Famous branding mistakes — and what you can learn from them
As a small business, you can’t afford to make big mistakes when it comes to your brand. Fortunately, there are plenty of lessons to learn from corporations with multimillion-dollar marketing allowances. Giants like Coca Cola, Apple and Colgate have proved that despite generous budgets — and the implied savvy that comes with them — nobody’s immune to flops.
Take names, for example. Netflix gets the flag for one of last year’s major marketing blunders. The online-based movie-rental and streaming pioneer decided to split its business into two, separating its streaming service and calling it Qwikster. Never mind the name and all the questions it conjured, or the wisdom of the idea of splitting the brand when fans were already riled over steep price increases. The problem came when Qwikster tried to build its Twitter base — only to find out that the username Qwikster belonged to an average, grammatically challenged guy called Jason Castillo whose avatar was a dope-smoking Elmo and whose tweets revolved around his daily routines.
Needless to say, Castillo realized he had a fresh pot of a six-figure income when Netflix backpedaled to get ownership of the Qwikster Twitter handle. But within a few weeks, Netflix left Qwikster for dead and free to join the ranks of New Coke, Colgate Kitchen Entrees and Bic disposable underwear in the Hall of Fame of Branding Mistakes.
One of the (many) morals of that story: When you’re choosing a business name, in addition to checking for trademarks, domain names etc., make sure you check the user names on social networking sites. And if you’re an existing business that hasn’t fully ventured into the digital ecosphere, claim your usernames and domain names even if you don’t know when you’ll be ready to use them. Then, the Jason Castillos of the world can go on tweeting about their workout and taco-making activities in peace.
Among the changes the Internet has brought is the way consumers think of acronyms. The Tourism Federation of Wisconsin (TFW) learned that the hard way. The 30-year-old lobbying coalition decided to rename itself a couple of years ago. Its previous name, Wisconsin Tourism Federation (WTF), had been giving it too much grief. The name change made international news.
Drake University made an equally smart move when it ditched a recruitment campaign that used “D+” as its slogan. The university realized (a little too late) that when you’re an educational institution, D-plus does not exactly resonate with the image of excellence.
But not all name changes are a good thing. Overstock.com pulled back on the idea of becoming O.com last year after realizing the switch was confusing its customers. SyFy Channel, on the other hand, pressed on. A few years ago, the executives at SciFi decided to throw money into rebranding and their consultants came up with a name that was supposed to attract the younger crowd. The name got their attention, alright: syfy turned out to be a nickname for syphilis. Apparently, that hasn’t deterred the company — the name lives on.
The lesson is, you don’t need to hire an expensive marketing agency to decide whether a name change makes sense or not, or to know that “what’s in a name” is your reputation, so choose it well.
Successful companies understand that to survive and thrive, diversification is key. Normally, expanding the product line makes perfect sense — but consumers don’t always agree. When BENGAY, the maker of pain-relief gel, created an aspirin, people got a headache from the idea of ingesting a pain killer that conjures the image of a messy, smelly goo. Jimmy Dean customers were just as excited to try its chocolate chip pancake sausage on a stick when the sausage maker tried to woo chocolate and sausage lovers with one convenient product. And even the beloved Jell-O brand had its fans seeing green — when it offered up celery- flavored Jell-O.
Not even the iconic Google is immune from these kinds of expensive mistakes. The company tried to capitalize on the streaming market with Google TV software for Sony and Logitech set-top boxes. The software allowed users to search for TV shows on the Web, network TV and cable simultaneously but was finicky, and the networks also blocked it from accessing their websites. Word has it, returns of the Logitech Google TV-equipped boxes have outpaced sales.
A good lesson from those companies’ multimillion-dollar mistakes: Brand extensions should be carefully considered and with a deep understanding of the core brand and its appeal. Fans will not flock to a new product just because they think your brand is the best thing since sliced bread, not to mention one too many disappointments, and they’ll be flocking to a competitor instead.
Part of creating a solid brand is marketing and companies are constantly exploring out-of-the box ideas. Some daring moves have worked well — consider the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile, more than 75 years old, or the recent Old Spice “The Man Your Man Can Smell Like” viral phenomenon.
But Burger King is proof that bold is not always smart. After more than a year of declining sales, the fast food chain declared last summer that the king was dead — its mascot king — that is. The creepy, plastic-mask-wearing king was dethroned and the advertising agency that brought him to life was fired. The timing was interesting: The nix was announced as part of a campaign to switch to a healthier menu. In other words, “The (plastic) king is dead. Long live (Burger) King.”
Timing, in fact, could often make or break an idea. Australia’s Qantas Airways became the poster child of unfortunate timing last year when its Twitter campaign landed in hot water. The airliner asked its followers to tweet about their “dream luxury in-flight experience” in a contest. But the company didn’t consider that being in the middle of strikes that have cancelled many flights was not the best time to engage its customers. The #QantastLuxury response turned into a rant from unhappy customers. The execs simply shrugged their shoulders, saying something to the effect that the number of entries was so overwhelming, it would take years to judge. Acknowledging their mistake was apparently a luxury they couldn’t afford.
PepsiCo. was a lot more responsive to consumers when one of its ideas backfired. The company launched an iPhone app called “Amp up before you score” in 2009 for its AMP energy drink. The app helped men “score” one-night stands with women by breaking them into two dozen categories and supplying pickup lines for best success with each category. PepsiCo, in turn, scored popularity among its male fans, but not so much with countless others, who caused a huge outcry and threatened to boycott. When PepsiCo tweeted about the move to kill the app and explained that the intent was to “show the humorous lengths” men go to pick up women, it included the hashtag #pepsifail that the Twitterverse used to discuss the controversy. Not a bad lesson in humility — acknowledging a flop then moving on.