Brand Management and Teflon
by Miki Saxon
Branding. The term is everywhere. No longer reserved for a product it refers to the organization itself.
Creating a great brand is an understandable and, at times, even worthy goal, but after creation it’s necessary to care for the brand, AKA, brand management.
Sadly, more and more effort is being made to ‘Teflonize’ brands and brand management has morphed into brand spin.
Anyone who watches TV knows that Toyota is spending a million dollars a day improving quality and, hopefully, fixing a culture that lost its way.
Then there is BP and its so-so-sincere promise to stay in the Gulf until they make it right—yeah, sure. Business Week offers an excellent view on the impact of the spill long before the oil even got near the shore.
Then there is the most Teflonized brand in the world, the Catholic Church, which I wrote about from the perspective of leader vs. manager a few months ago. The oldest and richest organization on the planet seems to be impervious—a true master of spin brand management. After all, what other brand could withstand the global sex scandals that are rocking the world and still see revenues (donations) increase since January 2010?
The purpose of brand management is to keep a positive image in the public eye, no matter how egregious the actions involved.
This is more easily accomplished than you would think, given the vast majority of the public has a short attention span, poor memory, a greedy nature—Louisiana already wants to resume off-shore drilling—and that’s when they are paying attention.
The question, then, is who will win?
The Teflon brands or us?
Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shalabhpandey/4117173190/
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