How legacy brands are reenergized, and what libraries can learn from them
By Tom Storey
It was December 2002 when one of the world’s most
beloved restaurant companies, which brought fast-food
branding to an art form, was losing its edge to
new options, intense competition and changing
consumer tastes.
In 1999, a cable TV giant with one of the industry’s
most recognized and respected brands suddenly looked
outdated compared to an emerging new set of shows
becoming known as “reality TV.”
In the early 1990s, the world’s dominant technology
company known as a mainframe computer provider
began to lose luster to a new set of computing solutions
called personal computing.
McDonald’s. Discovery Channel. IBM. Three different
companies. Three different industries. One common
problem: one of their most valuable assets, their brand,
was losing relevance in a rapidly changing environment.
These are strong, well-funded and well-run companies
that found themselves losing ground to new, smaller
entrants. Structural changes were remaking their markets,
and these structural changes were shifting the value of
their brand.
 What is a brand?
A brand is an idea or word that resides in the mind of
the consumer. Brands are not tangible assets that a
company owns. Companies and organizations own
products and trademarks, which are registered as
property in various countries around the world. But
companies don’t own a brand. Brands exist solely in the
mind of consumers.
Brands are perceptions. The Volvo brand is “safety.”
The Mercedes Benz brand means “prestige.” Hush
Puppies means “comfort.”
The power or value of a brand to an organization lies in
its ability to influence consumer behavior. Strong brands drive greater user understanding, adoption and repeat
use of products and services. It’s the job of marketing to
establish, nurture and promote a desired brand image
with the hope of creating an enduring perception in the
mind of the consumer.
What is the value of the brand to the consumer?
Marketing experts contend that strong brands create
value to consumers by speeding product/service
evaluations and comparisons, therefore reducing
purchasing costs. When consumers understand a brand,
they do not have to undertake extensive product
investigation or research to determine a product’s likely
performance. From an economic point of view, brands
allow consumers to lower search costs as they already
know a lot about the brand—its quality, traditional product
characteristics, etc.—that can allow them to form
reasonable expectations about what they may not know
about the brand or related company products. Brands
drive efficiency and often, market share.
When to reinvent a brand?
Reinventing or repositioning a brand involves
marketing activities designed to give an existing
company, product or service a new position in customers’
minds in an attempt to change a product or company’s
market potential.
Most marketing experts believe that repositioning a
successful brand may be the single hardest, and
potentially most expensive, marketing exercise. For the
very reasons a brand is successful—clarity of value,
familiarity, predictability—attempting to reposition the
value in the mind of the consumer can be difficult. How
can a product be once “superior quality” and now “standard”? How can a product be “durable” and now “disposable”? Changing brand attributes can be risky if
not done correctly and infrequently.
So when is the right time to
reenergize or rebuild a brand?
Brand repositioning decisions are often triggered
when a significant market shift occurs that makes it
possible for alternative solutions to create value in new
ways that are incongruent with a company’s brand. Often,
changing social, economic or technical trends cause
brands to lose appeal, making it critical for a company to
review the long-term potential of the current brand value.
Sometimes radical transformation is needed (for
example, if the market for your brand is shrinking
permanently). Other times a slow, steady brand migration
process might be more effective. Either way, over time,
brand evolution is essential in order for brands to flourish
rather than just survive.
Even in times of relative market stability, an effective
rebranding effort can reaffirm the loyalty of existing
customers while helping to attract new ones, enabling a
brand to reemerge with a new presence, a riveting
promise and a fresh approach.
What it means to libraries
Rebranding, or repositioning a brand, is an issue that
every successful organization eventually faces. It is not
confined to for-profit companies. It is a reality for every
organization that delivers a service or provides a product.
Organizations exist to provide value. If that value is no longer perceived to be in sync with
the consumers’ needs, the perceived value of the organization, and its brand, will be minimized.
Significant market shifts have transformed consumer
choice and preferences about information
creation and access. New technologies create opportunities to deliver
products and services to library users and scholars
across the globe.
A recent OCLC report, Perceptions of Libraries and
Information Resources, measured
library users’ awareness, usage and perceptions of today’s
electronic resources and library. The results
provide a compelling picture of the current “library” brand.
Conducted to help librarians better understand the role they
play in today’s information search process, the data point out a
disconnect between the resources of today’s libraries and
the perceptions held by users. While many
libraries provide rich offerings in electronic content and
create virtual, real-time access via the
Web, most library users are unaware of these services.
Data gathered through an online survey of information
consumers in the United States, Canada, the United
Kingdom, Australia, Singapore and India show that the
majority of library users now start—and often conclude—
their information searches via
Internet search engines. The data indicate that
users are satisfied with these new, Internet-based
information services, believing them to be
fast and accurate, and that they provide quality information and fit
their lifestyles.
While libraries are clearly still seen as trusted sources of
information, many respondents also indicated that search
engines have also become trusted sources of information.
The survey identifies a brand challenge—that the library is no longer unique as a “trusted resource for information.”
When asked directly about their perceptions of today’s
library brand, about 70 percent of respondents indicated
that their first association with libraries is “books.”
As one 41-year-old Canadian responder put it, “Books,
books, books, rows and rows of books, stacks of books,
tables filled with books, people holding books, people
checking out books. Libraries are all about books. That is
what I think and that is what I will always think.”
Or as stated by a responder in Australia, “Books, beautiful
books, wonderful books, books, books, books, books.”
As information consumers gain more and more access
to information from a growing number of sources, in a
variety of formats, packages and contexts, can the library be comfortable with its current brand
image as a provider of “only books”?
Is it time to revitalize the library brand? What should libraries do?
Jennifer Rice, Principal at Mantra Brand Consulting, believes libraries have image-changing work to do. “Put very simply, your brand is your reputation. You build your reputation by giving your patrons a desirable experience they can’t get elsewhere. In your neighborhood, ‘desirable’ might be free computer access, kids’ reading programs, book clubs, small-business resources or ‘meet the author’ events. A library is where information and community converge; it’s the ultimate marriage of Google and Starbucks. Think bigger than books and information; think in terms of the experiences your patrons value.”
Chris Olson, of Chris Olson & Associates, a consulting
firm that has been building and nurturing library brands for
21 years, puts it this way. “If libraries want to break out of
the traditional library pigeonhole and successfully
compete with self-service Internet competitors, a
branding program is the ticket for repositioning services.”
Changing the library’s image in the marketplace, however, must start with changing librarians’ perceptions. That means adjusting the librarianship culture and operations before persuading consumers that libraries have been reborn.
Sources
Cabell, A.K. “Are We Still Lovin’ It?” Dec. 2003
URL: http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=190
Gray, Steven. “McDonald’s Plans to Sell Part of Chipotle in an IPO Next Year.” The
Wall Street Journal. 22 Sept. 2005. C4.
Haley, Kathy. “A two-decade march to the forefront of the cable world.” Advertising
Age. 4 April 2005: C1.
Hall, Lee. “The building of a great brand.” Advertising Age. 4 April 2005. C14.
Gerstner, Jr., Louis V. Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? Inside IBM’s Historic
Turnaround. HarperCollins, 2002.
MacArthur, Kate. “The Marketing Legacy of McDonald’s.” Advertising Age. 25 July
2005. s-1.
Ries, Al and Laura. The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. New York:
HarperCollins, 1998.
Ries, Al and Laura. “Questions & Answers on The Origin of Brands.” Oct. 2004.
URL: http://www.ries.com/Articles/index.cfm?Page=allaura
Keller, Kevin Lane. Strategic Brand Management Building, Measuring, and
Managing Brand Equity. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1998.
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