While the hacking has slowed down the business side of News Corp., most notably in its bid for BSkyB, and criminal charges for top execs [...]]]> Will the News of the World fiasco hurt the News Corp. brand? I doubt it, for the same reasons that brands like Martha Stewart and Michael Vick have bounced back.

While the hacking has slowed down the business side of News Corp., most notably in its bid for BSkyB, and criminal charges for top execs remain a threat, the News Corp. brand will bounce back because:

1) The public already holds media in low regard. When the New York Times is guilty of wrong facts, slanted reporting and made-up stories and CBS News, the icon build by Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, wears a thick coat of tarnish, illegal hacking is hardly a death blow.

2) In an industry not held in high regard, integrity was never a key part of the News Corp. brand DNA. This is the company, after all, that invented the “Page 3 Girls” and used bare breasts to sell papers.

3) The core audience for the “news” aspect of the News Corp. brand distrusts government, does not idolize the elites that the hacking allegedly targeted, and doesn’t listen to the outrage of moderate-left to fully-leftist critics.

4) News is only a small part of the News Corp brand. Over 70% of the brand revenue comes from TV networks, TV programming, movies and satellite-TV services operations contributed. As Ad Age noted, “Is anyone really going to stop watching ‘American Idol’ on Fox or boycott 20th Century Fox movies over phone hacking by a British newspaper?”

It is “thank you & good bye” for News of the World, but onward and upward for the News Corp. brand.

Celebrity branding is a big business.  Industry [...]]]> Osama bin Laden may be dead, but his brand is not. USA Today is reporting the Osama bin Laden brand is suddenly doing a booming business.  From bumper stickers and ties to coffee mugs and t-shirts (you can even outfit your dog), the merchandising of bin Laden has begun.

Celebrity branding is a big business.  Industry pundit Ira Mayer estimates dead stars  generated $2.25 billion in North American revenue in 2009. An ecosystem of specialist agencies and license holders has sprung up to capitalize on lingering fame and brand equity of deceased persons. The likes of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley are worth far more now than they were when they were alive.

Of course, the big draw for the Osama bin Laden brand is that no one claims the licensing rights (though the U.S. Navy SEALs arguably could claim bragging rights). There will be no end to tastelessness. Despite two shots to his head, it is still open season on bin Laden’s brand.

UPDATE: Adweek has been chastised for an article deemed tasteless on the Al Qaeda brand. Indeed branding and bin Laden is completely tasteless–they even got Zombie bin Laden T-shirts on the market in less than 24 hours. Amazing.

Show Your Gratitude…send the Navy SEALs a postcard:

• Navy UDT-SEAL Museum
  3300 North Highway A1a
  Fort Pierce, FL 34949-8520

Though working in secret and seeking no glory, they richly deserve our thanks—so let’s give it to them. It would be so awesome to build a mountain of thank you cards from their fellow Americans (and people from all nations). Please take a moment to write the two little words that mean so much. Tell our finest ‘”thank you.”  More on SEAL history here.

More on people brands:

• Michael Vick, Tiger Woods, Martha Stewart
  Fixing the Nancy Pelosi Brand

Rasmussen reports 27% of U.S. adults expect to buy an electric car in the next ten years, but recently released sales figures show car buyers are shunning the electric Nissan Leaf and [...]]]> People say they want green—but that doesn’t mean they buy it. It’s the same for green cars as it is for green vegetables.

Rasmussen reports 27% of U.S. adults expect to buy an electric car in the next ten years, but recently released sales figures show car buyers are shunning the electric Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt. Only 87 Leafs (Leaves?) sold in January and just 67 sold in February. The Chevy Volt did slightly better with 321 sold in January, but just 281 in February. Compare those figures to Chevy’s gas guzzling Silverado truck, which sold almost 60,000 units during the last two months.

Consumers are just as reluctant to swallow what is “good for them” when it comes to what they eat as what they drive. McDonald’s has added salads to their menu to quell the “Super-Size Me” complainers who complain about fat-laden burgers. Those salads sure are not there to satisfy relentless consumer demand. The average McDonald’s store serves about 1,500 customers a day and sells between 40 and 50 salads a day according to a former McDonald’s executive. Talking good nutrition is most definitely more popular than eating it.

1. Orascom Holdings  (including Orascom Construction and Orascom Development)

Egypt isn’t known for creating global brands. The country wins “Best Country Brand for History” almost every year, but their commercial brands are not winning awards or dominating global markets. Here are the top 12 home-grown corporate brands from that country:

1. Orascom Holdings  (including Orascom Construction and Orascom Development)

2. El Ezz Steel

3. Middle East Oil Refineries

3. The Arab Contractors

5. Egypt Air Holdings

6. El Sewedy

7. Telecom Egypt

8. Mobinil

9. Alexandria Minerals & Oils

10. Talaat Moustafa Real Estate

11. Suez Cement

12. Ghabbour Auto

Any one know the biggest Egyptian consumer brands–not brand made by multinationals and marketed in Egypt, but actual Egyptian brands?

]]> http://merriamassociates.com/2011/02/egypts-top-brands-12-top-corporate-brands/feed/ 0 http://merriamassociates.com/2011/01/sara-lee-spins-off-with-right-approach-to-brand-names/ http://merriamassociates.com/2011/01/sara-lee-spins-off-with-right-approach-to-brand-names/#comments Fri, 28 Jan 2011 18:03:17 +0000 LDMerriam http://merriamassociates.com/?p=2065 Since Motley Fool has named 2011 “The Year of the Spin-Off,”  we have covered a number of companies who have made a confusing mess of their brands.  Corporate spin-offs have led to brand spin-outs for companies like Marathon and Motorola.

Sara Lee is doing it right. The company is keeping its core food business under the [...]]]> Since Motley Fool has named 2011 “The Year of the Spin-Off,”  we have covered a number of companies who have made a confusing mess of their brands.  Corporate spin-offs have led to brand spin-outs for companies like Marathon and Motorola.

Sara Lee is doing it right. The company is keeping its core food business under the Sara Lee name, and is spinning off beverages into a new, yet unnamed company–presumably NOT Sara Lee Beverages. Sara Lee is moving forward mindful of the considerations behind wise brand decisions for successful spin-offs:

1. What drives brand value now and into the future? Which part of the business is most tied to the brand reputation and how does the brand fit with the strategic plans of the parent company and the spin-offs? When AT&T broke up, the brand value was mostly related to the consumer side of the business. The B2B spin-off adopted a new brand, Lucent.

2. What will be the source for future growth? Rebranding can be expensive when you consider things like new signs, repainting vehicles, new uniform, not to mention redoing all marketing communications. These costs should be offset by future profit and volume potential.

3. Brand role should impact spin-off naming decisions. Fortune Brands–another big spin-off this year, is a name closely tied to the liquor business. The golf and home improvement spin-offs need new names.

4. Corporate culture and company structure should not be ignored. The Hanes business had always been run independently, even after it was acquired by Sara Lee in 1979. When it was spun off in 2006, it was easy to leave the old Hanes name and structure in place. Spinning off the beverages business is not so easy. The beverage business was built by disparate acquisition of companies from Holland to San Francisco. This business didn’t have a pre-existing overarching brand or integrated structure.

With these considerations in mind, executives can make wise brand decisions that maximize the value of the parent company and each individual spin-off. Companies can split, but brands cannot.:

More on spin-off branding:

Breaking up Motorola
Marathon brand confusion

Bloomberg even [...]]]> Bloomberg News is reporting that KFC is defeating all other fast food brands for dominance in China. By getting in early, tailoring its menu to local tastes (hamburgers are foreign, while fried chicken is well accepted), and hiring local decision makers, KFC stores in China contribute 36% of parent company Yum’s global operating profit.

Bloomberg even reports that “Colonel Harland Sanders’s image is a far more common sight in many Chinese cities than that of Mao.”

Nothing breeds imitators like success—especially in China. When I last visited China, many cities boasted a local look-alike contender. One wag has suggested this fake Chinese Col. Sanders might just be the famous General Tsao. . .

(Note: I know that KFC has updated their Col. Sanders logo, however, the Chinese copy is of the old logo, so I use the old one here for side-by-side comparison.)

The Mintel headline claims “Private label gets a quality reputation, causing consumers to change their buying habits.” The truth is that behavior lags far [...]]]> Mintel, a global market intelligence company, recently released a study touting growing consumer acceptance of generic, private label, and retailer brands. Yet what people say does not always affect what people do.

The Mintel headline claims “Private label gets a quality reputation, causing consumers to change their buying habits.” The truth is that behavior lags far behind though. Mintel found that 44% of shoppers believe the quality of store brands has improved over the last five years.  Only 19% of shoppers believe brands are worth paying more for. Between 56 and 62% of shoppers (depending on category) believe there is no quality difference between name brand and store brand products. If people acted on their beliefs, store brands and generics would have a 30%+ market share in most grocery categories.

Actual sales figures tell a different story. According to Packaged Facts published in Packaging Digest, private label accounts for only 17% of total food and beverage retail sales in the United States. Recession pressures on shopper budgets has driven an increase since 2008 of 7% for food and 1% in beverages, yet generic/private label/retail brand share of market tracks nowhere near shopper opinions. While some categories, like sugar, are perceived as commodities with generics having a greater market share, and other categories, like milk, have few dominant national brands, most categories are still dominated by national name brands.

Marketers know that behavior is only partly driven by stated opinion. Habits, specifics of the situation, other opinions, marketing messages, and dozens of other influences impact buying decisions. Having an increasingly positive opinion about generic brands and store brands does not mean shoppers buy more of them.

UPDATE: The company has posted a 12 percent decline in profit and a 5.5 percent decline in sales for the fourth quarter 2010.

The December, 2010 recall of Rolaids is more than a new cause for heartburn at Johnson & Johnson. Coming on the heels of a year of unprecedented recalls, this latest problem could tip [...]]]>

UPDATE: The company has posted a 12 percent decline in profit and a 5.5 percent decline in sales for the fourth quarter 2010.

The December, 2010 recall of Rolaids is more than a new cause for heartburn at Johnson & Johnson. Coming on the heels of a year of unprecedented recalls, this latest problem could tip the balance towards permanent brand damage. Beginning with the January 15th recall of Tylenol and expanding through the Spring and Summer with recalls of such consumer icons as Motrin, Benadryl, St. Joseph’s Aspirin, Mylanta, DePuy hip replacements, and prescription drugs like Epogen and Procrit, the Johnson & Johnson brand has suffered from a pattern of manufacturing and quality control failures.

Loss of More Than 27% of Brand Value
Grant Thornton’s September 10, 2010 report on declining brand value calculates that the Johnson & Johnson brand lost 27% of its value. And this analysis was done before some of the major recalls of the summer and fall. Moreover, the damage to the recalled product brands themselves has to be much, much greater. And possibly permanent. Consumers are being forced to switch to competitive brands and generic replacements. Convincing them to come back to Johnson & Johnson brands will be no small feat. That the company has been dragged before Congress and is the subject of an ongoing Department of Justice criminal probe does not help.

Johnson & Johnson Can’t Yet Take the First Step to Brand Repair
Restoring share of market and brand reputation will take plenty of money and even more time. Of course nothing can be done until the first step in brand repair can be taken, and that is: fix the problem–something that month after month of recalls, plant shutdowns and management shakeups haven’t been able to address. That the recalls are so broad-based across so many divisions in so many countries, and that they seem to just keep coming, does not bode well for the Johnson & Johnson brand that  so long has stood for trust.

A side note: Johnson & Johnson and its brands do not have either a Twitter or Facebook presence. As we have covered here and here, companies can’t wait until they are in a crisis to try and make effective use of social media.