What can the Scots teach us about branding ?

This week, BlackLab is going to tentatively dip its toes into the murky waters of constitutional politics, namely the imminent Scottish independence referendum, which I’ve watched with interest from overseas.

The issue of Scottish independence from the United Kingdom is a fascinating and multi-layered debate. Now I’m not sufficiently au fait with the socio-economic or political intricacies of the debate to get involved in a treatise about them, but from a branding perspective, I think it’s worthy of devoting some thoughts to the issue. Importantly, I want this to remain a blog that can interest those who are not close to the Scottish debate.

 Plus, having looked at numerous industries and the not-for -profit sector, it seems only fair at this juncture to turn attention to political PR and cultural branding. It will be a superficial overview, because I’m in the process of moving house and arranging a wedding, so as I’m sure you can imagine, my attention is somewhat distracted. And so to Scotland.

Scottish-ness: branding and identity

I’ve often thought that at the heart of good branding and public relations is a process of definition. Companies and organizations need to define clearly what they are, what they do, what benefits they can bring and what they stand for, before they can successfully communicate themselves to their target audiences. If they are vague or unclear about these things, communication can become muddled, and audiences will be unclear about all of the above.

It seems to me that quite a big feature of what’s happening in Scotland revolves around this process. Yes, there are extremely important political and economic arguments in play, but it’s impossible to ignore the cultural and emotional elements that form such a large part of the debate.

Scotland, like its sibling nations in the UK, Wales and Northern Ireland, has always had an immensely strong identity. We’ll address England and the UK as a whole shortly. Besides the industrial and economic influences that Scotland has historically gifted the Union, its cultural identity has perhaps, above all else, defined it. You don’t need to think too hard about typically Scottish things: the saltire flag, whisky, the Highlands, kilts, bagpipes, haggis neaps and tatties, shortbread, Robbie Burns, the Flower of Scotland, John Logie Baird – the father of television, Sir Chris Hoy – the multi-Gold medal winning Olympian. The list goes on.

Now I can hear many of you groaning that these are clichés that paint a stereotypical picture of Scotland. You’re absolutely right. Nevertheless, they combine to represent a cultural identity that is instantly recognizable worldwide. In this sense, Scotland is a great brand, and it’s no wonder that many Scots ask why the country shouldn’t proudly stand independently. After all, it has done a job that’s second-to-none in defining itself positively.

Moreover, Scottish identity / branding can also be aptly described by what it isn’t. Scotland is different. It is different to Wales and Northern Ireland, but most significantly, it isn’t England. The friendly sporting rivalry between Scots and English puts this in stark relief. There is little the Scots like better than getting one over the Auld Enemy in a game of football or rugby, and passions run high. And equally, the sanguine and otherwise insouciant English are roused by the rivalry, and love to beat their neighbours north of the border.

This difference, for all these nations, is very important and could prove to be very significant both for Scotland, England and the UK, whatever the outcome of the imminent referendum.

The UK’s problem is a branding problem

Conversely, when considering the Scottish question, the United Kingdom arguably suffers from a rather vague sense of itself and its definition. It’s too easily confused with England and Englishness, which must be irritating to the UK’s other nations, to say the least.

This is because England is the dominant partner in the Union, in terms of population size, area, wealth, and historically is the seat of the power-base in London. However, in spite of this historical dominance, is the UK’s branding as clear as Scotland’s? Indeed, has England’s very functional dominance of the Union detrimentally affected the UK’s own identity?

I’ve outlined already how strong Scotland’s identity / branding is, in both positive and negative paradigms. I’m just not sure that the UK has an equivalent strength of cultural identity. And I say this as an ex-pat Englishman, born in London and bred in Essex.

Yes, of course England has a pretty good brand. In no particular order we’ve got Shakespeare, The Beatles, the Stones and Bowie. We’ve got the 1966 World Cup winning team. We’ve got Wordsworth and the Lake District. We’ve got John Constable, Damien Hirst, Benjamin Britten, Edward Elgar, Savile Row tailoring, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and the inimitable John Bull and the English Bulldog. The list of English stereotypes and clichés goes on.

Nevertheless, what people often consider to be some of the most powerful signifiers of Englishness are nothing of the sort. The Royals, besides coming from a European family, the Saxe-Coburgs, represent the very Union that is under scrutiny. They constitute a signifier of Britain and Britishness, not exclusively Englishness. Our glorious recent history in the twentieth century’s two world wars owe a debt not only to England, but to the British, whichever country they are from in the Union, plus our allies in the Commonwealth and across the pond in the USA. Just these two important, albeit hackneyed examples, show how England is too easily confused with Britain and other partners.

This very fact perhaps presents an argument for maintaining the union, and for Scotland to say “no” to independence, because, in the words of the “no” campaign, we are “better together.”

What is more interesting is what it would mean for the UK if Scotland decides to go its separate way. There is perhaps an anxiety at the heart of the UK “brand.” Once again, I make no excuses for being superficial here, and I’m not the only one.

Today Sky News pointed out in some of its reports that if Scotland were to become independent, it would need to establish a panoply of national cultural signifiers or for want of a better phase, branding tools. Yet there seems to be quite a lot of agreement on what these might be. To give two examples, the flag would be the saltire (the blue and white of the St.Andrew cross). The national anthem would be “Flower of Scotland.” These are easily identifiable. Why? Because Scotland’s brand and its branding tools have always been strong.

Can the same be said for the remainder of the UK? How would the flag of the UK look without Scotland? Nobody seems to be quite sure at the moment, though it’s fun to speculate. What would the national anthem be? “Land of Hope and Glory”? Seems a bit too much of a throwback to the British Empire, and therefore an anachronism. What about Blake’s “Jerusalem”? Oh no. That’s a paean to “England’s green and pleasant land” and therefore not inclusive enough as it will alienate the Welsh and the Northern Irish.

See, the concept of the UK, or rather the Branding of Britishness, is arguably a bit of a conundrum. I for one would be sad to see Scotland go it alone, as I value the cultural and emotional resonance it gifts to the UK. To be honest, I think the UK / Britain would be culturally poorer without it, and its branding would suffer as a result. But that’s just one English exile’s view from afar, and I would be foolish to predict the result of the big vote. It’s just interesting food for thought, and fun to roll these ideas around in this British / English brain of mine.

What goes wrong when campaigns go right? – The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

This week, I’m focusing on a success story: The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. 

 David Beckham takes an ice bath for ALS

As PR practitioners and marketers, what can we learn from it, and what do we discover about the pitfalls of success? In short, what goes wrong when campaigns go right?

This campaign has captured the hearts, minds, involvement and most importantly the pockets of countless people worldwide, with a simple viral stunt-based campaign. You’d probably need to be unconscious for the last month or more not to notice it, and it’s likely that everybody knows someone who has tipped a pail of iced water on their head and posted a video of it on the Internet, for charity.

Without a doubt, it has been an extraordinary success. As the end of August approaches, it is estimated that the campaign has raised in excess of US$88.5m in the USA alone, and much more besides elsewhere. Australians have raised $700,000 since the challenge went viral in July, according to Australia’s Channel 7 News, and on the other side of the world, British participants have raised in the region of £700,000 sterling. The funds continue to rise. 

Glitterati from the worlds of entertainment, sport, fashion, business and even politics have spontaneously got involved and filmed themselves being doused in freezing water. The public has loved seeing the likes of Leonardo Di Caprio, Gwyneth Paltrow, David Beckham, Jose Mourinho, Kate Moss, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and George W Bush in uncharacteristically undignified videos of themselves getting soaking wet. Even the cast of the new Star Wars movie are getting involved. Just like the general public, they have been carried along on the wave of the Ice Bucket challenge. Celebrity endorsement on this scale would normally cost millions of dollars.

In terms of awareness, according to The New York Times, people shared more than 1.2 million videos on Facebook between June 1 and August 13 and mentioned the phenomenon more than 2.2 million times on Twitter between July 29 and August 17. With this level of public involvement, and donations rocketing, inevitably awareness of ALS has risen enormously. Hats off to The ALS Association. It has done a grand job.

Quite a lot has already been written about why the campaign has been such a success, so I won’t dwell on it, beyond noting that it is simple, fun, easy to participate in, has a strong call to action, and involves personal invitation and interaction, a perfect combination for viral success. Nevertheless success doesn’t come without its challenges, and it’s these that present some other interesting lessons that we can learn from The ALS Association’s campaign.

Firstly, it could be considered a bit unclear what the campaign was saying. From a personal perspective, I had to look up what ALS is, and learned that it stood for Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Despite the many videos of wet friends and celebrities I have seen, none of their videos explained that. In fairness, I wouldn’t have looked at all if it weren’t for the campaign, so arguably it did its job. However, it demonstrates what happens when a campaign is so successful that its reach outstrips its original aims.

ALS is the North American name for the neurodegenerative disease, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, but in countries like the UK and Australia, it’s known as Motor Neurone disease. The fact that the campaign highlights ALS suggests that it was targeted towards North America. In that territory the message was clearest. In territories where the condition has another name, education about the condition may escape some people’s notice. I assume that this is therefore a case of a domestically targeted campaign that has gone international, more by accident than by design.

What we learn from this is that in this world of globally available information, it is very easy for marketing, advertising and public relations campaigns to cross national boundaries. Crossing these boundaries can often involve crossing cultural and linguistic lines, where knowledge that can be assumed in one territory cannot be assumed in another. Furthermore, what is acceptable in terms of messages and imagery in one territory may be considered culturally unacceptable in others. In my career, I have learned that what is considered fun, eye-catching and attention-grabbing in Western Europe or North America, may be considered risqué or even offensive to audiences in India, or in religious Muslim countries, for example. It’s therefore important to factor in when a campaign might go viral, extend beyond its intended boundaries, and whether it could confuse, upset or alienate different populations.

Secondly, the campaign has been co-opted, often unofficially, by individuals seeking to raise awareness for other issues or charitable causes. In the UK, there have been many cases of people doing the ice bucket challenge for other great causes such as cancer research. In the US, movie star Matt Damon’s widely publicised ice bucket challenge involved him using toilet water, and was an opportunity for him to raise awareness about lack of availability of clean drinking water and sanitation in developing parts of the world. 

Elsewhere, the challenge has got political. Palestinian journalist Ayman al-Aloui has initiated the “rubble bucket challenge”, a variant of the ALS campaign involving pouring buckets of rubble on one’s head. As Al Arabiya news reports, al-Aloui says he is doing this as an act of solidarity with the people of Gaza.

On the one hand, this trend highlights just how effective and powerful the ALS Association campaign has been. On the other, it demonstrates how a hugely popular initiative can be used for messages other than its original aims. Arguably, through no fault of its own, in fact precisely owing to its success, the ALS Association has lost some control of its campaign’s message. Perhaps this is a price you pay for success, but it’s something that is worth considering when campaigns are being dreamed up.

Furthermore, the more popular and visible a campaign becomes, the more obvious a target it becomes for criticism, however well intentioned it is meant to be. Some commentators have complained that the challenge itself has no logical connection to the cause it is publicizing. I think that this criticism is rather sour-faced and lacking a sense of humour. There’s no harm in raising funds and awareness about a serious condition in a fun and light-hearted way.

More serious are the religious objections that have been raised. As The Independent in the UK has reported, leaders of the Catholic Church in America have voiced their objections because the money raised by those taking the challenge could be used for embryonic stem cell research, which the Church considers immoral.

Similarly, campaigners for animal rights have raised their concerns about the possibility that donations may go towards experiments involving animal testing. Leading the celebrity charge for this point of view is Pamela Anderson, and off the back of the ALS Association’s highly visible campaign, this cause / criticism is also enjoying some high profile media coverage.

Once again, the ALS Association is a victim of its own success. Criticism would have been far less forthcoming if its campaign hadn’t enjoyed such widespread coverage and participation. Again, arguably, this kind of thing is an inevitable by-product of success.

Overall, the lesson learned is that the stronger the campaign, the more conscious we must be about ways it could be misconstrued or undermined, as it becomes a bigger target.  Issues management becomes an essential part of even the best and most well-meaning campaigns. It’s no surprise that some of the most successful organizations and brands in the world expend considerable resources on issues management, despite having some of the most successful marketing, advertising and public relations.

SodaStream and Apple’s iPhone 6: The brand-product relationship

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between brands and their products, and what it means for both.

• How much does product development lead the building of brands?
• How much does a brand’s essence and values lead product development?
• Or, does the power of these influencers change depending on where a brand or product is in its development cycle?

Taking a look at two very different products, SodaStream and Apple’s iPhone, gives us interesting food for thought.

SodaStream

Just last week, I was having a fascinating conversation about SodaStream, which has enjoyed a fantastic recent international revival, including the brand enlisting the endorsement of Hollywood A-lister Scarlett Johansson. 

This is a story of a brand re-born, and its re-birth has been driven, it seems to me, by a strong vision for the brand, great design, some great strategic partnerships and a clarity of values. It seems to be very much a case of a brand’s essence and values leading product development.

I have happy memories of SodaStream, going as far back as 1978, when as a boy, our friendly neighbours would treat me to SodaStream drinks. Even back then, the product had a fun element, yet it offered the carbonated drinks that it was OK to consume, as far as my parents were concerned. I still remember the advertising tagline of the time, “Get busy with the fizzy”, which characterized the fun that the product sought to encapsulate.

At the time, the product itself didn’t quite match the advertising, because it looked considerably more prosaic and a lot less fun. Predominantly white, cream or beige, it was identifiably a domestic product that belonged in the kitchen, beside the fridge, the dishwasher and the washing machine. It’s function led its marketing. Just take a look at a typical advert.

After a while, SodaStream seemed to disappear, but has now been revived in a far livelier form with a more energetic and robust product and brand proposition. Now, the reality matches the proposition, and I believe it has very much been influenced by what the brand stands for, and what it means to consumers. Plus, it is more sensitive to the nuances of consumer demand and lifestyle.

What’s immediately noticeable is the design. SodaStream’s range looks cool. Consequently, it has become a much more desirable item. The design is the primary innovation in an essentially simple product, but it is instrumental in making the brand contemporary and aspirational. SodaStream’s partnerships with Samsung, Breville and Kitchen Aid strengthens its “hardware” portfolio and boosts the product’s positioning as an aspirational item. No longer is a SodaStream machine simply functional, like the ones I enjoyed in the late 1970s. These partnerships ensure that like Nespresso or Alessi products, SodaStream has become a “must-have” gadget. It has adopted the philosophy of Apple, which has made functional devices (computer and communication hardware) beautiful, and is doing the same in its market sector.

Secondly, SodaStream has forged some important brand relationships. There are those mentioned above, but also partnerships with Kraft, Sunny D, Ocean Spray, Campbell’s and SkinnyGirl strengthens the product’s “software” portfolio – the flavours that are on offer to consumers. SodaStream has been strategic by covering varying bases, from typical soft drink flavours like Kraft’s Kool Aid, through the more “adult” mixer flavours such as Campbell’s V8 beverages, to the health drinks market with EBOOST energy drinks and the premium market of the epicurean Cooking Light brand. It’s a much richer, more varied and more versatile offering than previously, which meets the demand and requirements of varied consumer groups. In short, there’s now something for all the family, which makes SodaStream a stronger proposition as a household purchase.

Third, SodaStream now stands for something. What leaps out at you from its corporate website is the company’s values, and what it wants the product to stand for. Briefly, these are environmental consciousness, encouraging consumers to use a product that produces far less waste than the endless mountains of empty bottles and cans generated by its “big drinks” competitors. Also personal empowerment and health, giving consumers more choice and options that are better for you. At a time when a critical spotlight is being shone on sugar content in soft drinks and snack foods, this is an important point of difference. For example, SodaStream proudly talks about the fact that its cola contains 2/3 less sugar than store bought cola.  In many respects, SodaStream has positioned itself as a cool challenger brand to the behemoths of “big drinks”, like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola.

This makes it more than a product. SodaStream has re-established itself as a lifestyle brand, and as such, it now means more to consumers and says something positive about their choice to buy and use the product. A purchase of SodaStream is now arguably more than a purchase of a domestic carbonated drinks machine. It’s also purchasing a statement about you as a consumer, your tastes, aspirations and beliefs.

iPhone 6

Talk is intensifying about the imminent launch of Apple’s iPhone 6, which could take place as soon as early next month (September 2014).

The main rumours about the iPhone’s new variant seem to be that it will run iOS 8, a fresh update of Apple’s operating system, it will come in larger sizes (4.7 and 5.5 inches) and it will have sapphire, scratch-proof glass.

What’s interesting here is that these changes are incremental: evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary. Arguably it’s a world away from the launch of the early iPhones, which were game changers and market makers. They revolutionised the smartphone market, changed the way consumers used their mobile devices and seemed to offer something entirely new.

Since then, the iPhone has been joined by a host of competitors, both in terms of hardware, such as Samsung’s Galaxy S5, LG’s G3, Sony’s Xperia Z2 and HTC’s One M8, and in terms of software, namely Android. These products have closed the gap between Apple and its competitors, and in terms of some considerations, such as size, have stolen the march from Apple.

The wiggle room for product development seems to be diminishing, but Apple has thrived on two essential brand essences: innovation and design, and it needs to maintain its leadership position to remain a distinctive force. The success of the next iteration of iPhone may well depend on these two factors. From the perspective of innovation, iPhone 6 must work faster and more efficiently than its rivals, and from the design perspective, it must outstrip competitors in the way it looks, feels and operates.

When it comes to Apple and the iPhone, therefore, the brand essence and product development seem to be symbiotic, both by necessity and design. What’s always been important for Apple, as I have previously mentioned here, is that it differentiates its products by making them both beautiful and functional at the highest level. It’s a constant challenge, and it remains to be seen how it meets this challenge with the iPhone 6. I guess that time, and sales, will tell.

Why does Apple want a bigger bite of the social media pie?

This morning (5^th August), Marketing Week broke the news that Apple has appointed a social media supremo, Musa Tariq, to lead its digital marketing.

Tariq, previously at Nike and Burberry, is considered to be a pioneer of harnessing social media for brands, and in particular is known in the industry for his development of communities and viral content.

Until now, Apple has been relatively slow to engage fans in this way, and its social media presence has been relatively limited for such a prominent consumer tech brand. So why the change, and how significant is it?

I think that there are two main implications. The first, for Apple Inc and the consumer tech industry. The second, for the marketing industry as a whole.

What does this mean for Apple?

Apple had a rough ride in the first quarter of this financial year, according to analyst Brian Blair of Wedge Partners in The International Business Times. He attributed this to a slowdown in the smartphone market, slow demand for the iPhone 5C and the lack of a marquee new product to launch.

Although Apple’s CEO Tim Cook remains optimistic for 2014, this appointment suggests that the company perhaps feels the need to engage consumers more in order to help bolster its performance. And its chosen means to do this is by turning towards social media and shared content.

What does this mean for marketing?

In marketing terms this is just as significant, arguably more so. It demonstrates just how powerful social media and shared content have become as marketing communications channels.

Furthermore, what this hammers home is something that is already undeniable: content is King. 

Tariq has been widely credited with successful campaigns for Nike and Burberry involving online video teasers and real-time visual tweets. Both forms of communication are eminently shareable, with viral potential. They add value to users’ experience, giving them compelling and fresh content that entertains, informs, excites and inspires.

Add “educates” to that mix and you have the recipe for good content. Consumers, users and followers now demand and indeed expect such content that adds value to their experience. Straightforward advertising and promotional messages are no longer sufficient or satisfactory without it.

This requires a fresh mindset for many brands and companies if they wish to remain at the front of their audiences’ minds. I think it means that companies cannot simply be a factory for their products and services; they must also become factories producing innovative and genuinely interesting content, because that’s what hooks an audience.

• How far do you agree?
• Do you think Apple has made a good move with this appointment?
• What changes do you think are necessary for companies to best benefit from social media and shared content?
• What steps has your company taken in this direction and how successful have they been?

I ‘d love to hear from you and get your perspective.

McDonald's supply chain leaves brand with a bad taste

It was only a matter of time before I turned my attention to one of the daddies of the world’s brands, McDonald’s, in perhaps the daddy of all markets, China. 

 

In fact this week’s big brand public relations issue extends beyond just the one brand into the fast food industry as a whole. Competitors from Yum! Brands, Pizza Hut and KFC, plus others such as Burger King and Papa John’s are also involved.

Last week it was revealed that in south-east Asia these companies had been using meat products, primarily chicken and beef, that had passed their expiry date. They were, to all intents and purposes, rotten. Shanghai Husi Food, owned by US-based OSI GROUP, had supplied the meat to them. In Shanghai, the local Food and Drug Administration raided the supplier, seizing more than 5,000 boxes of expired meat and arresting five employees.

Following this discovery, the fast food companies apologised to consumers in China and pledged to remove the products concerned. McDonald’s was one of the hardest hit brands, because it had to stop selling products in Japan and Hong Kong, as well as in China.

By the beginning of this week, OSI recalled all products made by its Shanghai facility, and apologised in a news conference. However, according to a Reuters report, their action did not stop criticism for McDonald’s from disappointed diners.

Nevertheless, according to The Wall Street Journal on Monday, whilst Yum!’s brands have stopped using OSI, McDonald’s said it would continue to work with them. The Journal speculated that this is because MacDonald’s feels it can address the problem quicker than finding a reliable new supplier, and because in reputational terms, it would not do them any favours to sacrifice the supplier.

Keeping faith with this errant supplier is an interesting strategy by McDonald’s, particularly bearing in mind that its business and its reputation have already been dented by this incident. McDonald’s is no stranger to taking a public bashing for its products and policies, and it has proven to be a big enough behemoth to absorb such blows. Nevertheless, it has to balance the damage caused from maintaining such a stance, with the risk of seeming ruthless if it were to fire its supplier and source product elsewhere. What is clear from this situation is that when the supply-chain goes bad, the consumer brand bears the brunt of public opprobrium, even if the fault lies elsewhere. The South China Morning Post highlighted this lose-lose scenario. McDonald’s not only suffered a product shortage, which irritated diners, but it also seemed reluctant to acknowledge that it had a problem, at least in the eyes of Hong Kong residents.

Arguably, the company should have applied more stringent inspection and due diligence standards to its suppliers. However, in this instance, the fact that a number of other separate companies were affected suggests that McDonald’s due diligence was no weaker than anyone else’s, and it perhaps mitigates the fault that lies with them. Nevertheless, this isn’t the first time that multinational food-service brands have suffered from such supply-chain incidents, and it certainly won’t be the last.

In fact, as I write, turning my eyes from east to west, McDonald’s is enduring another storm in Russia, where its cheese is being investigated for excessive levels of antibiotics. The cheese itself is produced further west, in the Czech Republic and Germany. Just last week, the Russian consumer protection agency announced that it will be taking the company to court for selling foods that contain more fats and carbohydrates than national regulations allow.

And so the company’s battles go on.

• Can it continue to fend off the brickbats that come its way?
• How do you feel it has handled this latest controversy?
• Can it continue to thrive, even under such criticism, or, like all empires, will it inevitably fall?
• What do you think?

Has Airbnb made a branding “balls-up”?

After the grave subject-matter of my previous post, I thought it would be fun to turn my attention to a lighter story. Lighter though it may be, it’s still a fascinating branding, marketing and PR case-study and a source of serious consideration, once you’ve stopped sniggering.

It concerns last week’s launch of Airbnb’s new branding. The popular holiday-apartment-rental website revealed a radical departure from its original light-blue and white script style logo, to a red and white livery with a new insignia. 

Airbnb’s old logo

Problem is, nobody seems to know what the logo stands for,. Techcrunch went as far as describing it as “a Rorschach test for everyone who saw it,” and this very lack of definition is giving rise to some rather mischievous suggestions.

Airbnb’s new logo

So, is it . . .

• An inverted heart?
• Peter Griffin’s (Family Guy) chin?
• A bum
• A pair of breasts?
• A pair of balls, or a vagina?

Amid much hilarity online, Gizmodo proved to be fond of the last suggestion, as was the Valleywag blog on Gawker . A Tumblr site rapidly appeared with a bunch of other recommendations, some more salacious than others.

The designers stressed the new logo’s simplicity to replicate and remember. They call it the Bélo and they’re keen for it to be as ubiquitious as the Wi-Fi symbol. Apparently, according to Airbnb, it combines elements of a person with their arms outstretched, preparing to hug you; a map location marker, a heart and the A from the Airbnb name. It’s supposed to indicate a sense of belonging, and this is to be enhanced with the logo’s ability to be customised by users, according to Airbnb. 

 

Another imaginative suggestion for what the new logo stands for.

So has the brand re-boot been a success, or, in rather apposite Cockney argot, a great big “balls-up”?

This is a difficult one to call, in my opinion. I don’t suppose that the good people at Airbnb anticipated becoming the butt of so many jokes. (I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist a cheeky pun myself) and certainly they’ve been initially dismayed by the giggles to which they’ve given rise. In the UK, the Daily Mail reported a rather po-faced and peevish defence of the re-branding by Airbnb founder and CTO Nathan Blecharczyk, who said: “It’s just like: Go ahead, laugh all you want, guys. We wouldn’t want to design a logo that caters to the lowest common denominator.” The newspaper even suggested that Airbnb claims the new logo will become as recognizable as the Nike swoosh.

Top marks for ambition, Mr. Blecharczyk and team. Thing is, it would be all too easy to be dismissive of them except for a couple of important considerations. First, consumers are notoriously bad at handling change. We cling to the familiar. After all, isn’t it always that case that, “they don’t make things like they used to.” Nevertheless, once change happens, we are remarkably adaptable, and before long we’ll forget how things really used to be, unless we’re reminded of them. So the chances are the same thing will happen with this re-branding. 

Secondly, if the top brass at Airbnb play this situation correctly, they could really make it work in their favour. 

I’ve just Googled “new Airbnb logo”. In only 39 seconds, it says it has identified 13,400,000 web search results, and in 22 seconds, 25,900 news results. That’s a fantastic amount of noise for a story about a brand’s new logo and typeface. I hazard a guess that Airbnb would have been hard-pressed to generate this much discussion, PR coverage and brand recognition so rapidly.

This word-of-mouth is something on which Airbnb can build, providing they show a bit of humility and a big sense of humour. Globally, people are talking about Airbnb’s re-branding. Who’d have thunk it? They should embrace the amusement they’re providing, and use the laughs, and the fascination to explain their brand, and show that they’re a fun, transparent, “human” company.

There’s a lesson here. Things might look messy at the beginning, but with the right positioning and attitude, there’s often an opportunity, and a way to make things work. It remains to be seen whether it will in this case.

• What do you think of the logo and the re-branding?
• What does it remind you of?
• Can Airbnb can make it work? How?

I’d love to hear what you think.