This was the latest from 'GM Media Online' to registered auto journalists(Includes me!)
Saab Sale Cannot Be Concluded
Brand to be Wound Down
2009-12-18
Detroit. General Motors announced today that the intended sale of Saab Automobile AB would not be concluded. After the withdrawal of Koenigsegg Group AB last month, GM had been in discussions with Spyker Cars about its interest in acquiring Saab. During the due diligence, certain issues arose that both parties believe could not be resolved. As a result, GM will start an orderly wind-down of Saab operations.
GM, I am not just telling BUT yelling at you!
You are turning out to be the 'renowned pro of killing brands.'
This is becoming the latest story of a serial killer.
Serial killer From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: A serial killer is a person who murders three or more people over a period of more than thirty days, with a "cooling off" period between each murder, and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.
Since your bankruptcy of July,2009 you have been practising restructuring and we are trying our best to capture the things you have been doing right and praising you at every chance we get. This is why i started a Blog named "The New GM"; expecting great things to happen as I feel attached to the brand and ready to get involved in keeping it from harm's way. This is what GM brand means to me; pure & simple. And I am certain that there is a whole big crowd out there who feel the same way or similar. This, in terms of today's marketing concepts, boils down to BRAND OWNERSHIP.
Each and every attempt you make to harm MY BRAND is hurting me(and many,many others); i am constantly feeling that MY BRAND is insecure, mismanaged, losing value, and much much more. I am losing my trust in you GM. Can you understand what i am saying? It all comes down to TRUST of the consumer; an asset you are striving to regain lately by introducing new and great products, reshaping your management, giving clear and bold messages to existing and potential customers, spending millions in advertising. This is the one side of the moon which i love looking at. The dark side of the moon is how you are handling your brands, which you may think that they are yours, NO my brands.
You killed my Oldsmobile and now calling that history BUT i got hurt. İ am the one who is still trying to burry it but can't. Then it was the Pontiac before my mourning for Olds was even rectified. AND you didn't stop there; you killed Saturn, threw dirt on Hummer and NOW SAAB is attached to the respiratory unit in the intensive care before passing away shortly.
GM, this is malpractice. No doctor doing this to patients, no commander doing this to his/her soldiers, no company doing this to OUR BRANDS will survive. You can be there ONLY if we are still here. We are making plans to leave GENERAL. Please wake up! Get your act together and QUIT messing around with OUR brands. One more move and you lose all the trust.
AND you can't perceive any of what i am saying here and this is saddest part of all.
Pontiac you killed was 92 years old. Oldsmobile was 107 years old. SAAB is 60(excluding the aircraft part) years old, Saturn (
click to lead to website) only 23 years old. Saturn was YOUR BABY. You delivered it BUT we were there to nurse/feed it and help it to grow and become an 'useful' adult! Here is what you are still showing US as if you intend to feed your bad conscience:
Let's focus on the first 2 frames to further clarify our message to you GM:
That was US, applauding in that picture back in 1983. Do you get it; GM? You must remove this page as you don't deserve to show it off anymore.
Your malpractice with our brands are only creating your own Arlington(never to show disrespect but only to lay out a metaphor) but this one not for the heroes but our brands; G-MIRLINGTON.
Now, picturing the gravestone case for SAAB,due shortly as it seems, let's dwell on the issue a bit.
What i have been trying to say here is, simply put,
"GM!!! Don't Touch My Brand without my prior consent."
with the logical reasoning that I own the brand.
The back-ground of my reasoning:
BRAND OWNERSHIP
Brand Ownership: The First Five Steps.
First: Stop dreaming and do.
Second: Stop complaining and create.
Third: Stop wishing for a solution and be the solution.
Fourth: Stop hoping for more money and find your version of resourcefulness.
Fifth: Stop thinking you’re “all that” and be who you are gifted to be.
GM needs to spend more time re-evaluating the 4th and 5th steps which i had taken to own SAAB brand!.
A brand is a distinguishing name and/or symbol intended to identify a product or producer.
Some people distinguish the psychological aspect of a brand from the experiential aspect. The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is known as the brand experience. The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people and consists of all the information and expectations associated with a product or service.
People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand is therefore one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management. Orientation of the whole organization towards its brand is called integrated
marketing.
A brand which is widely known in the marketplace acquires brand recognition. When brand recognition builds up to a point where a brand enjoys a critical mass of positive sentiment in the marketplace, it is said to have achieved brand franchise. One goal in brand recognition is the identification of a brand without the name of the company present. For example, Disney has been successful at branding with their particular script font (originally created for Walt Disney's "signature" logo), which it used in the logo for
go.com.
Brand name
The brand name is quite often used interchangeably within "brand", although it is more correctly used to specifically denote written or spoken linguistic elements of any product. In this context a "brand name" constitutes a type of trademark, if the brand name exclusively identifies the brand owner as the commercial source of products or services.
A brand owner may seek to protect proprietary rights in relation to a brand name through trademark registration. Advertising spokespersons have also become part of some brands, for example:
Mr. Whipple of Charmin toilet tissue and Tony the Tiger of Kellogg's.
What good is the brand showing on a chair , wall clock, lighter, watch or a stool
if our perception doesn't reach beyond those objects, to the brand itself
Brand identity
A product identity, or brand image are typically the attributes one associates with a brand, how the brand owner wants the consumer to perceive the brand - and by extension the branded company, organization, product or service. The brand owner will seek to bridge the gap between the brand image and the brand identity. Effective brand names build a connection between the brand personality as it is perceived by the target audience and the actual product/service.
A perception: Cadillac in 2035
Brand parity
Brand parity is the perception of the customers that all brands are equivalent.[8]
Company name
Often, especially in the industrial sector, it is just the company's name which is promoted (leading to one of the most powerful statements of "branding"; the saying, before the company's downgrading, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM").
In this case a very strong brand name (or company name) is made the vehicle for a range of products (for example, Mercedes-Benz or Black & Decker) or even a range of subsidiary brands (such as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Cadbury Flake or Cadbury Fingers in the United States).
"A great brand raises the bar -- it adds a greater sense of purpose to the experience, whether it's the challenge to do your best in sports and fitness, or the affirmation that the cup of coffee you're drinking really matters." - Howard Schultz (president, CEO, and chairman of Starbucks)
Brand Management; this is what GM Management must be stuck with and not a bit of the rest.
Brand management
Brand management is the application of marketing techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand. It seeks to increase the product's perceived value to the customer and thereby increase brand franchise and brand equity. Marketers see a brand as an implied promise that the level of quality people have come to expect from a brand will continue with future purchases of the same product. This may increase sales by making a comparison with competing products more favorable. It may also enable the manufacturer to charge more for the product. The value of the brand is determined by the amount of profit it generates for the manufacturer.
I can hear GM echoing what it says in the above paragraph BUT it is only the tiny bit within the whole of the context we are discussing right here.
Further, let's look at what CORPORATIONS are for:
GM's Rencen, castle of BRAND misperceptions.
Eminent Canadian law professor and legal theorist Joel Bakan contends the modern business corporation is created by law to function like a psychopathic personality.
Beginning with its origins in the sixteenth century, Bakan traces the corporation's rise to dominance. Simon and Schuster: “the most revolutionary assessment of the corporation since Peter Drucker's early works,” THE CORPORATION makes the following claims:
•
Corporations are required by law to elevate their own interests above those of others, making them prone to prey upon and exploit others without regard for legal rules or moral limits.• Corporate social responsibility, though sometimes yielding positive results, most often serves to mask the corporation's true character, not to change it.
• The corporation's unbridled self interest victimizes individuals, the environment, and even shareholders, and can cause corporations to self-destruct, as recent Wall Street scandals reveal.
• Despite its flawed character, governments have freed the corporation from legal constraints through deregulation, and granted it ever greater power over society through privatization.
Bakan urges restoration of the corporation's original purpose, to serve the public interest, and calls for re-establishment of democratic control over the institution. Concrete, pragmatic, and realistic reforms are proposed.
I agree with that. AND my democratic reflex is to stop GM from killing MY BRANDS.
There are people who disagree with what i kept saying up to this point.
What would you say to this? Quoted from Andrew Harrison's article posted to
Marketing Week(UK):
19 November 2009 | By Andrew Harrison
No matter how important customers are, marketers need to remember that the true brand owners are company shareholders.
Consumer engagement is not brand ownership.
So, don’t confuse ownership of your brand with consumer engagement with certain media channels. You formulate the product, you design the packaging, you agree the brand name, you sell-in the distribution, you set the pricing and you decide the marketing campaign. Lazy marketers can let consumers with crayons colour in the next pack design but these are one-night stands not a long-term change in the relationship between brand owner and brand user. Let your consumer enjoy your brand message in the chatroom or the pub, but make sure he or she buys your product time and again in the real world.
Ownership drives responsibility. Brand management means managing not abdicating.
I do not comprehend how he says that and neither do i agree with the most of it.
Here is another view quoted from
Nick-Rice.com:
Brand ownership
I wanted to pass on some lessons I found on the “Own Your Brand!” blog:
The brand ownership lessons:
Brands are not made in a day. Stop asking your ad agency to crank one out for you.
However, brands ARE made one day at a time – like reputations. Find your “intentionality gene” and activate it.
Brands don’t turn on a dime, but they do in time. What took time to create, will take time to re-create.
The context was the brand perception issues that GM is facing. Most people still think of them as builders of inferior cars. Right or wrong that’s the prevailing thought. They have put a lot of thought & money into re-becoming a premier brand worldwide. It is a long process.
And it happens one interaction at a time, one new product at a time, and one ad at a time.
You cannot change your brand perception without careful thought and planning (or designing) the experience. Design is about more than fonts and colors; it’s a thought process that considers customer needs, your unique elements, the marketplace, your visual equity, and your objectives.
Agree 100%...
Join Carlos Mandelbaum as he explores the revolutionary idea
that it's consumers, and not companies, who own brands. @ ' Carnival Of Ideas'
Brand Ownership
Most people don’t know this. It’s no secret, but something company executives don’t seem to listen to.
You do not own your brand.
No one person owns a brand. Ownership of a brand, its definition and its perception lies primarily with the customers and public that consume or worship it.
You cannot regain control of your brand. You can guide and pilot it. If you dare change it, you should hope like hell that the brand holders are ok with the new changes. You should think of your brand like an apartment. You can’t make any changes without the owner’s approval.
If you think I’m wrong, take a look at history.
One of the biggest rebranding flops of modern times involves “New Coke.” For the young and uninitiated: Coca Cola decided that they were tired of being beat by Pepsi in taste tests. In order to compete with them, they formulated a new taste of Coke, rebranded it “New Coke” and trudged ahead, pleased with themselves.
Coke found out the hard way what a bad idea this was. Coke’s customer base was furious. They derided the new taste and the whole experiment cost the company in the short term. They had the insight to change it back before too long.
This little folly illustrates quite a few things about brands. Chances are, if they quietly changed the formula few would have noticed. By rebranding they essentially shouted the change and alienated their base.
My final wording:
GM, don't touch my brand. The brand owner is ultimately responsible; Period./MT
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