In case you haven’t already been shocked by the treatment of employees in Sean Kelly’s Franchisees from Hell post, listen to this: the owners of Pizza Time in Lacey, WA have made their employees work without heating in the middle of winter after one of the company’s furnaces was left on overnight.
The franchisee’s response:“If you don’t want to work here quit, otherwise shut up and do your job. The next person I hear complaining is off for two weeks. We don’t have heat!! You guys screwed up, not us. You want to blame someone, look in the mirror.”
The company’s response: …
The community’s response: We don’t want your pizza anymore.
This brand is in trouble - but it created these problems a long time ago.
Lacey is a small community, and once businesses get a bad reputation they’re done. Word has also spread beyond Lacey through the news and the blogosphere, tarring the reputation of Pizza Time’s other branches.
But wait, you say, wasn’t it only the owners of the Lacey store that were acting dubiously?
No - this incident shows much deeper problems. It shows that the corporate headquarters of Pizza Time have not set down any policies on basic treatment of employees (or on PR for that matter). Their lack of response to the situation shows that they won’t step in when their franchisees are in trouble or are causing damage to the brand.
A company’s identity is one of the strongest parts of its brand. What does it say about a company if its employees hate it? Is it smart to make the people who are the face of your brand hate it?
Remove, Rebrand, Reform or..?
Pizza Time has a few options…
Remove the troublesome elements and try to keep it quiet. This is what the company HAS done, and many others have tried previously. However, this doesn’t work, especially today when negative word of mouth travels like wildfire.
Rebrand the company and hope that everyone forgets. Not a good way to treat your customers, and also expensive, but a rebrand with revised company policies could be something to think about in the future.
Reform the company - quickly issue an apology, compensate the employees and show that the company is actively working on solving the problem. This would be the smartest course of action for Pizza Time to take, like Nike did with their child labour scandal.
It’s difficult to turn a problem into an advantage, but another course of action is to do just that. Arizona’s ‘Heart Attack Cafe‘ has turned the health issues in burgers, usually considered a disadvantage, into their main selling point. Minus 5 has made its fortune operating bars made out of ice.
By reforming with a sense of humour and a bit of rebranding, Pizza Time could come out of this strongly - the name ‘Penguin Pizza’ comes to mind. They could start raising money for polar bears. Come out with a line of icecream pizzas.
But most importantly, they need to make it clear that they are going to deal with the problem or their reputation will suffer even further.
This video by Simple shoes takes it back to basics. They’ve obviously spent a lot of time on R&D in pursuit of their brand values. Taking us through their product features in a straightforward, humourous way would make a huge impression on someone who is looking for an eco-friendly loafer.
Likewise, do you know the history of Asics? Onitsuka Tiger? Do you know how they test their products?
Presenting the history of the company with origami makes it engaging, while a thorough description of their development facilities makes the viewer re-evaluate what they know about their current pair of shoes.
It’s a new year and it’s time to get back to basics.
Take this ad for example:
The moment I saw this news service ad I got the message: “You see 10% of the picture. We’ll give you all of it.”
Two basic lessons can be gained from this.
Firstly, the right picture will say your message faster, more intuitively and sometimes more effectively than a tagline.
Secondly, like an iceberg, in branding what you actually see is only about 10% of the message. What’s more important is what is evoked. Fonts we’ve seen before, cultural references, the meaning behind colours, the context we view it in - these all contribute to a message. You need the whole iceberg in mind to create the 10% that is seen.
The first of January ticking over may not mean much except a return to work from the holiday season, but it’s always a good time to re-evaluate.
So I want to ask…
What are your brand’s resolutions for the New Year?
2009 is tipped to be tough. Recessions have been announced across the world. The retail sector is expecting a hard hit this year, if the sales around Christmas are anything to go by.
This is the time that the strong brands are going to emerge.
Sure, branding can’t save names like Lehmann Brothers, no matter what their brand equity was previously. But we’re starting to see that brands which have stronger relationships with their customers are doing better in econonic downturn.
Alcohol is one product which always maintains consumption levels in a recession, but this holiday season saw a consumer shift from larger wine retailers to the smaller wineries - brands which were known and interact with their customers.
What kind of relationship do YOU have with your customers?
Are they going to stick with you through thick and thin?
MUJI, meaning ‘plain’, sells clothes, stationery, food and homewares. If you have ever been into an outlet, you will find minimal decoration, bright lighting, and products which at first glance look generic - no logos, plain packaging and simple design. The company rarely advertises and all you will see in their window is their logo and the store behind it. It is a neutral brand, about as non-brand as you can get.
However, MUJI has taken off, spreading to Korea, Taiwan, the UK, US, France and Germany. How?
A belated Merry Christmas and an early happy new year!
Just got back to the keyboard from a hiatus travelling Europe - it’s been very eye-opening and I’ll have plenty more insights to share with you.
In the meantime though, I hope you’re enjoying the break and indulging in those Christmas-time specials - like Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash. Feedback from our post on the drink earlier this year has shown that most people are keen to see the drink become available all year round.
However, I pose you this question….
If Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash became available all the time, would you still like it and miss it as much as you do?
Some of the best lessons you can learn come from just observing what’s around you.
I’m in the Czech Republic - a country well known for its beer, architecture and often misunderstood inhabitants. Indeed, the beer is good, the city beautiful and its residents difficult for me to understand (although speaking Czech would help).
So what branding lessons am I hoping to learn?
Well, one thing I’ve observed is that the Czechs are generally iffy about trying new things - supported by a high uncertainty avoidance score in Hofstede’s cultural dimensions scale. It’s also not the wealthiest country in the wake of the Communist occupation.
This means that the market can only support few brands until it is saturated. The level of saturation might be comparable to, say, the bombardment of brands you get in high-consumption countries like the US. However, it makes the differentiation tactics used by Czech brands much easier to analyse.
Which brings me back to beer.
The two main brands of beer in Prague are Staropramen and Pilsner Urquell, followed by Budvar (the original Budweiser) and Stella Artois (Belgian). The competition is tough and loyalties are fierce.
In order to differentiate themselves from the rest, Staropramen and Pilsner Urquell have both established themselves almost as a lifestyle brand.
I’ve reported previously on the lengths Heineken has gone to so that they can own their brand experience with retail space, online strategy and entertainment. For years, Czech beer brands have been doing just that with their own restaurants serving up music, classic pub fare and a healthy flow of beer.
It’s not just beer brands - yesterday I also noticed a homewares store that was selling coffee and cake. It’s a simple way to add value to the brand experience and make a bit more money at the same time.
Two lessons:
Own your brand experience.
Add extra value your competitors aren’t.
You’ve already seen examples - the Apple store concept owns the brand experience, and it’s common to add value by providing Wi-Fi or having a kids playground in an eating place. But in a crowded market space in a recession it’s time to get creative and take some lessons from elsewhere.
One of the most popular tools for online broadcast at the moment is Twitter, a microblogging platform which allows mobile updates and replies of 140 characters or less.
A key discussion point for businesses has been whether they should be using Twitter and other social media platforms with branded accounts or getting key staff to write.
There are plenty of examples with big brands - Dell, as a mostly online company, has an entire page for its Twitter accounts. This includes the brand name Twitter account (@DellOutlet), numerous Dell and tech news accounts and some very carefully managed staff accounts (like @StefanieatDell). Politicians have taken to using Twitter to help them connect to their electorates, with @BarackObama being a key example of personality-based accounts and @DowningStreet a ‘branded’ account.
These brands have the advantage of having an established audience - they can afford to experiment. But how can you make Twitter work best for small business?
Hello from Praha, the capital of the Czech Republic!
I’m over here doing some work and getting a feel for the culture - with Starbucks a new feature here and Burger King’s first store still in the works I’ll definitely be getting a different perspective on marketing that I hope to share with you.
Definitely already seeing the value in global branding as an English speaker in a non-English speaking country!
To keep you amused while I get settled, check out this news story which should highlight the importance of understanding foreign cultures…
With the end of the year looming, everyone’s joining in on speculations of the trends and players to watch for 2009.
One of the big issues which has been floating around is whether implementing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies and ‘going green’ will give companies better performance in uncertain economic times.
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