customers — usually for good.
For VW, the brand is not only about 20-something males inspired by insane driving fantasies — it's about people who enjoy life and see themselves as thoughtful and discerning — women, couples and, yes, middle-aged folks who enjoy a fun and responsive driving experience that is also economical and ecological.
The misguided VW campaign committed two crimes of branding. One, it did dropped the long term values for which VW is known, and, two, it ignored sizeable demographic groups who understand and value the VW brand.
Now, VW just needs to back up its brand with cars that provide quality and reliability — perhaps a more difficult task than just realigning their branding.
BGDi: BRANDS AT WORK
The Whitewater Group gets a new identity and a new site
The Whitewater Group, a Los Angeles-area management consulting firm, delivers organizational change through intensive workshops and ongoing trainings. They asked BGDi to create a high level professional look for the company brand and new web site that reflects their value to clients. BGDi worked closely with Whitewater Group president and founder Mike Crosby to develop a new identity system, tagline and web site that played on the whitewater metaphor and communicated their focus on managing people through dynamic change. After a brand audit and interviews with Whitewater clients, the tagline Guiding People. Propelling Business was established. The web site design focuses on three key areas of client needs: leading, selling, and performing. All the content is customer-focused and clearly positions Whitewater Group with target markets.
