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Branding   URGENT - Need Help Fast!  
 
This question has been closed, and points have been awarded.
Is Global Brand Harmonization Necessary?Premium Member
Posted By: nextmike on 11/29/2004 3:19 AM (CST) 100 Points
My Company: It's a manufacturer of premium audio/video products (makes A/V receivers, HDTV's and more). Its products can be found in North America, Asia and Europe. Theses are NOT the types of products you would find in a Best Buy - it's a higher-end brand, albeit not a luxury one.

Company/Brand History: The company has been around for over 50 years and at one time was considered a prestige brand. A lot of time and money reveals that while the brand prestige is OK, brand recognition is nil and people generally say, "That was my Dad's brand, are they still around?"

Situation: I am "refereshing" the company brand for North America and the first tangible result will be a new website. This means changing the tagline and color pallette among other things.

Challenge: Europe and Asia are alarmed at the direction I am taking with the North America brand identity. They (legitimately) don't think the identity will work for their regions yet claim that it is critical that the identity be uniform across all global regions. I tend to disagree (see Sony).

Question: How important is it to unify the brand identity across all global regions and all regional websites? In other words, how "harmonized" do things like the website, taglines and color palettes have to be? What are the basic guidelines and/or questions to determine how much or how little brand "harmonization" across regions is the right amount?

Your reply is much appreciated!

Posted by: KANDI* Accepted Answer
11/29/2004 5:38 AM (CST)
Necessary is a big word ... as is critical. Of course it is not necessary to harmonise the brand internationally, nor is it "critical that the identity be uniform internationally", however I would imagine that in the medium to long term there would be distinct advantages in having a international brand, not least in the return on the marketing dollar. A leading brand in one country should be able to assert its authority in another faster than an unknown brand.

A key question is the current state of the brand in the markets in which you operate today and where you realistically see it getting to in the next 3 to 5 years. If the brand positioning and personality etc. are the same across all markets then I'd lean towards a single identity.

If, as you suggest, the current direction you are taking in the USA is indeed unsuitable for the other markets then maybe you should discuss with your senior management team the implications of short term gain in the USA over longer term benefits of an international brand.

It is not necessarily difficult however to create a harmonised brand with a common logo, colour palette etc and translate the positioning and personality into local language and culture through an extended identity system - the use of imagery etc. Nor do I believe it necessary to have a single tag line, as long as it is not in a fixed relationship with the logo - ie seen as an integral part of the logo - the main trigger that causes brand recognition.

Given the amount of information given in your question that’s about as far as I can sensibly go - assuming you consider the above to be sensible!

As an aside I would suggest that "My Dad's brand" infers a heritage in the industry and the ability to trust it. Refreshing a brand is about keeping it relevant and contemporary - not changing it.

Regards .... KS
 
Posted by: JBtron Accepted Answer
11/29/2004 7:11 AM (CST)
nextmike,

KS has made some EXCELLENT points. In addition to those, I personally question your statement,

"I am "refereshing" the company brand for North America and the first tangible result will be a new website. This means changing the tagline and color pallette among other things."

This does NOT mean changing the tagline at all. Changing the tagline is a seasonal, promotional, TRANSIENT thing. It's not a target of redesign when you refresh a brand. Just talk to the folks at Burger King who performed a REVOLUTIONARY Brand Redesign without a tagline change.

And changing the color pallette is also NOT a function of a Brand Redesign unless you want it to be. It all depends on WHY you are 'refreshing" the brand.

BASED ON WHAT RESEARCH IS THIS MOVE BEING CONTEMPLATED?

I have saved my clients MILLIONS of dollars over the years by just asking "WHY?" Many times, brand redesigns are undertaken because someone in a position to do so THINKS they need to redesign, so everyone just says, "yes." If you need proof that this really happens in the marketplace, just ask the guy who thought up "New Coke," if you can FIND him!

Gotta JAM. Hope this helps!

Best,

::JBtron
 
Posted by: D4Demand Accepted Answer
11/29/2004 10:31 AM (CST)
Your firm has a great history in the USA but I am not sure about the rest of the world. They were very early in Color and 26" formats, if it is who I'm thinking of. (If I'm wrong, you will understand why my career as a psyhic was cut short)

I would build on the history of the company for two reasons.

1) about 70% of people ask other for their opinions before they make a major purchase (lots of times they ask older-wiser=wealthier individuals)
2) for younger families, parents still buy them things like big screen tv's.

Getting tactical, dig up the consumer reports, guarantee claim figures, etc form the 50s 60s 70s 80s and 90s. You had a rocking warranty back then.

Get lots of side by side comparisions to the competition. And show the rest of the young wippersnapper brands that "grand daddy" hasn't lost even half a step. But I would really tech up the logo.

As for the international partners. As long as your brand image does not "fight" with theirs. It should not be a problem.

Not every brand must be a world brand.

 
Posted by: SRyan ;] Accepted Answer
11/29/2004 4:26 PM (CST)
Global brand harmonization was less important before Tim Berners-Lee invented this cool thing called the World Wide Web.

Now businesses on different continents aren't so isolated. Think about that before you undergo changes, especially if your starting point is on the Web!

- Shelley
 
Posted by: diastematic Accepted Answer
11/29/2004 8:48 PM (CST)
Who are you?
What do you do?
Why does it matter?
That's what should be driving your brand refresh.

The colors on your website? That's just lipstick on a pig, honey. At the end of a day, meat eaters know the difference between real bacon and the veggie stuff.

JBTron hits it on the head: you haven't defined the problem, other than "people think we're outdated." You need to spend some personal time with your customers to know exactly why you matter to them...and let that insight redefine the very core of your company.
 
Posted by: ASVP/ChrisB Accepted Answer
11/29/2004 9:45 PM (CST)
I add my voice to the chorus.

"Refreshing" the brand means, what, exactly? May I offer a proposed translation into plainspeak?

"We realize the consumer has stopped noticing us and we think we need to do something to reverse that trend"

Perhaps this happened as a result of the company forgetting what differentiated it from the competitors.

Perhaps some bright accountant decided to slash the advertising budget to cut back on expense during a long-forgotten downturn.

Perhaps the company just started adopting "me-tooism" as a corporate credo a long time ago.

Real questions you should be asking are:

- What differentiates us from every other competent maker of electronic boxes?

- How does the target market (and who are they???) perceive us now?

- How do we want them to perceive us?

- How do we move that perception from where it is now, to where we want it?

Sounds like you may have some of those answers as you say your did some research. and "Dad's brand" may not be a bad position to occupy if Dad knew anything about hifi and electronic boxes. But there may be better positions to target than that... What are they?

Sounds like the brand refresh you mention is a rearrangement of deck chairs. The international arms suggesting that brand harmonization is a CSF right now is a bi like the captain of the Titanic criticizing the performance of the piccolo player as the band slips beneath the waves. You've got bigger problems that should be addressed first.

If nothing else, I suggest you call in an independent like JB or one of the other Top 100 KHE'ers here, and have a workshop to identify the brand strategy issues AND the business strategy issues you need to cover moving forward from here

Map your business and marketing strategy, develop a balanced scorecard from those maps, and review where you are every quarter, would be my advice.

Hope this helps.

ChrisB

PS I have an HK730 purchased in NYC 25 years ago - still going strong - I wonder if my kids think of Harman Kardon as "Dad's Brand? nah, they probably think of Marshal, Fender, Trace-Elliott and Rickenbacker!!!
 
Posted by: mgoodman Accepted Answer
11/29/2004 9:47 PM (CST)
JBTron is definitely on the right track. I'd try to do some research on consumer opinions, values, beliefs, brand awareness and attitudes, etc., before I'd mess with an established global brand.

It's hard to imagine that there isn't a way to refresh the brand image in NA without totally breaking with the rest-of-world graphics, logo, colors, etc. An evolutionary redesign to make it a little more contemporary, for example, might accomplish the same thing as a complete break.

Having been a senior marketing manager (VP) with a global company, responsible for the US portion of the business, I can tell you I'd have had a real problem with any brand manager who wanted to mess with the global brand jewels. Surely there's a better way ... or a very compelling argument based in solid consumer research.
 
Posted by: kwinters* Accepted Answer
11/30/2004 3:13 PM (CST)
Let me ask you a simple question:

Is it a good idea or bad idea to position a product differently for different target markets?

Very simply, you have different target markets with different cultures, beliefs, etc. and what works in or appeals to one may not appeal to the other....
 
Posted by: nextmike Author Response
11/30/2004 4:05 PM (CST)
Thanks for all the great feedback. I'm going to close the question now. To answer some of your questions, we did conduct extensive global brand and customer research. The findings from this discovery were used to calibrate our position in the North American (and global)marketplace (who our customers are and who they need to be, how we are perceived, etc.) and will help determine our future direction. I going to make a strong recommendation that we not take a universal approach to branding across major global regions...while the heart of the brand will remain the same, everything else will be tailored to fit the unique regional markets.
 


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