3 Examples Of Poor Brand Consistency’s Destruction
What is the importance of brand consistency? And why is it crucial for the future growth of your business?
When you put all of its individual elements together — logos, web design, tone of communications, social media — the practice of branding comes down to giving your consumers a specific, consistent, and easily recognizable set of identifiers to remember your company by.
(Tell me how successful or poorly your company pulls this off, and I’ll know how much your business is growing.)
There are many ways to make those identifiers work for you. And depending on your audience and your goals, what it means to be a “successful” brand can vary wildly. But almost without fail, no matter the size of your business or industry you’re in, being inconsistent in your brand efforts can confuse, irritate, and alienate consumers fast.
It doesn’t matter what stage of growth your business is at. Any company of any size can find themselves communicating in a way that’s inconsistent and betrays the trust of their consumers.
That’s why we’ve compiled three examples of incredibly successful multinational firms who found themselves in PR crises because of inconsistent branding.
By taking a close look at what these companies did wrong, we’ll identify some key elements of brand strategy that can help your company avoid similar branding mistakes.
Examples Of Poor Brand Consistency
1. Pepsi, Coke, and New Coke
This is perhaps the perennial cautionary branding tale, but for very good reason. Coca-Cola is perhaps the most instantly iconic and recognizable brand in the world (if not, then it’s certainly in the top 3). So any branding lessons we can learn from their past successes and fumbles is sure to be instructive.
You probably already know the gist of this one. But in case you need a refresher, I’ll summarize.
Coke’s leading competitor, Pepsi, started gaining traction through a highly publicized ad campaign that directly pitted the tastes of Coke and Pepsi head-to-head in a blind taste test.
Pepsi’s slightly sweeter taste profile made it a consistent winner over Coke. So the leaders at the Coca-Cola company decided to devise a response.
Essentially, they made adjustments to the Coke formula, which they branded to the public as “New Coke”. Coke drinkers everywhere were livid.
The consistency mishap here is clear. By adjusting the flavor of their flagship beverage, they unintentionally attacked their own value proposition. Shortly after this mistake, Coke’s original formula returned to the market under the label “Coca-Cola Classic”.
This was a great solution to this problem.
Because if you’re going to make dramatic adjustments to the thing your brand is known for, ensure you have a path for your current customers to continue to enjoy what they already like.
2. JCPenney’s Radical Rebrand
In late 2011, a then-struggling JCPenney brought in a new CEO to attempt to breathe fresh life into the company.
The leader they brought in, Ron Johnson, had what many would call an ideal resume. He revolutionized retail experiences at Target and Apple, and brought big plans to reinvent how people shopped at JCPenney.
The result, as you might remember, was widely regarded as a total failure. So what happened?
This unfortunate failure wasn’t necessarily because Ron’s radical new ideas weren’t good ones, at least theoretically. To some consumers, his proposals, which included eliminating endless sales and coupons in favor of everyday low prices and encouraging JCPenney stores as good places to relax with friends as well as shop, might have gone over very well.
The problem was that these ideals didn’t resonate with JCPenney’s core audience, who actually enjoyed coupon-hunting for the best deals and had little interest in sipping a coffee while doing so.
Where JCPenney went wrong is they assumed what customers would want instead of truly understanding them. They could have listened and made minor adjustments.
Instead, JCPenney’s diverted from their core brand ideals and alienated a lot of their consumers in the process.
3. BP’s Ill-Fated Redesign
In 2000, BP made significant adjustments to their brand, moving their business logo from an admittedly dated shield design to a green-and-yellow sun. This move was meant to make their company seem more friendly, and pivotally, more environmentally-conscious.
Then, around ten years later, they made a pretty big mistake. In fact, as far as oil spills go, it was the largest “mistake” in US history.
The backlash was immediate, and spawned dozens and dozens of creative remixes of BP’s new brand identity critiquing them for the oil spill.
Obviously, the Deepwater Horizon spill was a major error on BP’s part. But they also shouldn’t have centered a brand identity around their environmental consciousness. Without making serious, organization-changing commitments to clean energy as well, they were always in danger of a public embarrassment.
For BP, consistency became impossible because their brand and business weren’t aligned. The brand they wanted people to know them as and the business they operated were often contradictory.
There’s a valuable lesson here. If your brand identity isn’t build on a foundation of honesty and transparency, you won’t be able to fake it forever. This is extra important in the cell phone age when anyone can bash your brand at any inconvenience.
Brand Consistency Conclusions
Ultimately, across all of these high-profile branding gaffes from major multinational brands, we can uncover a few branding lessons which are valuable no matter what size your company is at.
The first one is to know yourself, and maintain honesty. If you don’t understand your brand and the role you play in the world, communicating authentically will be a struggle.
The second is to know your consumers, and why they do business with you.
After all, your brand is really about communicating with them. Plus, improving that relationship means understanding what they want and how you can help them.
Finally, when you achieve something that works, tread carefully. And make sure that any changes you make reflect the relationship between your consumers and your brand.
If you don’t, they’ll start to wonder who you are and if you can be trusted.
Ready to improve your brand’s image and consistency? Become a client of Robben Media.
