Bad news bared

It’s been argued that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but the phenomenon of organisations deliberately creating negative stories about themselves would appear to be a relatively new one. It started in a small way with food manufacturers releasing made-up stories that they planned to modify or do away with treasured brands (such as Vegemite iSnack 2.0) and comic publishers killing off beloved characters, or just threatening to do so, as has happened to everyone from Superman to Desperate Dan; the latest victim of this trend being poor old Spider-Man. The only risk is that devoted fans won’t be quite as outraged as was expected, and a valuable property will be sacrificed in ignominious obscurity; or, more deliciously, they’ll have to go through with a move that they never intended to execute in the first place, because consumers don’t tell them not to.

Virgin took things to a new level in early 2009 when they released a letter complaining about the standard of their in-flight catering, although they rather gave the game away by having the letter begin “I love the Virgin brand”, thus immediately identifying the author as an advertising executive; real people don’t love brands, or if they do, they’re not aware of it. But things have really kicked off in the past few months, when Simon Cowell got in on the act: first with the whole Cheryl in the USA saga; and then the distinctly fishy e-mail that essentially accused Cowell of grooming a contestant on Britain’s Got Talent. And this week we have the “news” that the dating website beautifulpeople.com has accidentally allowed 30,000 uglies onto its books, and has had to kick them off again. Cue outrage from those who believe that beauty lies within: cue free publicity.

I just think it’s odd that high-profile entities are paying good money to concoct unpleasant stories about themselves at the same time that certain high-profile individuals are also shelling out in order to quash such stories. And I wonder if it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that one or more of the stories that are being suppressed by injunctions (super or otherwise) might turn out to have been entirely concocted as well.

The difference engine

About 10 years ago, I thought I had a fabulous job. To be more precise, the job I thought I had was fabulous. I thought I was in charge of the content and production of a book, one that had been part of my childhood, one that people recognised from Manila to Montevideo. But I’d been misinformed. Certain people in the know started reminding me that I was in fact the custodian of what they called A Brand, and A Global One at that.

Under normal circumstances, I might have been able to smudge over the distinction between the two, dismissing it as little more than a question of emphasis. But my arrival in the plush chair coincided with my reading Naomi Klein’s No Logo, which argued (among other things) that the dominance of The Brand was a vicious con trick, a way to persuade the gullible to pay a premium for something that essentially doesn’t exist. I could paint the end of that particular gig as some sort of fairy story, with myself painted as the kid pointing out that Capitalism’s New Clothes are pretty threadbare. In truth, it was more messy, personal and boring than that. But the whole experience left me with a pretty cynical attitude to branding and advertising and marketing and all their attendant infernal disciplines.

So Stephen Bayley’s jeremiad about the Chinese takeover of Volvo leaves me rather cold. His argument is that the shift in ownership is unfeasible because Volvos offer a sort of quiddity of Swedishness, all aquavit and Wallander. The brand may be the same, he says, but what it communicates is lost, even if the cars remain entirely the same. Now, there are probably many good reasons why the move might be a bad one, including workers’ rights and environmental concerns. But even Bayley admits that his autophilia is an “often irrational affection”; does it really matter to the consumer where his or her car comes from, provided the wheels don’t fall off?

At least, amidst all this geo-economic turbulence, the notion of a Chinese Volvo might wake consumers from their dream; what Bayley calls “a diaspora of patiently acquired brand value” might encourage us to look more at the product, less at the packaging. Which is something Naomi Klein probably didn’t foresee when she was sowing the seeds of my professional destruction; The Brand, having done the dirty work of globalisation, is dismissed as casually as any wage slave, with no thank yous.

Tepid

The CoolBrands 2009/10 supplement that came with yesterday’s Observer does seem utterly self-defeating. For a start, there has to be a variant of the Groucho Marx rule; any cool adhering to a brand would surely be stripped away by appearing on such a list. And even if that weren’t the case, would you accept the findings of an ‘Expert Council’ including the likes of Trevor Nelson, Sadie Frost and someone who describes himself as “an impassioned digital media visonary”?

PS: Elsewhere in the paper, one of Ms Frost’s former husbands is quoted as saying, 30 years ago:

A cultural identity is a great outlet for people's frustrations. Kids have always spent what little they have on records and haircuts. They’ve never spent it on books by Karl Marx.

Lost your bottle?

I've been flicking through a new Bangkok business magazine called Director (I know, it's a pretty rock 'n' roll life I lead) and came across a piece about Diageo, and how they're dealing with restrictions on alcohol marketing in Thailand. The most delicious part of the rules is that advertisers can't actually refer to the products, only the brand. So you can't show a bottle of Johnnie Walker (Diageo's big seller in the region) or even suggest that Johnnie Walker might be something that someone might want to drink. All you can show is the quintessence of JohnnieWalkerness, and quietly hope that someone will be encouraged to buy some whisky on the back of it.

Zanita Kajiji, Diageo's VP (Marketing), says:

All that's left is to focus on the brand... About the positive messages associated with that brand. That makes it easier for someone else to say exactly the same thing, and you then can't differentiate the product for the consumer.

Uh... I would have thought the exact opposite was true. How many consumers can really tell Johnnie Walker Red Label apart from any other big-selling Scotch (Bell's, Teacher's, 100 Pipers) in a blind tasting? Especially when it's consumed, as is usually the case in Thailand, with copious amounts of ice, soda and often slices of lime? Surely all that distinguishes them is the brand, so the marketing restrictions actually make things easier, by doing away with the mundane reality of product, that so often gets in the way of a good ad. I'll let someone else explain: