Every company has a brand – because people have a perception of the company.  -- One of my key takeaways from a great presentation by Kevin Heney at the SDForum Marketing SIG meeting last night (March 8).
 
Kevin is the founder of the Silicon Valley Brand Forum, where participants talk about brands, and he runs Kevin Heney Design, which works with companies to create and maintain unique brands.  As someone who also helps companies create brands, I found the lively discussion very interesting.Although Heney presented a great slide show, it was the audience interaction and ensuing discussions that provided even more value.   Just a few of these discussions were: advice to small companies that need to begin brand discussions; the difference between branding and positioning; a caveat that while the company can (and should) identify a brand they want to own, their actions will create a perception – and the perception is what the brand becomes.  

Don’t ever forget that when a company selects a brand they wish to own – they should be selecting a promise everyone in the company means to keep forever to all audiences.  The audience includes customers; potential customers, non-customers, employees, analysts, anyone else they come in contact with, and anyone their customers come in contact with.  That’s a lot of people! Everyone in the company means management, products, customer service, press releases, and partnerships. If you don’t believe that statement – think about United Airline’s Guitar Playing customer who created a YouTube video.  He had 1M hits in 4 days, after United bungled his lost/damaged luggage situation.  United now has him under contract to provide feedback to them.  Too bad their customer service team forgot they were the “friendly skies” airline. 

Remember the old adage: “You only get one chance to make a first impression.” The opposite can be said for a brand, so if a crisis occurs – address it as quickly as possible.  You depend on your brand to provide enough air cover to weather a storm. The classic case is Johnson and Johnson and its Tylenol scare in the 80’s – they immediately warned the general public, recalled all the products (at a cost of $1M), and pioneered the triple seal tamper proof packaging.    I remember when people joked that Ford stood for Fix Or Repair Daily.  In order to repair the brand, Ford began a campaign to be the “Quality is Number One” company.  Today Ford is considered a high quality car company.  The opposite is happening to Toyota, once considered “the highest quality car with the best resale value” company; their US customers are now filing class action lawsuits for the diminished value of their cars, not to mention lawsuits for actual damages.
 
What is your favorite branding story?