Chevy's Folly
Still foggy-headed after their near-death experience last year American car makers are fiddling while Rome burns.
I'm sure there's innovation aplenty going on deep in the bowels of each organization. I just don't have any idea where it is. While there was early excitement around the Chevy Volt in the months after the bailout, the company's brand managers yesterday demonstrated that they'd totally lost the plot. Rather than keeping the conversation tightly focused on the products--the things they want us to love--and the experiences, they're letting the conversation drift to brand messaging. And not just any brand messaging, mind you: this is as stupid, vapid and juvenile as it gets.
Yesterday's New York Times reported on a memo sent to Detroit Chevrolet employees cautioning them against the use of the term "Chevy." The memo, authored by Chevy VPs Alan Batey and Jim Campbell, enjoined employees that "whether you're talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends or family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward." Never mind, for a minute, that the top result in a Google search for "Volt" turns up a paid ad for "Chevy" Volt as the top result--or that the current website features "Experience Chevy" among the main navigation choices.
Those are just dumb mistakes. What makes this a particularly, stupidly noteworthy blunder is Chevy's rationale--and what the company's misunderstanding about the rationale says about the brand. In the sentence that follows, the authors explain, "when you look at the most recognized brand in the world, such as Coke or Apple...they focus on the consistency of their branding...The more consistent a brand becomes, the more prominent and recognizable it is with the consumer." No argument with the headline. Consistency is important.
But Coke? Really? Is that the smartest example you can think of? Honestly, folks, as the Times article points out, the brand's name is Coca-Cola.
Coke, the world's most valuable brand gets something that's eluded the branding geniuses at Chevy: the consumers own the brand. If people want to call it "Coke," once they've decided you have only two choices: Follow, or fail. That's why Apple Computer (their other bad example) became simply Apple. That's why Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC. It's why Federal Express became FedEx. Why International Business Machines became IBM. And so on. None of these companies walked away from their names because they were bored. They did it reluctantly, but they did it.
Chevrolet, by contrast, is too smart by half.
Instead of focusing on understanding why it's Chevy, not Chevrolet, the (obviously isolated) brand leadership at General Motors (not GM?) have decided they own the brand. It's a bad call and a troubling omen. It suggests that the parent company still has really, really big lessons to learn. Starting with learning to listen. That's the problem with dying brands. They go from being iconic and standing for something larger than themselves to icons that stand for nothing but themselves.
Posted on 10 June 2010 by David Kippen
There are 0 comments relating to this blog post.
Make a comment about this blog post:
Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory.
