Brands as a Facade

by Pearce Tibbles

Brands are often a symbolic badge and provide confidence for consumers when they make their purchase decision. But sometimes a brand can be a facade; the brand reality of the product is can be very different than what the consumer expects- or is led to believe! The following narrative illustrates this point.

Historically, the aerospace division of Rolls-Royce (which manufactures jet engines) was part of the same company as the auto brand by the same name. These two divisions split up and the car company that spiraled out was purchased by the British conglomerate Vickers. In 1998, Vickers put the Rolls-Royce automotive company up for sale and it attracted a bidding war between two German firms, Volkswagen and BMW, who were trying to expand their brand portfolios into the ultra-luxury market. Although BMW was the likely buyer (it had a longstanding supplier relationship with the company), Volkswagen ended up bidding close to £100 million more and won the auction. With the purchase of Rolls-Royce, Volkswagen received a well-past-its-prime aged factory where most of the assembly was done by hand. Rolls-Royce cars were still using a licensed 1938 Buick engine which was extremely inefficient as the company had not been able to afford an upgrade. After the deal had gone through, BMW came upon an interesting discovery. Rolls-Royce PLC, the aerospace division and an independently listed company, was the owner of the Rolls-Royce brand name and logo. BMW jumped on this opportunity and purchased the naming rights for cars at a bargain price of £40 million (much less than Volkswagen originally paid for the car company). BMW started fresh and built a brand new factory with state-of-the-art equipment, hired a designer to recreate the vintage look of Rolls-Royce cars, and gave the new vehicles an efficient BMW-made engine. BMW is now the sole legal manufacturer of Rolls-Royce cars and Volkswagen is stuck with an old factory capable of producing old, "unbranded" cars.

What this story highlights is the fact that from a consumer’s vantage point it is not always easy to see what stands behind a brand name. Most consumers likely have associations to Rolls-Royce that include legacy, timelessness, and elegance. Many may be startled and even upset to learn that Rolls-Royce, by most measures, is a new car company created by BMW. The only thing linking the Rolls-Royce cars of today and those of the early 20^th Century is a trademark to the naming rights. With this example in mind, it is perhaps necessary for consumers to view brands in a different, albeit more jaded, light. Although brands can be useful as a symbol of brand values and legacy, they can also act as a facade intentionally set up by a parent company in order to exploit and leverage brand equity.

The war of names within war

Here’s an addendum to yesterday’s post on names.

Next time you watch the news, check out the branding (and naming) of military ideas and terms. The examples below are overly simplified- but they are there to make a branding point.

Throughout the 1980s, the Americans were supporting the Afghan “freedom fighters” in their fight against the Soviets. A space shuttle launch, which was super cool back then, was even dedicated to the “freedom fighters”. For the last 8 years, this same “freedom fighter resistance” has been renamed the “Taliban” and “Al Qaeda”. I support the “freedom fighters” but let's kick some “Taliban” butt.


In Libya, the American led military coalition is supporting the “rebels”. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the troops are fighting the “insurgents”.

It seems not a lot of people support “torture” but “enhanced interrogation techniques” can gain quite a bit of support.

We went from the hard line “war on terror” (Bush) to the milder “overseas contingency operations”(Obama 1) although it appears not a lot has changed in actual military ops.

Let’s not forget the Patriot Act (which is an acronym for Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act). Which American wouldn’t want to be a patriot immediately after 9-11? It is unlikely such an intrusive and sweeping act would have passed (or mostly renewed by Obama) under a more “neutral” brand name.

Words mean things- especially brand names. In the military and politics, the name alone can rally support around an idea or group- even though sometimes, not much has really changed.

What makes a great brand element?

The beauty(and problem) with a branding/business/marketing blog like this is that there are so many things to write about. Canada's got an election coming up and there is so much to say about political party branding and positioning. There are geopolitical developments around the world that are shaping the future of the business climate. Furthermore, I still have to present #3, #2, and #1 of the most difficult branding decisions. Add on to all of that- several guests have agreed to provide their perspectives on marketing topics in the upcoming months. Indeed there are so many topics- and so little time. Tonight everything gets bumped because a good friend asked me a question related to brand names. Instead of cranking out a long email to him, I'm blogging on it for his benefit - and for others who are making naming decisions.

My friend is senior exec of a major corporation who is heading up a chunk of his organization's new branding. The company is most likely coming up with a new brand name, logo,
slogan, and color scheme. These aspects of the brand (name, logo, slogan, colors, characters, jingles, scent) are what academics call brand elements (or brand identities). Keller (1993, 2008) defines brand elements as trademarkable devices that are used to identify the brand. And my friend's question, "What makes a great brand name?", is one that I've been asked by a leader of a political party, brand managers, a managing director of a non-profit organization, a supermodel (hi Miranda), 2 Canadian pop stars (no not Beiber), a philanthropist who donated millions to a university, entrepreneurs, and presidents of companies. "Brand elements" is one of the sexiest marketing topics out there and is also one my favorite topics. SK, this one is for you dude!

I've looked at a lot of frameworks to evaluate a great brand element. The best framework that I have come across so far is what I call the Montreal Map (MTL MAP) framework. (It is largely based on Keller's 2008 Strategic Brand Management work)

A great brand element should be: Meaningful, Transferable, Likable, Memorable, Adaptable, and Protectable. Take the first letters of each word and you get MTL MAP. (I owe this insight to a former student of mine.)

Meaningful: If I say "Speedy Muffler" what do you know about the service just from the name? It's fast muffler repair. If I had a company that competed against Speedy in fast muffler repair services and called it "Bob's Muffler", I would have to spend lots of money advertising linking "Bob's Muffler" to "fast service" (see Seth Godin's Guerrilla Marketing for more extensive discussion on this). Speedy Muffler doesn't have to spend that money because the brand's value proposition (fast muffler service) already embedded in the name. But, a name doesn't have to be as descriptive as Speedy Muffler (We will see below that it shouldn't be actually). In North America, Haagen Dasz sounds exotic, European and imported - so it conveys an upper-end brand with out being too descriptive of the product offering. "Ok", you might say, "we think that only because we know Haagen Dasz." I disagree. Let's go to another example. As far as I know there is no brand out there called "Finnissio". Give the name some cursive writing and I'll bet you anything that it will conjure up refined, European, feminine imagery for most North Americans. That's what I mean by having a name that is meaningful to the brand.

Transferable: Why can Nike cross over into so many categories and countries? Nike, as many of us know through the company's promotion, is the Greek God of Victory. But when it comes to the name, "Nike" can be spoken/written reasonably well in many different languages. The name is also flexible enough to extend from running shoes to yoga pants and hockey skates. If writing the name Nike runs into problems in some other language's script (say Chinese), for example, Nike can just use its logo. The swoosh is extremely transferable logo across categories and geographies. Generally speaking, logos are more transferable than names. That being said, the overall idea here is to make sure that the brand element is not going to be incongruent with new categories or have a bad interpretation in other geographies/languages/cultures.

"Ahhhha," you say. "Speedy Muffler fails here". You're right. Names that are too descriptive run into trouble if the brand expands to other product categories. For example Speedy Muffler does not work as a great brand name if it provides transmission overhauls or brake pad servicing. To get around that Speedy could become Speedy Auto Care") So think about the categories your business is going to be in- and the geographies that it will be operating. A little extra prep time here can save all sorts of headaches down the line.

Likable. This is the most subjective part of the criteria. A great brand element should just "feel" right. Call this the emotional side of selecting an element. I ask my class: how many of you like the London 2012 logo below? About 2/50 usually give it a thumbs up. About 48/50 say "it sucks really bad". Even after explaining the descriptive nature (look closely and you will see "2010" written in the shape of the city of London) one student asked me if the logo was a joke. The real joke is that the London Olympic committee spent about 400,000 British pounds on just the design of the logo. Jokes and expenses aside, selecting brand elements gets people within the organization passionate. I've seen this time and time again. Quite frankly, there are a lot of bad brand elements out there that not only do not help the brand- but hurt it - precisely because some folks get emotional on the selection.

Memorable. A brand element ought to be easily recalled and recognized. The aim of the brand element is to have the identity of the brand stick in the customer's brain. My professional recommendation (generally) is that the logo ought to be distinctive for recognition purposes- and the name/slogan should tend to use familiar words so they are easier to retrieve when the customer is given a cue. This combination can be tricky, but understanding the nuances between "recognition" and "recall" is very important.

Adaptable. Times change. Customer views change. Company brand values evolve. The elements need to evolve over time to stay relevant. Unless you were going for the retro-feel, would the original Tony the Tiger work today? The original Tony was such a wimp.

Protectable. Remember the Keller definition of the element? Trademarkable devices used to identify the brand. Organizations need to have trademark searches in the regions where they plan to trade the brand - and legal protections filed for the brand. This part of the job is getting tougher and tougher to do as more and more brands have international trade territories. Of course, protectability goes far beyond the trademark. Consideration has to be given to protecting the elements online. I learned this one from personal experience. One of my company's brands: Peachtree had full trademark protection in Canada for the space it operated in. But when it came time to reserve domain names, someone had beaten us to the Peachtree.com punch. The online aspect includes consideration for commonly mis-spelled url entries - and even being proactive to block hater web sites. For example, why wouldn't Wal Mart want to take ownership of WalMartsucks.com (and derivatives) to prevent haters from developing nasty sites? That's part of brand element protection.

Best of luck with Brand Elements!