Tag Archives: Behavior

Brand Promise, Perception

Credibility is lost when you do not live up to what you stand for

When you repeatedly go against your mission and values, you lose credibility, and your position is in danger. The audience will start to drift – first, slowly towards other platforms. Drifting will accelerate once a critical mass through worth of mouth is reached. Then there is no way back. 

Brands are like people.

If you for example do not like how a friend behaves, you can simply decide to no longer hang out with your friend. The same goes for brands. If a brand behaves terribly, you can decide to stop engaging, buying, or using that particular brand.

It gets tricky when your friend says that living according to noble values is essential and even points the noble way of living out to others. It comes then as an unpleasant surprise when you learn that your friend is everything but living up those dearly hold and communicated values. We get confused because the friend’s behavior does not match the perception we have about the person. The person is no longer credible.  If the friendship continues, it will be an unhealthy one based on disbelief and issues with trust. If a brand stops living the values, the same reaction of disbelief and distrust appears. And over time, we will look for alternatives.

Today I encountered a trust issue with YouTube, the brand that has brought video sharing to the masses. YouTube helped to accelerate the growth of humans by bringing immense knowledge to the fingertips of everyone.

Already for some time, YouTube is actively censoring freedom of speech by removing videos or channels about medical information, science, scientists, specific news channels, or simply videos containing an opinion (how scientific it might be) that is going against a set of guidelines, therefore stopping the debate and opportunity for humans to learn.

Earlier this morning, I decided to take a look at the About YouTube page (link, archive ) to understand what the company is all about and the brand credibility with me.

The first thing you encounter on the about page is a clear mission statement. Unfortunately, YouTube is actually actively going against their own mission. For YouTube not everyone is the same, some deserve to  have a voice, while others unfortunately do not.

When we look at the values we see a similar pattern.

The Freedom of Expression is striking:

We believe people should be able to speak freely, share opinions, foster open dialogue, and that creative freedom leads to new voices, formats and possibilities.

If YouTube in the last year has shown one thing it is that it is not a real advocate of Freedom of Expression.

I have therefore one simple question for YouTube:

—-
Dear YouTube,

You have given me a lot of opportunities to enrich my knowledge on virtually any topic. I thank you for that.

Unfortunately, I am distrusting you and as your friend I see two options going forward:

  1. You live up to your values,
  2. You update the values to reflect your behaviour.

Either way is acceptable because strong brands provide clarity regarding what they stand for and consistency in execution using company values as a steering compass. Only this way, they remain credible.

Make your choice.

—-

Photo by Adam Fejes from Pexels

Perception

Marimekko, do not buy the rights!

After Kristina Isola acknowledged the plagiarism of a design, it has been very interesting to see the various reactions of Marimekko, media, marketing and branding professionals. However, the most important and defining factor for the Marimekko brand going forward has been left out: managing the associations that consumers have with the brand Marimekko.

In the end, brands are merely associations in the minds of consumers. For example, Coca-Cola is associated with the real Cola drink and Snickers is associated with a peanut candy bar. Brand associations are very difficult to change. That is, until something disastrous happens and the brand owner does not deal with it properly. We have seen that happening to BP after the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010. The share price has still not recovered.

For Marimekko, the most important thing should be to ensure that consumers do not change their brand association. For example, if a consumer believed before that Marimekko equals “iconic Finnish fabric design”, Marimekko should do everything it can to avoid a change of association to “iconic Finnish fabric design and possible copies”.

The decision of the company to buy the rights to designs of Maria Pryimachenko will only give more opportunities for consumers to change the brand association. Why? Because it allows the discussion to continue and most importantly, it gives a constant physical reminder of the copy scandal. The continuous opportunity for consumers to change their brand associations is very harmful and can even be fatal for a brand.

If you are convinced that buying the rights to the designs of Maria Pryimachenko is the best thing to do, I invite you to go to a Marimekko shop and imagine you see those designs. Then be really honest with yourself: what do you think and feel about Marimekko? Has it changed? How?

What could Marimekko have done to ensure that consumers would have little opportunity to change their brand associations? They should have started with a different outcome in mind: a zero change in the brand association. As a result, the company should have been very firm and confident with consumers and media.

Don’t fight the facts, but deal with them. Don’t wait and see, but act. Don’t blame, don’t dismiss but take full responsibility and publicly end the relationship with Kristina Isola. By not distancing itself strongly from her, Marimekko indirectly indicates that ‘it is not a big deal’. From the moment this crisis started Marimekko should have followed its corporate value “fairness to everyone and everything” and actively reached out to the copyright holders.

When all of the above happens in an open and transparent way, a way that consumers can come to terms with and think ‘I understand and I would have done that too’, the brand is OK and brand associations have little opportunity to change.

This post appeared in Markkinointi & Mainonta