#brandmanifold

[jonaspcv]

Applying the brand manifold to Salvadoran tourism

This week, without the benefit of a case for which we could provide our very best ex post rationalizations and critiques, I’ve decided to take a different approach. When I spent roughly a year in El Salvadoran working alongside the US government and the Interamerican Development Bank to develop a regional tourism development strategy for northwest El Salvador, I recognized that my task was perhaps less about gimmicks, promotions, and the mass marketing for which they had initially contracted me and more about defining a brand. While the article on brand architecture was interesting, it felt less immediately relevant than that on brand manifold; as a potentially compelling exercise, I’ve decided to apply the brand manifold framework to analyze my own previous professional experience.

To provide a little bit of color and context for the underlying theory: brand manifold refers to the multidimensionality of brands in terms of both time and constituencies - at its core, this means that brands are dynamic and evolve over time, and brands are the aggregation and approximation of many different stakeholders’ own perceptions (termed “embodied value”).

The challenge I faced in El Salvador was not that no brand existed - they had worked with the Ministry of Tourism to create the Ruta Fresca, loosely “Fresh Air Trail”, prior to my arrival - but that the community leaders and regional tourism authorities were wed to the antiquated idea that advertising was the lynchpin of any successful strategy moving forward. What follows is an assessment of the Ruta Fresca brand, based on various benchmarks referenced in this week’s reading:

Brand communications: moderate. There was an intense focus on advertising and promotions through newspapers, television media, and radio; however, this was guided by serious marketing myopia - narrow definitions of business based on what specific services the association provided. The quality of external communications often lacked professionalism as much as tailoring to desired segments, and for months it appeared that internal communications were themselves not terribly cogent regarding the vision for their brand.

Brand embodiments: moderate. Those that opted to visit the Ruta Fresca often handily enjoyed their experience, while other segments complained that they weren’t sure else what there was to do. Customer service was fairly high, which led to a sense that expectations (including those developed by brand communications) were met or exceeded upon visiting.

Brand equity, financial: weak. With many tourism operators treating their hotels and inns more as part-time hobbies than real work, occupancy rates and resultant cash flows for each business were low. Thus, if you were to sell all the assets that collectively comprised the Ruta Fresca, it is likely that it would not fetch much more than the market value of the physical assets themselves.

Brand equity, behavioral: weak. As determined by surveys and interviews (formal/informal), customers did not see the Ruta Fresca brand as being something remarkable; rather, people visited different destinations within the Ruta Fresca - like El Pital Mountain - because it had an intrinsic tourism value itself and happened to be co-located within the region. 

Embodied value: weak. While many leaders in the association could articulate what products and services they offered and the unique value of their own establishments, few could broadly identify what the Ruta Fresca stood for - even with, or despite, the existence of an overly inclusive, 7-line mission statement.

Exchange value, customer: medium-low. The Ruta Fresca brand, with some individual exceptions (including 2-4 higher end hotels) was fairly accessible/affordable to the average domestic (and particularly international) traveler.

Exchange value, management: medium-high. If we assume that affordability/pricing is a key lever in generating a broader base of consumers, then we can say that Ruta Fresca - with a wide variety of lodging and dining options, many of which were in fact affordable - had a competitive exchange value.

Exchange value typology: commodity-mass market. While company equity is relatively strong, customer equity is relatively weak. Compared to other tourism destinations in El Salvador - or even worse, compared to other tourism destinations throughout Central America, including neighboring Guatemala and nearby Costa Rica - the Ruta Fresca destination was not something for which most customers would pay a heavy price premium.

Brand manifold, temporal factors: moderate. In the town of La Palma, there was an incredible history involving the country’s most famous art, the recent civil war, and a strong cultural identity that could be (and often attempted to be) leveraged for the benefit of a brand identity. However, what efforts the regional tourism association had made were almost exclusively to define a static brand rather than to “reinterpret the past in terms of the future, or in a complementary manner, to interpret the future in terms of the past.”

Brand manifold, multiple constituencies: weak. The leaders and tourism operators of the Ruta Fresca had only ever conceptualized the brand as being something it was responsible for defining, curating, and communicating to consumers, but did not take an expansive view of what other organizations (including the IDB, the Ministry of Tourism, other domestic tourism destinations, investors, employees, and local residents) might believe about what the brand was or should be. Given aforementioned challenges associated with a lack of a cogent vision from management (see “Embodied value” above), this meant that the brand was fragmented and inconsistent, destining itself to its commodity-mass market position for the foreseeable future.

[aeburns-blog]

Are some brands immune to brand manifold?

Brand manifold describes how brand value is unavoidably dependent upon context, including people, place, past perception and future vision. While it is hard to deny the assertion that brands are “evolving” symbols that are constantly negotiated between stakeholders, such as companies and consumers, it is also important to consider brands that strive to be consistent across context.

This summer I interned in product operations at Apple, and specifically worked on the iPhone team. I was drawn to this role in part due to the functional opportunity, but also due to the brand equity I had ascribed to Apple as a consumer myself (an example that employees, as well as consumers, can be important co-creators of brand equity). I was, and remain, fascinated by Apple’s product and marketing strategy (which are closely intertwined). As a company that offers famously few products, Apple strives for simplicity both in design and user experience. Aside from certain accessories such as iPhone cases (which are also limited in SKU), there is very little variation or customization of Apple products. In addition to offering little variety, Apple does very little in the way of market research when launching new products. While some brands speak extensively to consumers before releasing a new product or feature, Apple instead relishes on “surprising and delighting” consumers by offering consumers with technology that had not yet known they needed. By both offering limited product variety and excluding consumers from market research to inform new product development, Apple seems to “prescribe” to customers, rather than “negotiate” its brand story.

It is important to note that Apple’s brand is based upon both its hardware (which has become iconic) as well as its software. Both aspects contribute to Apple’s brand identity and how consumers engage with Apple as a company and its products. Given its more rapid development cycle, it is possible that Apple’s software is more responsive to customer needs than prescriptive, and thus, in this way Apple does include consumer feedback and needs when developing new features or software updates. That said, Apple products are the same throughout the world. Largely, Apple’s advertising is consistent globally, and its marketing efforts (spanning everything from print to in-store) convey a consistency that evokes the quality and iconic nature of the company.

Thus, does brand manifold apply to a company such as Apple, that appears to be ubiquitous and uniformly experienced across the globe? Does Apple negotiate and constantly evolve its brand, or does it prescribe to consumers what products they need and how they should use them? In other words, is Apple’s brand equity irrespective of context?

While Apple has become one of the most highly valued brands in the world, I would argue that Apple is not immune to brand manifold, and that it is becoming increasingly important for Apple to be attune to the contextual forces that shape its brand identity. Though simple and unvaried, Apple products provide consumers with technological tools to express their own unique identity. Therefore, Apple’s internal brand message in terms of “meaning embodied by products and employees” may not always match the company’s external brand meaning, as individuals’ experience with Apple products can be highly varied and unique. That is to say, though the products themselves are not customized, how people use and engage with Apple products can be highly individualized, and is an important factor in shaping Apple’s brand equity.

Despite Apple’s rise to the top rungs of brand equity and market capitalization, the Apple brand is not immortal. Brand manifold “helps managers understand that a brand’s impact varies according to who is valuing it, in what context and at what time.” For Apple, the element of “time” is increasingly important when considering how the company must evolve its brand strategy. Increasing competition, changing consumer tastes and the threat of commoditization due to the ubiquity of its products threaten Apple’s identity as an “iconic” and innovative brand. As a prescriptive brand, Apple has educated consumers to expect new and exciting products from Apple, and if the company cannot deliver on this innovation, its brand equity will be seriously eroded. Additionally, as consumers and in particular millennials expect increasing individualization and personalization of experience, Apple must evaluate whether its limited product range will continue to sustain the company and its image going into the future.

No brand exists in isolation, and as brand manifold makes clear, companies must embrace external and internal factors that influence brand identity and value. Perhaps it is time for Apple to be less prescriptive and more receptive to consumer influences when introducing new products and developing marketing messages and experiences for consumer. If not, Apple risks losing its relevance and therefore value among its many stakeholders – including consumers, investors, suppliers, and employees.

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[nomadofsteppe]

Brand manifold is more complex than brand managers may think

Brand manifold or the art of adapting, changing the brand your customers are accustomed for. For example, one of the fun examples at the try to change the logo of GAP which they tried to do in 2010 with no warning out of blue and had to change it back to the original version literally in less than 6 days as the response was so bad from the consumers and design community on the new brand logo. Brand rebrand costed them around $100 million. Another example is Colgate that tried to extend their brand into food products calling themselves a Colgate Kithcen Entrees. It failed miserably as in consumers mind Colgate does not necessarily associate with the tasty food though the idea of brushing the teeth after eating the food makes sense. But mostly to the company itself than the consumer. There are many examples like that when companies try to use, change or extend their brands into something that may coincide with the internal brand meaning but does not coincides with the brand external meaning. Which leads to the question that in many respects no company or a manager can truly control their brand image as brand(s) live their own lives in the eyes of the consumers. Especially in today's world where power lies with the consumers in molding their perception, interacting and accepting the brand-products. It is definitely getting harder for companies and their relative brand managers to instrument brand manifold in a consistent way that does not destroy the profits and damage brand reputation.

[jessicalearns-blog]

The brand manifold considers multiple dimensions - (1) multiple constituencies and, (2) meanings that evolve over time.

Based on the brand manifold concept presented presented in the article, “Viewing Brands in Multiple Dimensions,” Starbucks considered both their past brand meanings as well as future brand meanings. Starbucks wanted a “new logo and visual identity system to say as much about its future as it did about its past.”

In 2008, Starbucks made changes to their logo that did not take into account the meaning of their brand as embodied by their customers and the public. “They inexplicably attempted to reimagine the original 1971 logo, possibly to appeal to the new hipster movement. The rebrand attempt failed with both designers and the public at large. The green logo, cups, and branding had become so familiar to the public that attempting a large, significant change like this was doomed from the start.” In comparing the hipster coffee movement (i.e. single origin, pour-over, artisanal coffee beans, indigenous flavors) and Starbucks coffee (i.e. overroasting their mass-market beans), the disconnect in perception, both internally and externally, can explain the failed 2008 logo from the past.

[merverg]

The brand manifold structure reminded me of Concha y Toro case, and the Chilean wines, and how they, as a brand, had multiple constituencies and evolving meanings over time. Their past brand meanings had affected its current position in the global market as being the cheap and not so high quality wine; however Chile has been trying to create a new brand meaning that is consistent with its internal brand meaning. If I were to locate the French and Chilean wines, the French would be typifying the external anchoring (lower right), whereas Chilean would be exemplifying the internal evolution (upper left) as its quality is mostly known by the wine makers in Chile.