Jack Yan
CEO, Jack Yan & Associates, PO Box 14-368, Wellington 6241, New Zealand
jack.yan@jyanet.com

J. Yan: ‘Saving Detroit, by Not Making the Same Old Mistakes’, The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 2, no. 1, 2008.
PDF version

Executive summary
Detroit has not ever used a brand orientation in its automakers’ marketing strategies, and it talks of trimming brands and numbers to allow it to compete. The author believes in being more focused on brands and not losing economies of scale, and building more of what consumers want. The tools are there, such as consumer-targeted blogs, but manufacturers need to use them.

Introduction
Motown has been in trouble constantly since the 1970s. That time, it was its failure to see how the imports were gradually conquering North American market, and when the Arab-Israeli War forced up fuel prices in 1973, the Japanese were already there with models that had great gas mileage. When the second oil shock happened, US companies were still largely ill equipped. Then-Ford president Lee Iacocca noted that sales of its full-size cars were going up, leaving Detroit’s number two without many economy models.¹ The Japanese won again.
   Similar patterns began emerging in the 1990s. Then, Detroit was obsessed with trucks and SUVs. It is generally regarded that there is some financial wisdom behind building these large vehicles, as they generate plenty of profit in an industry where US automakers have massive costs, especially relating to union workers’ pensions and healthcare. But it was becoming obvious to only a few that Detroit was leaving its economy models behind, while the Japanese, once again, were sweeping in with up-to-the-minute variants of their Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic.
   The author wrote of this folly at the turn of the century, including DaimlerChrysler’s decision to abandon the low-cost Plymouth marque²—in case low-cost, cheap cars became necessary again. In both these cases, the latest (2008) fuel crisis, driven by high prices and speculation, have proven him right. Detroit is scrambling once again, as it did in the 1970s and early 1980s, wondering how to fix itself. And its ideas smack of repetition—since some of them have been proven to have failed the industry before, in other nations.
   The problems are long-term ones that cannot be fixed by short-term adjustments. The truck and SUV obsession was a short-term fix, a quest for profits which Chrysler Corp., in particular, rode very well with its Dodge and Jeep lines in the 1990s. But it left Chrysler weak in passenger cars.³ It is to be expected, however, since Wall Street itself has an obsession: that of the quarterly result. This, however, does not bode well for corporations that have to last generations.
   Japan seems to lack this problem as investors are perfectly happy for their companies to see out a longer term. While there are exceptions, Toyota has been mostly left to its own devices, its management opting for a gradual evolution of its strategies, cutting costs of manufacture and appointing westerners to the board. It builds, for instance, the Camry and Corolla in more locations than any one US model.
   It would be foolhardy to say that Toyota is impregnable. It has weaknesses, in that its cars are considered the equivalent of domestic appliances: reliable but uninspiring. Detroit had attempted such cars before, often with Japanese input. And it found that these models were not true to the various brands owned by Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.
   The brand orientation, which necessitates long-term thinking, is what Detroit needs.
   This is a bold statement as GM-watchers may be able to point to a failed era where the company did just that. Buick, Cadillac and other GM divisions were, the company claims, run as brands. But this is not true, at least not branding as most professionals understand it. GM made the classic mistake of equating sales to branding: all it did was to regroup into a geographical sales structure and expected its regional heads to maximize sales.⁴ Little consideration was given to the meaning behind each brand, nor was there feedback from consumers. The experiment was deemed a failure.
   Others may also point to the failure Ford has had with its brands, even if it has been credited with being a good brand steward of properties such as Volvo and Aston Martin, two which it had acquired in the 1990s. Jaguar, it is pointed out, was always a division that kept needing investment, never making anything for Ford, despite it paying US$2·5 billion. But there, too, Ford misunderstood the Jaguar brand, lumbering it with passé designs that the marque’s customers did not want. While it never wound up merely badge-engineering Ford cars, it cannot be easily argued that Ford’s failures were due to brand management.
   The talk around Detroit is of rationalization and killing off brands, getting its costs and sales more into line. GM, it is argued, may have to be content with being a global number-two, and Toyota can remain in its top spot. Retrenchment seems to be the theme.
   It’s true that the Big Three need to leave or at least reconsider sectors where they have not created products that the customer wanted. But are they listening? There are enough tools out there on the blogosphere to show that, for example, Ford buyers would prefer the latest European Focus rather than the model it is currently selling. But only GM has made any headway in blogging and listening directly to consumers’ feedback. Ford is blinded by the fact its old-tech Focus is selling well, without realizing that the same behaviour turned the original Ford Taurus from class leader to a has-been model line in less than a generation.
   Most of the techniques have existed for decades. Retrenchment and rationalization were pursued by British Leyland in the 1970s on. The company now exists, other than the Jaguar and Land Rover businesses, as an independent company making one MG model, as a division of Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by India’s Tata Motors.
   Toyota, the darling of the motoring press, particularly for its hybrids, does not pursue retrenchment. It is easily argued that it does not have to. But it has been clever in filling niches and using a minimal number of platforms to create a wide variety of cars—something Detroit’s Big Three were once credited with doing and needs to again. Right now, it’s looking at ways to cement the lead, especially in a cost-cutting programme—in the belief that it’s better to do this calmly than being forced to.⁵
   This paper deals first with some of the ideas being bandied about the US auto industry for starters, then groups them into techniques that could save the Big Three.

Troubling thoughts in Detroit
Ingrassia⁶ points out that the Big Three have shed 269,440 employees since 2000 and lost a combined $67 billion in the last three years—and that’s not even counting Chrysler for all 12 months of 2007. But at the same time he points out that Fiat turned itself around and posted record profits. Nissan went from lossmaker to profitable in 2001. Chrysler itself was turned around by Iacocca in the 1980s.
   The industry, he says, has at least made moves on the union front, which is one of its biggest hurdles.
   But some of the ideas that he has found executives mentioning in Motown show the usual maximize-profits-now mentality that landed the automakers into trouble in the first place.

GM
GM has eight brands, and it is believed, some need to go. In fact, GM has more than eight, once one starts counting Opel, Vauxhall and Holden in its overseas arms. Ingrassia reports very geocentric thinking from Detroit: ‘If you’re shopping for a midpriced sedan, for example, G.M. has six. Buick by itself has two. Toyota, by comparison, has just one—the Camry, which sells nearly as many vehicles each year as all six of G.M.’s offerings combined.’⁷
   It’s not totally true. Even in the US, Toyota has a Lexus sedan costing what a well equipped Camry would cost. In its home market, Toyota fields more than six mid-priced sedans, selling to a smaller total population. While this is a straw-man argument—foreign automakers have a small share in Japan and Toyota nears 50 per cent⁸—the quantity of entrants in any sector is generally not a problem.
   The important thing is that each brand is well defined enough without cannibalization. Ingrassia indicates that GM CEO Rick Wagoner is trying to consolidate sales’ channels without trimming the brand line-up. This makes total sense, because there is nothing that suggests that one manager could not oversee two or three brands. The Japanese have generally kept trim structures for its brands. Toyota itself manages three. Having one divisional head oversee two or three brands can work if there are no favourites and each brand’s positioning is well defined and understood.
   The short-term thinking is that Saab, Buick, Pontiac, Hummer and Saturn should die. This is the same thinking at DaimlerChrysler that led to Plymouth’s demise. But it is not the same thinking that led to Oldsmobile’s, a GM division, at the turn of the century.
   Oldsmobile became an untenable brand for GM because it occupied a very similar market niche—price-wise and psychographically—as Buick. Purists will be able to nit-pick that argument as there were differences between the buyers: Oldsmobile ones sought American quality and tradition, while Buick ones sought presence without arrogance. However, the reality inside GM was that Oldsmobiles were not really given a distinctive character and given that one of branding’s core tenets is differentiation, the brand had failed.⁹
   Plymouth, however, was on its way to becoming a distinctive brand with its own design language. Chrysler had already débuted the Plymouth Prowler, a hot rod acting as a halo car for the brand. The next model, the PT Cruiser, was about to be launched, débuting a retro design. The remaining Plymouths, developed as Dodges with different trim, were given scripted badging that hinted at the brand’s more youthful, lively positioning for the 21st century.
   A Plymouth division, had it not been for its cancellation under DaimlerChrysler, would have expressed American youthfulness—the PT Cruiser’s initial success illustrated as much—while Chrysler itself would have remained premium, and Dodge sporty.
   Instead, Plymouth products were rolled into the Chrysler marque, confusing that brand—diluting it and forcing a repositioning into a sort of American Volkswagen. At least then it posed no greater threat to some of Mercedes-Benz’s lesser models. But Chrysler lost a distinctive brand with value-leading models—which would have helped it today in an age of high fuel prices. Plymouth had stayed away from SUVs and trucks—a great brand image for 2008.
   The brand-trimming argument is what caused BL to kill Triumph’s saloons and MG’s sports cars a generation ago. The thinking was that Triumph and Rover saloons competed in the same sector—based on price, they did.¹⁰ Based on brand, they didn’t. There was similar thinking that led to the closure of MG—because Triumph, it was decided, already had a corporate sports car.
   The consequence that played out over decades was that BL’s successors lost their economies of scale.
   BL was starved of investment, however, which meant it could not have realistically fielded two identical cars with different badges for long. But it had already made steps to group Austin and Morris together, then Jaguar, Rover and Triumph. One divisional head could have overseen well defined brands, putting a sporting version of one saloon into Triumph’s range, and a traditional one into Rover’s. Experts generally agree today, with hindsight, that the failure to understand the distinctive brand attitudes and brand loyalty behind each BL brand caused credible models to be axed.
   Even Toyota has been careful in Japan. It fields, for instance, mid-sized front-wheel-drive sedans such as the Camry and rear-wheel-drive models such as the Mark X. They look fairly similar. But it understands that they appeal to different buyers in a market where consumers are likely to be loyal to model lines in the way US buyers are loyal to brands. If this holds true, then Chevrolet, Saturn and Pontiac can coexist, for example.
   There is no need to ape Toyota just because it fields just three brands in the US. No US automaker can afford to rationalize its range to that extent, because none has been able to show that a single American brand can sell twice the volume of two defunct brands. A Chevrolet Cobalt might not be able to fill its own shoes as well as that of a Pontiac G5’s, if Pontiac were to be axed. It’s just as likely that those Pontiac buyers would go to the imports. Historically, did Oldsmobile and Plymouth buyers remain with GM and Chrysler after their parent firms killed them?
   Brand axeing should take place in cases of overlap or ill definition—and a recent example in Japan would be that of Mazda, which bid farewell to many of the marques it tried to create in the early 1990s (such as Efini and Eunos).
   Saab is a distinctive brand that has been starved of new models for years, but it certainly isn’t in as bad a shape as any of Mazda’s old marques. It has two sedans on Opel Vectra platforms, by themselves not that successful. An SUV was put into the range to stop buyers from leaving the marque. Saab’s problems are not down to a brand that has a strong aircraft heritage, the warmth of Swedish culture and a history of innovation—messages that are still continued in its marketing. Saab’s problems are due to the dearth of new models, which means that it fails as a BMW or Mercedes-Benz rival.
   It has no ready overlap in the GM universe, and all the brand really needs are new models. GM has made some headway in putting Saab development with its German company Adam Opel. What it needs Stateside is to look at Saab alongside a non-competing GM brand—and any are compatible. In Australasia, Saab is sold alongside HSV and Hummer, two other premium GM brands.
   Modern communications could see a very effective platform engineering programme, which GM is already putting in place anyway. This means one team is working on the Opel Corsa E and Daewoo Gentra replacements, which will be sold in the US as the Chevrolet Aveo successor next decade. GM Europe is working on mid-sized cars such as the Opel Insignia and the next Chevrolet Malibu. And GM’s Australian arm, Holden, created the full-size platform underpinning the Holden Commodore and Chevrolet Camaro.
   This programme simply needs to be extended further to creating niche vehicles for Saab as well as replacements for its current range—and there is evidence that GM already got that memo. Buick should benefit from this, too: a Lucerne replacement could easily have been developed alongside the Commodore.
   Similar arguments could be made in support of Buick’s presence. While that brand has trimmed models in recent years, what it does field is distinctively styled and its brand, too, is well defined. Sheetmetal might cost money, but the majority of R&D goes into automotive architecture—stuff that customers cannot see. Buick and Hummer appeal to very distinctive buyers who are not catered for elsewhere, and Hummer itself is leading the charge into international markets.
   That leaves Pontiac and Saturn, which is already benefiting from globalization. Pontiac fields two rebadged Holdens: a large sedan and a truck. Saturn is becoming the American name for Opel: it can easily go from import-fighter to import-seller, provided it keeps its no-nonsense approach to retail, one of its main differentiating factors.
   GM has used the rebadging idea well in some markets. In Britain, most Vauxhalls are really Opels—in most of the range, the model names are even the same. For years, Holden used the same method, though now it rebadges several Daewoo models (Daewoo is another GM brand). There is no reason for Pontiac not to have some Holdens, with the rest of the range selling extreme-performance models made in the US. It would increase economies for Holden. Saturnized Opels would also help Opel in Europe reach greater economies there.
   If there is one thing that history has taught us is that tastes are cyclical. Muscle cars may be wrong for 2008 but they may be right for 2012. If Pontiac is killed off, can GM successfully deal with that sector then?
   The above are cursory brand analyses only. No one should say that that Saturn’s only differentiator is a no-nonsense retail approach. There are plenty of other reasons that Saturn is distinct from Chevrolet or the other automakers’ brands. And those other reasons, especially considering the buyer, probably won’t overlap as greatly as a mere financial, BL-style analysis would suggest.
   In fact, Aaker’s five brand equity targets¹¹ are instructive and it is not impossible to maximize all of them, propelling every GM brand to varying degrees of success. GM and its investors need to remember history and why Britain still has a car industry, just one dominated by Japanese and foreign makes.
   GM needs to begin by defining its brands and engaging consumer help to get there. It has a good enough support base via its blog, Fast Lane, to which Bob Lutz, its product czar, contributes. People believe their ideas are being heard and Lutz has been making many of the right moves by enlisting the help of global GM divisions. That can only be enriching to brand equity.
   One brand that has escaped criticism for the most part is Cadillac, which has at least sorted its design language and styling out, produced products that Americans (especially style-conscious younger consumers) want,¹² so either GM got lucky—or GM has the skill set already within its company.
   GM’s other great asset, which it is finally using now with Lutz’s top-down endorsement (another necessity in branding), is its global divisions.¹³ Each has been made a centre of excellence. Each is part of a greater global structure, entrenched in GM behaviour over decades. Toyota centralizes a lot more of its product development, but GM may be able to have each centre work in tandem and bring products to market more quickly.

Ford
Ingrassia is more optimistic about Ford, which has been slimming down, selling Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover. But he is critical of the company’s product range, and rightly so.
   At the time of writing, Ford has been enjoying healthy sales in the US with its Focus compact car. However, car enthusiasts have been critical of this model, since it uses an old platform. Even México has the new-platform model in its range, leading some to disbelieve Ford’s reason that the newer model would be priced too highly to be competitive in the US. (Ford also sells the Mazda 3 in the US at a competitive price, and that is on the newer platform.) Alongside the Honda Civic, the Focus seems old hat.
   However, expensive fuel and Ford’s widespread US dealer network have meant that the Focus is being snapped up. Some of this is probably due to brand loyalty, too: those that stuck by the company in the days of the truck and the Explorer SUV are looking at the Focus as a simple, bugs-ironed-out model.
   As mentioned earlier, strong sales are not always an indicator of long-term brand strength. Should fuel prices come down and people begin repeating their less considerate, energy-consuming behaviours, will they turn to Ford? Many Taurus buyers did not return to the company when they wanted another mid-sized sedan: they went to Toyota and Honda. There are only so many years that a company can sell an old-platform design, and in the age of the internet, car buyers are more savvy than ever.
   Ford has a bright spot, says Ingrassia: its CD338 line of sedans (Ford Fusion, Mercury Milan and Lincoln MKZ). He is right, as these have also managed to be sold in South America as well, as premium models. Using an old (but revised and competitive) Mazda Atenza platform, CD338 was developed with good savings, showing that single platforms can be adapted further. The current Taurus, using a Volvo platform, is another example.
   But Ford could trim its platforms further and make use of its international divisions. The Ford Mondeo’s European development duplicated that of CD338, and enthusiasts have been supportive of the European car. Ford is ending the duplication with its next B-sector (supermini) car, the Fiesta, which will be sold in Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania.
   Ford’s problems in the past were linked to internal politicking, leading many to dismiss the global model. They cite the CDW27 project of the early 1990s to be an example of a car developed in Europe and failing in the US. Its size was often blamed. The reality was that CDW27 was under-marketed, especially as BMW continued to earn sales in the same size segment.
   Facing troubles, and with a new leader in the form of CEO Alan Mulally, Ford may well have realized that being a united company has its benefits.
   It could do more, as Australian commentators are quick to point out that their countrymen’s big-car expertise is not used sufficiently. But it does make use of Volvo as a safety centre of excellence, and there are signs of change.
   From a branding point of view, Ford may well have sorted things with its core brand, steadily sorting its product range out in what appears to be a medium-term plan leading into the mid-2010s.
   It has generally been regarded as a good brand steward for Volvo and Land Rover. Jaguar’s problems were detailed earlier and they seem to have been an (expensive) exception rather than the rule. Aston Martin grew under Ford as well.¹⁴
   Volvo has been engineering class-leading platforms for the company, it has a well defined brand centring around safety and Swedish design, and it’s a rare case where the (profitable) status quo should be observed. Mazda is Ford’s sporting brand, and seems to trade well on its Japanese origins and philosophy, with halo cars such as the MX-5 and RX-8.
   Its problems rest with Lincoln and Mercury. Lincoln was once a proud brand, but with the demise of the Town Car, no longer fields a large luxury model to rival the large Lexus LS and the top Cadillac. Instead, its models are warmed-over Fords, making sense from a cost perspective. Lincoln buyers are indeed different, brand-wise, from Ford ones. But surely they are discerning enough to notice that what they drive does not look that special?
   The good news for Lincoln is that it has downsized, something that it failed to do in the 1970s until GM had already made its move. However, Ford is falling into a trap with cars that do not support the Lincoln brand well, and it can hurt the company in the long run. A brand vision was once developed and show cars built (such as one called the Mark IX), demonstrating a renaissance and a design language for the brand. Little seems to have come of it other than adopting the grille design. It shows short-term thinking and Lincoln is being hurt until it can launch more interesting cars. It seriously needs a brand strategy outlined.
   If Lincolns are not special, then what of Mercury—which has languished for over a generation? The brand is nearly invisible, it sells cars that are considered upscale Fords, and the company’s financial problems meant that any distinctive models (such as the Cougar) were cancelled.
   Mercury could be fixed if Ford simply examines its Japanese affiliate’s range at Mazda, which develops more models than US consumers see. If the brand were defined as a quality import-fighter, it could have a chance at distancing itself from its warmed-over-Ford image. An obvious candidate for “Mercurization” would be the next Mazda MPV.

Chrysler
Chrysler, the smallest player, is now under a private equity firm’s control and is not particularly well positioned. Once a highly respected company in the 1990s, Chrysler had lean R&D processes, exciting niche models and the admiration of American businesses. Forbes called it the Company of the Year.
   This was appealing to Daimler-Benz AG of Stuttgart, which took over Chrysler in the late 1990s. As discussed, the Plymouth marque was a casualty. But the takeover was poor in other areas: there were cultural clashes, the brands were never defined to begin with, and the newly merged DaimlerChrysler found difficulty getting economies of scale with the platforms. Lean R&D suddenly seemed more cumbersome. And the resignations of many of Chrysler’s old bosses—Bob Eaton, Bob Lutz, François Castaing, inter alia—did not do much for the workforce.¹⁵
   Dodge was an easy brand to define, alongside Americanness and sportiness. However, Chrysler went from innovative American luxury—its LH big cars were highly acclaimed, as were their successors—to a sort of Volkswagen, having low-priced models such as the Neon and PT Cruiser sitting uncomfortably with the 300 large car.
   Brand-wise, Chrysler is all over the place. Ingrassi is right that the company has not fielded a true luxury car for years. It is cooperating with Chery of China on a small car—which might be too little, too late, when it is launched.¹⁶ And when it is launched, where will it go? It would have been ideal for Plymouth.
   Meanwhile, Nissan is building a subcompact for Chrysler in South America. Chrysler is building a minivan for Volkswagen at a Canadian plant.
   One scenario is to kill Chrysler off, which would dilute Dodge’s brand—since models such as the Chery joint-venture vehicle will have to be absorbed. It would fit as poorly there in buyers’ minds as the PT Cruiser did with the old LHS and 300M large cars. Dodge, after all, has just released a sports car, the Challenger, a retro-design exercise meant to recall an age when its brand was well defined and proud. The Chery JV model could well look sporty—but if it is an economy model, will Chrysler be tempted to put another marque on it?
   Having fewer brands will do Chrysler no favours with its future models. Any disease the parent brand has will simply be passed on. Its saving grace is Jeep, which has not been tarnished greatly; in fact, Chrysler has been quite good at managing that brand and, for the most part, delivering the right product.¹⁷
   While it might make some sense to streamline further, buyers make their decisions about a brand quickly. Brands are shortcuts so consumers can grasp their message quickly, hence the need for recognizable brand “attitudes”.¹⁸ And Dodge and Jeep have distinct characters that shouldn’t be tampered with for fear of turning consumers away from that easy recognition and brand equity. Chrysler can be redefined as a quality marque, one with a dose of snob appeal but everyday prices—if it can really deliver that quality. Taking the halo effect of the 300, its most recognizable model, and bringing it on to smaller models isn’t a bad idea—but it remains to be practised.
   It will never be a Cadillac rival in the foreseeable future, unless some of those rapid R&D and tight inter-business relationships can return to make it a lean niche-filler. Those glory days weren’t that long ago.

The solutions
First, each of Detroit’s Big Three has some homework to do, in understanding their brands’ visions, what they mean, and what they can mean. They can involve the public via the blogosphere, in a country that has high internet penetration. This will show transparency and a willingness to engage with the American car buyer, whom each company needs to win back. Or, they can do the exercise internally with cross-functional groups, but properly¹⁹—there is no more room for a lip-service nod to branding as there was in the 1990s.
   Secondly, the Big Three need to understand just what makes their cars appealing. Aaker’s brand equity elements are a good start but the quest for them needs to be constant.²⁰ The Japanese may have used W. Edwards Deming’s principles over decades to get their quality up. American companies need to leap-frog that by being more engaging, being open where Japanese companies act closed. Continued understanding of consumer tastes via the blogosphere is one method; using that to inform future tastes is another. Feedback is important, and it has only recently played a part in the marcom end of the Big Three. Prior to that it only had customer clinics.
   Thirdly, there is an untapped generation, namely the young people who are either too young to drive or getting into their first cars now. What has informed their choices? The author is willing to bet that while there are some who love muscle cars, there may be many more impressed by models that conserve energy.
   Fourthly, US automakers are among the heaviest R&D investors—and they need to bring more innovation to the market more rapidly.
   Fifthly, they need to realize the effect of a loss of economies of scale. The historical models are there. The key is to build the cars consumers want²¹—something that GM and Ford actually do quite well in Europe. If Levitt is right and there is a homogenization of tastes²²—BMW and Porsche operate on this notion, and Toyota does in the mid-sized and subcompact sectors—then foreign bases need to be used more effectively. It’s not about shutting factories and firing personnel, but being more sincere about delivering for future consumers.

Summary
Killing brands, as any observer of British Leyland has demonstrated, is not a solution when those brands are well defined, contribute to economies and have brand loyalty, recognition and perceived quality. Even if a brand contributes to economies alone, it can be saved through repositioning.
   The US automakers need to put in play longer-term thinking. Chrysler is most dire at the moment, and Ford, while leaner, could do more with Lincoln and Mercury. Ford itself has excellent product and needs to show it can overcome regional politics. In neither case should they feel forced in delivering short-term results. In Chrysler’s case it may be able to demonstrate to its owners that it can do well without the pressure of share prices.
   General Motors has all the necessary ingredients for survival. It has shown a willingness to engage consumers, find ways of making use of its foreign operations and look at ways of retaining brands and economies of scale.
   Being true to their brands can help US automakers get back to a strong position. Setting one’s sights lower and claiming easy victories was certainly not the way Toyota rose to number one. Honda climbed from obscurity to Japan’s number two—and it has one of the US’s top-selling models—by setting higher goals. British Leyland should be a constant reminder of what not to do—unless the Big Three want to wind up being subsidiaries of foreign firms, their marques mere reminders of better times.

Notes
   1. L. Iacocca and W. Novak: Iacocca: an Autobiography. New York: Bantam Books 1984.
   2. J. Yan: ‘Where Is DaimlerChrysler Heading?’, CAP Online, February 12, 2000, <http://www.jyanet.com/cap/2000/0212ob0.shtml>.
   3. J. Flint: ‘Company of the Year: Chrysler’, Forbes, January 13, 1997, pp. 83 ff.; q.v. E. A. Robinson: ‘America’s Most Admired Companies’, Fortune, March 3, 1997, p. F-2.
   4. M. Kerbs: ‘G.M. Will Pare as Many as 1,000 White-Collar Jobs’, The New York Times, August 5, 1998.
   5. P. O’Connell (ed.): ‘The Man Driving Toyota’, Business Week, July 22, 2005 (also online at <http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jul2005/nf20050721_7169_db053.htm>).
   6. P. Ingrassia: ‘Who Will Survive?’, Condé Nast Portfolio, June 2008, pp. 86–95.
   7. Ibid., at p. 93.
   8. I. Rowley: ‘Toyota Set to Top 50% Market Share in Japan’, Business Week, ‘The Auto Beat’, November 1, 2007, <http://www.businessweek.com/autos/autobeat/archives/2007/11/toyota_tops_50.html>.
   9. See, e.g., E. Shapiro: ‘Is Oldsmobile Name a Marketing Lemon?’, The New York Times, October 29, 1992.
   10. The Triumph brand is owned by BMW, which understands that from a branding perspective, it poses a threat to its core range.
   11. D. A. Aaker: Managing Brand Equity. New York: Free Press 1991.
   12. J. Yan: ‘The Brand Attitudes of Automobiles’, New Age Branding: Concepts and Cases, vol. 1. Hyderabad: ICFAI Press 2002, pp. 101–13, at pp. 105–6.
   13. Remaining divisions such as Cadillac simply need to get the product right: the author understands that its much-lauded CTS sedan, for example, still falls well behind its German rivals on the interior. Meanwhile, Opel does acceptable interiors. This is a single example of GM’s unused assets.
   14. J. Yan: ‘The Brand Attitudes of Automobiles’, op. cit., at pp. 111–12.
   15. Ibid., at p. 111.
   16. Not every company has been successful in cooperating with Red Chinese companies. Chrysler has had some experience with its Beijing Jeep venture, among others, but not with Chery.
   17. Some cannibalization has been risked with models such as the Jeep Commander, and its low-end passenger-car spin-offs have questionable appeal for the brand long-term.
   18. See, e.g. J. Yan: ‘The Brand Attitudes’, op. cit., and W. Olins as quoted in J. Yan: ‘The Attitude of Identity’, Desktop, October 2000, pp. 26–31.
   19. See, e.g. J. Yan: ‘The Brand Attitudes’, ibid.
   20. Toyota’s success factors are discussed in ibid., at pp. 108–9.
   21. See, e.g. G. Green: ‘Meet the Inspirational, Indefatigable Geoff Polites’, Car, June 2008, pp. 130–3, at p. 132.
   22. T. Levitt: ‘The Globalization of Markets’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 61, no. 3, May-June 1992, pp. 92–102; cf. M. Griffin: ‘From Cultural Imperialism to Transnational Commercialization: Shifting Paradigms in International Media Studies’, Global Media Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, fall 2002, <http://lass.calumet.purdue.edu/cca/gmj/fa02/gmj-fa02-griffin.htm>.

This paper has also appeared in CAP Online.

Patrick Harris
thoughtengine
patrick@thoughtengine.co.uk

P. Harris: ‘We the People’, The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 2, no. 1, August 2008.
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Abstract
This paper considers the importance of employees in the process of building customer experience. The paper states that internal investment is rewarded with consistent, quality customer exchanges. Emphasis is first placed on the positioning of brand management within an organization, and its linkage to strategy. Second, the tools of identity and guiding principles are introduced. These tools are used to activate staff by inviting their engagement and by asking them to review the brand from a personal perspective. Identity encourages employees to interpret corporate identity and apply it to their unique situation and skill set. Guiding principles serve as a platform to nurture desired behaviours in the organization. Together, these two tools better prepare staff to respond to customers. Brand values are presented as the currency to measure the worth of exchanges between organizations and their customers. The paper concludes by presenting a case study of the mobile operator, Orange, during the period 1994–2003.

Introduction
Branding is about people. People build brands. People buy brands. The relationship, at first glance, is a simple one—build a good brand and others will buy it. At the heart of this relationship, however, is another group of people, that of the employees. It is the employees who enact the attributes of the brand and whose actions ultimately foster customer experience—whether good or bad. Staff actions should reinforce the promises a brand makes to its customers. If wisely conducted, this reinforcement breeds more success in terms of sales, awareness and loyalty. Employees have the formidable task of demonstrating the brand by the actions they take. The adage actions speak louder than words is a truth that holds firm in the process of building successful brands.
   However, many organizations fall short of representing the brands they espouse. Sometimes, this disconnection is due to uncommon circumstances. These include sudden market shifts that are external to the organization. Internal changes—like the loss of a key figurehead or an organizational merger—are also examples where a disconnection, between the brand attributes and employee actions, can be present. These examples, and others like them, provide resilience tests for brands. The question is, can effective internal brand management help to overcome these difficult periods? Further, can an ongoing internal brand management process help to preserve a healthy relationship between employee actions and customer experiences?
   This paper discusses the importance of inward facing brand management. Emphasis is given to the positioning of brand management and its relationship to organizational strategy. Separately, the tools of Identity and Guiding Principles are presented as a means of serving the employee effort to enact the brand attributes. Finally, a case study involving the mobile telephone company, Orange, is introduced for illustrative review.

1. An inward perspective
It was in his seminal paper of 1937, that Ronald Coase prescribed the basic reasoning of a firm.¹ He described the importance of building and maintaining relationships as the very essence of a firm:

A firm, therefore, consists of the system of relationships which comes into existence when the direction of resources is dependent on an entrepreneur.

If consistency of brand experience is sought, this definition suggests the need for a balanced focus of nurturing and serving internal and external relationships. Yet in many brand management efforts, resources are usually dedicated to constructing an outward image of the brand. Advertising, packaging and sponsorship are traditional examples. It is commonly accepted that internal characteristics are transferred to the external environment via the employees of the organization. Further, this transferral may be unintended if left unchecked. This point implies a need to manage, or at least positively influence, the identity that is transferred outwardly—in order to maintain consistency and overall control. Thus, the internal workings of a firm should form an integral part of brand management. Brands today must represent a company’s history, future vision and its outward appearance—as well as the internal representation of the organization. Why then do organizations give little attention to internal brand management?

1.1 The right level
Inward-facing brand management must be considered at the appropriate level if it is to succeed. Brand management when considered as a periphery exercise of a marketing subset, is destined to perform poorly. Brand today is a key element of every transaction the organization engages in and as such should be strategically incorporated into internal activities. Brands do far more than label products or companies. Brands today can:

• change market dynamics;
• span across entire markets and enter new markets; and
• heavily influence industry business models.

Google, Amazon and Napster are examples of brands that have significantly changed the dynamics of entire markets. Virgin, Marlboro and Caterpillar are good illustrations of brands that can span industries or enter new industries. Finally, MySpace and Blackberry are brands of influence that have stimulated enormous changes to business models in their respective markets.
   Despite this shift in the influence of brands, intelligent dialogue between brand mangers and the strategic elements of the firm is often lacking. In reality, management of the brand must feature in all that the company undertakes, internally and externally. Brand must be prevalent in strategy, training, objective-setting, working style, facilities and much more. Ind, when discussing the concept of living the brand, argues that brands come to life when internal and external boundaries are blurred.² Most importantly, brand management must also be well integrated into the activities of the organization if it is to deliver quality customer experiences.
   But the phrase living the brand does not necessarily express the integration of brand at a strategic level of the organization. Organizations that unite strategy and brand possess cohesive workforces that demonstrate sound direction, incorporate a recognizable approach and present a high quality, consistent customer experience. Ind’s phrase can be extended for organizations that provide a strategic and integrated focus of brand management—being the strategy and living the brand.

1.2 What they do, not what they say
Internal branding should concentrate more on context rather than content. It should focus on why an activity occurs, more than the brand compliance of the activity itself.
   A hypothetical example of branding the company canteen is helpful as an illustration. In this circumstance, it is not the branded colour of the crockery or the ability to reinforce company messages on the walls that is critical. Rather, emphasis should be on the behaviours exhibited when serving or receiving food, and on the atmosphere that is conveyed by staff. Behaviours are visible evidence of the brand’s capacity to influence. Too often it is the focus on tangible items that get the bulk of the attention—ensuring that the content meets stringent brand guidelines—while overlooking the contextual settings and behaviours of the people involved.
   The relationship between employees and customers is—or at least should be—genuine, two-way and sincere. What is displayed externally is chiefly a reflection of the activities of he internal organization. For this reason, inward brand management should not be limited to providing training material for customer-facing staff only. Instead it should be the creed by which the whole organization elects to live and breathe. Internal activities should always underpin the customer experience sought. Thus, brand management efforts must be focused inside the organization as much as, and possibly more than, they are externally. The key is to provide staff with appropriate tools, allowing them to be the strategy and live the brand.

2. Identity: building understanding
Corporate identity, the persona of an organization, is widely used by companies and agencies alike. It is normally expressed in a hierarchical set of descriptive terms—from, say, vision to values—and provides guidelines for how the organization expresses itself. Corporate identity is a valuable asset of any brand manager’s toolkit.
   Corporate identity is not necessarily the best tool for employees, however. A workforce is after all, a collection of people and often, a corporate identity does not adequately speak to each as an individual. Further, individuals see organizational change and shifts in corporate identity as uncomfortable and difficult to accept. Employees take these shifts personally and feel lost when another directive arrives, with a new focus, and the CEO asks for their buy-in—once again.

2.1 Activate, not automate
Inside organizations, it is not buy-in that is necessary, but momentum. Buy-in is a flawed concept that suggests 100 per cent effectiveness in the communication of an idea, 100 per cent belief in it by the listener and 100 per cent efficiency in enacting it. Momentum, however, is created by communicating the gist of an idea and afterwards, encouraging individuals to interpret it, apply it to their unique situation and then use their individual skills to address it. Momentum taps into the collective wisdom of the staff and invites their participation. Here identity is still in use, but it is not an induced corporate identity communicated from the upper echelons of the company. Instead, individual identity is developed by regularly encouraging employees to interact with the company position. This allows them to reach a greater appreciation of its meaning to them personally, or as smaller teams of people. This is how it should be. Identity, used as a tool, allows individuals to increase their overall understanding of the organization and to personally ingest its meaning. Workshops, training programmes and promotion of good dialogue are good methods to achieve this aim.
   There are several benefits of the process of engendering identity. First, employees have a stronger personal sense of organizational purpose. They know what to do and why they should do it. Secondly, they are less affected by significant organizational changes that (inevitably) will occur. They take these changes less personally. Thirdly, they are better equipped to see how their role can make a difference to the company as a whole. Fourthly, a company-wide spirit of involvement and responsibility is in action. Overall, their understanding is more consistent through change and this consistency features readily in their work. They can, in effect, be the strategy.
   The next step is to help staff to underpin their understanding with appropriate behaviours.

3. Guiding Principles: nurturing desired behaviour
Consistent behaviour cannot be prescribed, nor can cultures be assigned. Cultures are more amorphous than this. Consistent behaviour can be nurtured, however. By nurturing a few desired behaviours, a sought-after organizational culture is more likely to develop. This focus is served well by the concept of Guiding Principles.
   Guiding Principles are not rules, because rules are typically prescriptive and describe what can and cannot be done. They are not objectives, either, as guiding principles are interpretable. They possess a high degree of flexibility, while objectives should always adhere to the SMART rule of thumb.³ Finally, guiding principles are not habits, as habits are traditionally out-of-date or unchecked actions that are routinely applied.
   Instead, Guiding Principles are a small collection of memorable expressions of behaviour—about three to six in total. They describe behaviour that must be present in order to fulfil strategic and brand aims. Interestingly, guiding principles are useful regardless of changes in circumstances.
   Thus, even in times of instability, guiding principles represent the inherent behaviour that individuals can turn to and depend on. Together, they underpin an organizational identity and are necessary to nurture a desired culture. A good example is the following: Everything in moderation, nothing in excess.
   This phrase, when applied across a number of individuals, can have different interpretations. To some the phrase indicates the need for a steady, even approach. To others, it might mean that an extreme intake or exposure is acceptable—on occasion, but not regularly. In all cases, individuals will be able to respond in a manner that is in keeping with the desired behaviour, but which suits their situation.
   Consider, too, the guiding principle of face to face. To customer-facing staff, its meaning might be very clear: be with the customer whenever possible. To back-room staff, however, it might have usefulness in terms of how they treat email or how feedback is provided to colleagues.
   The power of Guiding Principles is that they can be communicated in a straightforward manner, yet their meaning is always personal to each individual and open to interpretation.
   The combination of identity and guiding principles is a mobilizing force for organizations. Together, they help to form employee behaviour and to channel employee actions and decisions in desired directions. As a result, the organization becomes more adaptable in terms of the changes it faces, yet will be consistent in its response. Meanwhile, employees are made more aware of the aims of the organization and are actively engaged in delivering its success. They are able to live the brand.

3.1 A cautionary tale
Guiding Principles, together with identity, should hold meaning for the individuals who use them. This is best achieved by allowing a significant cross-section of the organization to develop them. It is not always possible that one set of guiding principles will serve the whole organization and some limited regional or team variation should be encouraged. The process should be highly integrated and inclusive.
   However, the commitment to involve staff must be genuine and purposeful. It must be supported by the presence and involvement of senior managers. Employees do notice when they are being served a placebo process. Less-than-genuine attempts to involve staff can result in far fewer committed people than desired—perhaps even an employee revolt. Having a few members of staff involved is a far cry from having an entire workforce mobilized and committed to the cause. Martina Navratilova expressed it fittingly when she described the dedication required to achieve sporting excellence: ‘It’s like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved, the pig is committed.’

4. Where is the customer?
Thus far, this paper has concentrated most of the discussion on the organization itself—not the customer. This is deliberate because it:

• illustrates the yawning gap in internal focus;
• establishes an appropriate sequence of events required; and
• demonstrates the amount of effort that is necessary, in order to deliver desired customer experience.

   This in-depth focus on internal matters provides two key brand management deliverables. First, it builds a robust foundation for stimulating desired internal attitudes. These, in turn, become products and services that deliver a valued customer experience. Secondly, undertaking exercises of understanding and behaviour ensures that downstream activities become easier to address and are implemented with greater consistency.
   As the mantra suggests, the customer is always right. An inward facing brand process, however, better prepares the organization to respond to customers in the right way.

5. Genuineness and transparency—ready to face the world
In today’s market-place, it is important that any presentation made to a customer needs to be wholly genuine. Further, the organization that delivers the product or service needs to be transparent. This need for genuineness and transparency does not stem from brand management manuals. Rather, this is a necessary organizational response to today’s consumers, who are armed with choices, control and the tribal nature of communities.

5.1 Choices, control and community
In recent times, consumers have gained access to new and powerful tools. In the main, these consumer tools refer to new communication technologies such as the internet, mobile telephony and peer-to-peer connectivity. Less hyped, enabling technologies such as increasing digital storage capacities (i.e. the ability to access, store and transfer large volumes of information) are also critical consumer tools.
   While each of these technologies no longer represents stirring news on their own, none of them should be underestimated in terms of the lasting social change that they are introducing. They have the capacity to leapfrog technology generations, connect previously isolated areas, enable the connected portion of the planet to communicate and they provide access to an ever-increasing sea of information.
   In brand management terms, these tools have created a state of caveat venditor, where markets provide near limitless choices and the consumer is able to control the exchange. If the company cannot respond, a raft of alternatives is just a mouse click away.
   Of particular concern for brand managers is that traditional systems of trust and relationship building are changing at alarming rates. The current generation is the first to be exposed to an endless landscape of sources of trust and the ability to bypass middlemen. As recent as the late 1980s, for example, there were only a few widely acceptable sources of news. Now, news is available from numerous providers, aggregators and commentators—whether in the form of traditional institutions, blogs or others. Indeed, many consumers of news have also become commentators and publishers in their own right.

5.2 A gathering storm
In strategic and brand terms, this means that segments of customers can band together—practically overnight—and shift organizational decisions, in a way that has never been possible before. A few activists can cause years of unwelcome press and lasting grief with court cases against organizations like McDonald’s.⁴ Brand reputations can suffer from reported employment practices in manufacturing assembly plants.⁵ During the construction of this paper, vegetarians united to protest a decision by Masterfoods—makers of Mars and Twix chocolate bars—to use animal rennet in some of its products. The result? Masterfoods publicly admitted that it had made a mistake and reversed the decision.⁶ It is now reported that they are reviewing the broader product range with the diets of vegetarians in mind.⁷
   Finally, an illustration involving Apple’s customer base shows the variety of involvement by informal customer tribes over time. From its inception, Apple has attracted an enormously loyal customer base. This was true even during Apple’s lethargic progress in the 1980s.^{8, 9} In those dark days, lore has it that some near fanatical customers even loitered in computer stores to promote Apple products to would-be buyers. Surely this was a welcome if not unexpected asset for Apple at the time.
   However, in recent times, that same loyal base has applied pressure to Apple itself—with expert leadership from Greenpeace—to improve Apple’s eco-friendly practices.¹⁰ The success of this orchestrated campaign makes the clear point that no brand can ignore the mobilized wishes of its customer base; particularly a famously loyal one.
   The need for transparency and genuineness is not a marketing tool or branding fad. It is not a management theory for organizational development. It is an irreversible fact of business life that every organization must learn to address. This need will only increase as consumer tools improve and as more people have access to them.
   Brands can no longer state unrealistic statements of aspiration. The truth is that they never should have done so. Now brands, or at least those that aspire to build valued customer experiences, can only state what the organization can realistically live up to. This requires learning for some, as it is not necessarily the marketing mix that brand managers learned from the era of Madison Avenue thinking.

6. Values—the customer connection
Brand values are one of the more familiar terms used by businesses and brand managers. Brand values are familiar, too, for many customers. This is justifiable, as values are tangible brand management tools to be shared with customers. Organizations should openly state their values and ensure that they are represented in their activities. Simultaneously, customers are able to use the values as benchmarks to evaluate the success of their exchanges with the organization.
   Brand values are more resident in the customer domain than identity and guiding principles, discussed previously. Identity and guiding principles are the strategy in flexible form, and help the employees to be the strategy and live the brand. In contrast, brand values are the currency of customer experiences. Each experience can be considered as positive or negative, in a brand sense. Where the brand values are present in a customer exchange and supported by the actions of staff encountered, the transaction can be considered a positive one. In these positive exchanges, the brand is reinforced and the relationship deepens as a result. In contrast, negative transactions occur when the brand values are not evident in the transaction. Here, the customer completes a transaction (or aborts it) but has a less clear understanding of the brand and its position.
   Brand-based organizations would do well to treat these measures of brand values as importantly as they do other measures of success. This is because the degree to which brand values are communicated is directly related to how much the consumers buy into the actions of the company and its longer-term perspective.

7. Putting it all together—a case study
The mobile telephone company, Orange, provides an excellent case study for review. Orange was a fast growing, brand-based and industry-influencing organization, particularly in the mercurial heyday of 1994–2003. It was the last of four players to launch in the crowded UK market and was heavily dependent on a differentiated position. From this unlikely position, Orange proceeded to excel at providing excellent customer experiences.¹¹
   Like many organizations, however, Orange also faced a number of operational issues, internally and externally. Some examples included dealing with interdepartmental rivalries, supplier inconsistencies, overcoming the communication needs of a large employee base and management and staff mismatches at various levels. Again, these are common issues that many organizations face. Orange, however, was able to regularly overcome these issues, or at least manage them, by demonstrating its strong sense of organizational purpose and by encouraging employee engagement with the brand. The brand values were thoroughly incorporated into the entire organization—product development meetings, personal development, employee achievement citations and much more.
   During the period mentioned above, a strong sense of understanding and awareness existed in the organization. It would not have been out of place for a highly technical meeting on telecommunications platforms and infrastructure to close with a discussion on how to make the chosen concept look and feel Orange. Further, the senior team, and in particular the CEO, regularly and personally conducted visible deeds that reinforced the values. These deeds were visible to the organization and were passionately recounted, until they became symbols of the organizational identity. They developed into rich seams of company lore that were ardently repeated.
   Below are two examples from the period which illustrate:

• one employee’s personal interpretation and application of brand values; and
• how senior management deeds can build lasting, purposeful narrative.

7.1 Doohickey Day
Many technology companies face a challenge in getting the marketing team to understand the technology team and vice versa. Communications between the two groups can become sterile, even where best intentions are present, normally due to a lack of understanding between the two groups. Orange was no exception. A unique solution for Orange was developed, however, by one of its engineers. He created a forum for sharing technical developments in an engaging format, which the marketing team would appreciate. The concept was called Doohickey Day, named for the way that engineers in the Dilbert cartoon strip sometimes convey key technologies to their colleagues.
   The forum consisted of engineers who would present innovative and upcoming technological concepts to a crowd of (largely) marketing people. The attendees all sat at round tables, each with a large red button in the centre. Each button played a unique sound when pressed. When speaking, the technology presenters were not allowed to use acronyms or jargon to describe the concept. If this did occur, the attendees could “buzz” the speaker by pressing the red button. At the end of the day, the speaker who had the most buzzes against him was given a penance. The penance? They were made to work in the marketing department for a day!
   This process tackled an age-old issue of inter-department communication, but did so in a way that was engaging. In fact, the whole exercise was straightforward, refreshing, dynamic, honest and friendly—reinforcing the five espoused Orange values.¹² Most importantly, the concept was created out of an employee’s personal understanding of how the brand values could be applied to solve an internal issue. It is just one of the many ways that an internal brand management focus helped to significantly influence the workings of the organization and ultimately, the services that were developed for customers.

7.2 Customers missing in the boardroom
A second example focuses on just one visible senior management deed that carried particular resonance throughout the organization. It involved two members of the Corporate Strategy team, who were tasked with presenting a concept to the Executive Board. While presenting the early portion of a PowerPoint presentation, the CEO, Hans Snook, thanked the two strategy representatives for their effort and asked them to leave. The presenters quickly pointed out that they were not finished and that they still had more pages to discuss. Mr Snook replied that given that they had already presented a number of pages and that they had not yet mentioned the customer, they were indeed, finished. The embarrassed presenters duly left the now silent boardroom.
   The impact of this brief episode was immediate and far-reaching. First, it concentrated the minds of the strategy team for that particular presentation and for every subsequent piece of work undertaken. Second, the board members too took away additional insight that day into how the CEO was absolutely determined to represent the customer at all costs.¹³ Finally, stories about that day meandered throughout the organization, establishing a firm body of lore about the importance of remembering the customer and it served as a constant reminder to the whole of the company.

7.3 Talent-spotting
Readers might see these two examples and look for the role of the brand manager in both, for neither example is a result of a brand-led, marketing initiative. One example cited the insight of a single employee and the other referenced the strong personality of the CEO. Nevertheless, the role of brand managers is still key in both. The stories show the underlying need for brand managers to recognize when brand values are being enacted and to support and endorse these activities. Eventually, support from brand managers with regard to Doohickey Day, helped it to grow from a small gathering of people to a highly engaging exchange for hundreds of attendees. Separately, brand managers religiously built the CEO’s insistence of putting the customer first in every communication exercise.
   Brand management in these instances did not translate into the clever invention and leadership of a specific project. Actually, it required the wisdom to locate good values-based examples when they occurred and the dedication to support them thereafter.

7.4 Benefit for the customer
The Orange example is also beneficial for seeing how the brand values were reiterated externally, in customer exchanges.
   From the outset, Orange presented an interesting proposition that people wanted to be a part of. At launch, in 1994 for instance, no product-specific materials were used. Instead a broad brand-awareness campaign was built, in an industry that was woefully lacking in powerful consumer brands. It hinged on the phrase the future’s bright, the future’s Orange, a phrase that is still immensely popular today and which is politely modified with wordplay in media coverage. Below are some examples of how Orange reinforced the five brand values, particularly in circumstances of customer experience.

7.4.1 Friendly and straightforward
   The values of friendly and straightforward were in widespread use at all Orange touchpoints. Innovative solutions at that time are now readily recognized as industry standards. These included uncluttered shop environments, a reduced number of simplified talk plans and the absence of technology in all advertising. Customers readily bought into a lifestyle concept instead of making independent, product-based, purchasing decisions. Presentation material relied on brief, but clear phraseology and powerful, supportive images. This approach was in complete contrast to an industry that was technologically oriented and rife with complex explanations. Philosophically, the friendly perspective was internally viewed as a child leading an adult into a safe and rewarding future. Thus, advertising often used children’s concepts such as bicycles and kites, or simple line drawings to explain services.
   But even the name Orange, while highly respected today, was seen as innovative and unusual. Practically every operator name at that time featured some aspect of mobile telephony—words like phone, net or cell—and thus, emphasized technology. A few company names existed outside the technology sphere, but the companies failed to market themselves in a non-technological way. Today this use of a company name to distance the organization from mobile technology is in widespread use—Wind, Blue, O², 3 are some specific examples—but the process began with Orange.

7.4.2 Honest and dynamic
   These values were reiterated in several specific and unique offerings for the industry. Per-second billing and caller identification represented the initial manifestations of honesty and dynamism. Until the arrival of Orange, mobile users paid for minutes or portions of minutes even when using the mobile to make a call of only seconds. The concept of caller identification was unthinkable. Now, per-second billing and caller identification are world-wide industry standards.
   Other industry-leading examples included the Orange Value Promise, which gave customers the chance to use other operator tariffs on the Orange network if desired and the Orange Network Promise, where credit was given to users who experienced network connectivity issues.
   Orange also influenced the analyst community. Prior to the arrival of Orange, operators were fixated with average revenue per user (ARPU). While ARPU was, and still is, a critical measure, Orange was nevertheless able to introduce the concept of Customer Lifetime Subscriber Value (CLSV). This was a measure of APRU and customer churn, which expressed value over the lifetime of a customer relationship. The analysts of the industry lauded it, as it suited the long-term payback nature of mobile network investment.
   Most importantly, honesty was evident in customer relationships. For example, telephone-based customer service staff would willingly indicate to customers when it was felt that they were paying too much by subscribing to the wrong tariff. Customers, pleasantly surprised, would happily migrate to the lower-priced tariff, but thereafter feel inclined to stay with the network longer, underpinning the CLSV perspective above. This is an example of how an extensive internal focus on being the strategy and living the brand ensured that the customer expectations were not just met, but very often exceeded at each exchange.

7.4.3 Refreshing
   Collectively, the Orange position represented a refreshing perspective for the industry. Technology was relegated, customer needs were emphasized and communications were clear, but concise.
   Moreover, the organization expressed an ability to see beyond its services and even developed the ability to laugh at itself. A good example of this phase was in a run of print advertising which listed activities that could be accomplished with the mobile switched on or switched off. Separately, cinema advertisements of the fictional Orange Film Board reinforced a refreshing perspective. Here the ‘board’ cheekily pitched bogus film scripts with the mobile phone as the star, before stating the core message of Don’t let a mobile phone ruin your movie.

8. Final caution—be careful what you wish for
Striving for excellent customer experiences is what Orange sought and is what most organizations seek. It is difficult to achieve and maintain excellence, as this paper has indicated. Worryingly, however, there are some additional, and perhaps unexpected, pitfalls for successful brands.
   Great brands attract talent. People want to be associated with them. They sense the opportunity to display their abilities. Over time, however, great brands attract idlers, too. Idlers are those people who are good at doing very little, surviving instead on the efforts of the people around them. For them, there is less to do in a successful company. They can be more difficult to locate, and they share in a larger reward than if they worked in a lesser organization.
   Great brands can also suffer from too much of a good thing. Messages which are constantly stated, but are poorly reinforced by actions, can lead to traits of arrogance or complacency in the organization. Soon, the once valuable programme of community building is perceived as nothing more than corporate propaganda. Sadly, an unending diet of statements, without positive reinforcement, can bring about a culture that is at odds with the brand position that is being espoused.
   Finally, great brands can be poor at knowing when the period of success is over. No organization is excellent forever. In fact, the life expectancy of organizations is quite low, according to Arie de Geus.¹⁴ While at Shell as Head of Planning, he searched for benchmarks from other organizations that were, like Shell, at least 100 years old. Interestingly, he and his team found only 40 firms of that age. They concluded that organizations could indeed last longer, but that many of today’s company systems do not nurture this kind of tenure. The result of shorter-term systems is that most organizations will eventually face fundamental change. This could be in their market-place, political system or in the loss of a leader. Each of these examples indicate a need to reevaluate the emphasis in strategy and brand management. The issue here is that while poor and average organizations live in a very real world of knowing that the end could occur at any time, successful organizations are often blind to anything other than business-as-usual expectations.

Conclusion
This paper has discussed brand management and the customer experience. This has been done not by dissecting brand management into its specific components, but by illustrating the robustness of brand management when placed appropriately in an organization. The paper has also highlighted the need to supply employees with tools—identity and guiding principles—to interpret and personally apply organizational attributes. Among other benefits, these employee tools help to breed a consistent and high quality customer experience externally. Both customers and organizations can determine the overall worth of individual customer exchanges by the presence of brand values.
   Finally, it is worth reiterating that people are the key ingredient in any branding effort. It is the actions of people inside an organization that feed the experience of those outside the company. The journey of providing quality customer experience is long and can be arduous. It begins at the heart of an organization. It begins with employees who are being the strategy and living the brand.

Notes
   1. O. E. Williamson and S. G. Winter: The Nature of the Firm: Origins, Evolutions and Development. New York: Oxford University Press 1993.
   2. N. Ind: Living the Brand, 2nd ed. London: Kogan Page 2004.
   3. SMART: a popular mnemonic to recall best practice for constructing Objectives. It states that objectives should always be Strategic, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-based.
   4. McDonald’s Restaurants v. Morris & Steel (1999), colloquially known as the ‘McLibel Case’, which, despite the label, McDonald’s successfully argued.
   5. Consider the accusations placed on corporations by corporate critics such as Naomi Klein (No Logo) and Michael Moore (Roger and Me, Fahrenheit 9-11, Bowling for Columbine). Consider, too, the resulting difficulties that can occur when trying to defend against same (e.g. establishing the difference between political speech and corporate speech in Kasky v. Nike, Inc. (2002) 02 C.D.O.S. 3790).
   6. See www.masterfoodsconsumercare.co.uk/veg_status.asp: ‘At Mars UK we recently changed the source of some of the whey which is used in some of our chocolate products. We have received lots of feedback that this decision has made it difficult for some of you, especially those of you who are vegetarians, to continue to enjoy our products. We made a mistake. We apologise. The consumer is our boss. Therefore we listen to you and your feedback. As a company we value openness, honesty and diversity and we believe that anybody should be able to choose freely from our range of chocolate brands. But being sorry isn’t enough. Therefore we commit to you today, that we at Mars UK will ensure that a selection of your favourite brands—Mars bars, Snickers bars, Galaxy and Maltesers, will be suitable for vegetarians in the near future. To this effect we are starting to change our manufacturing process today. We will keep you informed of our progress against this commitment through regular updates on this website. Please accept our apology and keep talking to us.’
   7. See the statement of Dr Annette Pinner, Chief Executive, the Vegetarian Society, at www.vegsoc.org/news/2007/mars.html, May 21, 2007: ‘The Vegetarian Society’s door is always open to companies seeking to better serve vegetarians. A Masterfoods representative has made contact with us and we are very pleased that they now recognise the importance of integrity to all their customers, especially vegetarians. We cannot endorse any planned actions by the company until we receive detailed assurances about the ingredients and processes involved in production but we are delighted that Mars UK has been honest enough to mark the beginning of National Vegetarian Week by admitting that it made a mistake. The best thing they could do now is, of course, to take up our accreditation scheme and earn the right to brand their products as Vegetarian Society Approved.’
   8. L. Kahney: ‘Mac Loyalists: Don’t Tread on Us’, Wired, December 2, 2002.
   9. S. Captain: ‘Fans Storm Apple’s 5th Avenue Store’, Wired, May 19, 2006.
   10. The successful and award winning Green My Apple web-based campaign organized by Greenpeace is now archived. This weblink tells the story of how Greenpeace enticed the Apple customer base to influence the organization’s green policy: www.greenpeace.org/international/news/greening-of-apple-310507.
   11. Orange gained the top ranking for customer satisfaction among mobile phone contract customers in the annual J. D. Power and Associates 2005 UK Mobile Telephone Customers’ Satisfaction Study, seven times in the period 1998–2005. In October 2005, Orange won the Mobile Choice Consumer Awards—voted for by readers of Mobile Choice magazine—for Best Network Operator for the fifth consecutive year. In the same month, Orange also won Best International Mobile Operator at the World Communications Awards.
   12. Today the Orange.com website cites these five behavioural values alongside three additional values that describe the reputation it seeks: trusted, innovative and responsible.
   13. A brief synopsis on Hans Snook, his business philosophy and his time at Orange is in C. Langdon and D. Manners: Digerati Glitterati: High-tech Heroes. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley 2001.
   14. Arie de Geus worked for Royal Dutch–Shell for nearly 40 years. His book introduces the concept of treating companies like living work communities. It is regularly short-listed as one of the best management books of all time. A. de Geus: The Living Company. London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing 1996.

Note: This is a post-peer-review, pre-copy-edit version of an article published in Journal of Brand Management, vol. 15, 2007, pp. 102–14; published online October 9, 2007. The definitive publisher-authenticated version, ‘We the People: the Importance of Employees in the Process of Building Customer Experience’, is available online at: www.palgrave-journals.com/bm/journal/v15/n2/abs/2550123a.html.

Jack Yan¹
CEO, Jack Yan & Associates, PO Box 14-368, Wellington 6241, New Zealand
jack.yan@jyanet.com

J. Yan: ‘Online Branding: a Definitive Guide’, The Journal of the Medinge Group, vol. 1, no. 1, August 2007.
PDF version

Executive summary
Successful brands on the internet depend on certain ingredients. And unlike offline brands, the process surrounding vision, research, exposition and image differ slightly, even if the ingredients of brand equity remain the same. Importantly, a loose vision, informal research, and tapping into consumer advocacy all help build a strong brand on the internet. All these additionally contribute to whether a brand has acquired secondary meaning in a legal sense, although the existing test needs to be reconsidered.

1. Introduction
Despite some major texts on branding in the last 10 years, from Wally Olins’s The New Guide to Identity,² to Nicholas Ind’s Living the Brand,³ and the Ind-edited Beyond Branding,⁴ branding is a very divisive field. Few have done studies to connect the organization’s vision to business performance, which this author did in 1999, and the majority of companies have still failed to appoint marketers to the boardroom. Meanwhile, others are leading the cutting edge of branding, such as Stefan Engeseth with his new work, One.⁵ There is little bridging research into the integrated marketing communications’ model and the cutting-edge, consumer movement papers; and certainly very little on how brands can be built using the internet.⁶
   Before delving into this paper, it is useful to cover what branding is. As outlined in one of the author’s earlier papers,⁷ it may be thought of as:

the methods in which the organization communicates, symbolizes and differentiates itself to all of its audiences.

   The word branding has altered in meaning, even amongst the experts such as Olins.⁸ Traditionally, the ‘brand’ was part of ‘identity’, which may be defined as:⁹

the explicit management of all the ways in which the organization presents itself through experiences and perceptions to all of its audiences.

The brand was merely the part of this management that was directed at a consumer, or an audience member, external to the organization.
   However, perhaps through media coverage and Naomi Klein’s seminal No Logo,¹⁰ which questioned the ethics behind branding, the word brand entered the vernacular. At the same time, the branding model evolved somewhat: Olins began touting the brand as an ‘attitude’ that described the organization,¹¹ and branding consultants became a little more obsessed with the message being sent to consumers, perhaps in the wake of No Logo. It, therefore, became important to make sure that the vision of the organization took into account the message it would send to consumers as one of its earliest steps, and to make sure what was being communicated inside the organization was identical to what was being communicated outside. The word brand began taking on the meaning once given to identity.
   This coincided with another development: the “mainstreaming” of the online world. With consumer input now being sought readily for things such as product development (e.g. online surveys became common and were thought of as a means through which the most current data about the market-place could be sought), and consumers themselves becoming powerfula dvocates for brands (spreading good news via emails, or indeed, bad news), there was less of a distinction between the marketing departments of organizations and the customers themselves.
   Therefore, the branding model began looking quite different. Once, organizations could depend on training their staff to tow the official line, expressing the brand in the way dictated by head office. But consumers could not be managed in the same way. They needed to be incorporated into brand-communication decisions, either by (a) inspiring staff members and getting them to work so closely to consumers on the hope of “infectious enthusiasm”, or (b) turning those consumers themselves into a de facto marketing department.¹²
   There are good examples of each. The former group is typified by companies in Ind’s Living the Brand,¹³ notably Patagonia. The sportswear company has staff that use its products, while consumers are prepared to talk up its goods. The latter group includes many of the networking services on the web, including LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). Arguably, the initial growth of Yahoo! (first built while its founders were still at Stanford University), Google (which uses its user base to spread news of its new products), and Flickr (which is being found by web users frequenting blogs and similar services) could be credited to the second method. The author refrains from using the viral marketing term here, largely because it has become hackneyed.
   But how does this online growth actually happen and how does it contribute to the strength of a brand? And if this happens, can the internet truly impact on brand equity¹⁴ and related issues, such as providing a brand with secondary meaning¹⁵ in the eyes of the law?

2. The branding process
The logical place to begin is in the regular branding model.¹⁶ The brand begins with a vision, or, indeed, a slogan (if it is far-reaching enough to guide the whole organization). The important things are that the vision is unique and able to summarize the organizational “attitude”. Audiences learn of the vision through such things as the logo and the communications that surround it. These should ideally express the brand’s attitude. They form an association between the symbols such as the logo and the values of the organization.
   As stated in an earlier paper, ‘Semiotics are key’:¹⁷

Symbols, logos, etc., signify certain things that form mental pictures in our mind when we interpret them. [A branding] campaign ensures that the correct pictures are formed and that incorrect or earlier ones are replaced.¹⁸ Repeated exposures reinforce meaning, which is why consistency in branding is important.

   This leads to brand equity, which is the added value that a brand endows a particular product or service. The author wrote of its consequence:¹⁹ ‘As audiences—whether they are shareholders, future customers, students or any other group—select or think of the brand more frequently, they ultimately contribute to the organization’s business performance in economic or strategic terms.’
   Online, the psychological process remains largely the same. In 2001, when the author last explored online brands,²⁰ there were more audience members specifically seeking certain companies’ products and services on the web. Other than online advertising, many web-based brands were not discovered unwittingly, unlike many that appeared on television or in print. However, there was an indication that this was changing as the web became more commonplace.

2.1 Online brands today
It is almost difficult to remember how western business was conducted without the internet and the World Wide Web. The web is often the first destination for any researcher today, for instance.
   But there is still no follow-up from the author’s earlier work on how some online brands capture the public’s consciousness and others do not. Most people discovered Google, for instance, through referrals. (At the time of the earlier paper, Google was still unknown, although the firm existed.) Blogger.com, the service that enables web users to maintain public online journals (web logs, or blogs), spread through its logo appearing on the blogs it hosted on the internet—and gained a secondary meaning as a result. Yet other brands remain online, and have done so for years, without influencing the public.
   It may be easy to say that Amazon.com, for example, was so revolutionary that by being first-in-sector, it gained mainstream media coverage. That may be so, but there are other ventures that were firsts in their sector that never received that coverage—Fashionbrat, for example, was New Zealand’s first online fashion magazine, but has become forgotten beyond this author’s own coverage. Even some of the first fashion magazines on the internet in Australia (Marie Claire, Fashion Australia) and the United States (Fashion Internet) never captured huge public attention and do not survive today. Something else must be at work.
   The author’s earlier work²¹ illustrated that there were some strategic and structural differences between successful online firms and successful offline ones.
   Vision. Visions were more fluid, so ventures that were defined too tightly failed: Pets.com and Boo.com, which admittedly had other issues, were defined narrowly and could not shift into new businesses when their original failures became apparent. At the time, the author cited one of his own properties, Lucire, which has survived as a web site and online magazine; while the other two businesses cited have changed only because of changes in their founders’ personal lives. Up to the times of their changes, they had survived well, based on a “loose” vision. By equal measure, Amazon.com survived by branching out from books to DVDs, toys and even lawn furniture.
   One issue that was apparent in 2001 was the need to have corporate citizenship. This shift toward more socially responsible firms has become stronger in the last few years, with greater awareness of “anti-brands”.²² Internet audiences tended to be more alert to these anti-brands, some preferring products from entrepreneurial, independent firms.
   Research. The earlier research also illustrated that there was a lower-cost and shallower research process, with online entrepreneurs willing to begin their ventures on instinct and relationships with other organizations and customers. Successful online firms were willing to employ modern communication techniques.
   Exposition. In communicating the brand, the organization partners with others to help it get its word out. Independent contractors, freelancers and other web sites (through links, and, today, mentions on blogs) become “advocates” for the organization. Those that began offline tended to retain the same brand. (Exceptions exist, such as Condé Nast’s Style.com, the online version of Vogue, though that can still be reached in the United States via Vogue.com.) They also tended to be global in their approach, quoting, for example, US dollar prices, despite their location, and made little use of their own country’s symbols. They also attempted to use as much offline media as possible.
   To reach the public, they relied more on below-the-line marketing, and not above-the-line. Part of the reason is budgetary, but they also managed to put out distinctive products or services. The successful firms examined tended to have a more personal and positive “attitude”. They made use of a cynicism against big business to their own advantage.
   Image. No changes to how brand image—the consequence of branding—were found between offline and online firms. In other words, all the “hard work” is done earlier, with the results of a strong brand—image, business performance and secondary meaning—unaffected by the medium.
   Two brands today may be instructive, as their growth is happening at the time of writing and are considered successes by the media. One is Flickr.com, a photograph-sharing service recently acquired by Yahoo!.Its growth has been gradual, but it shows that a company that did not have a huge marketing budget can become an integral part of the web. (At the time of writing, Flickr has 158,000,000 hits on Google, while a search for “US Supreme Court” results in 37,400,000 hits.) If it follows the pattern of Yahoo!, Google et al, which it is expected to,²³ it will become a normal way for people to share digital photography.
   A second brand, which is more fleeting, is the name of a movie. New Line’s Snakes on a Plane, starring Samuel L. Jackson, began pre-production in 2005. The name was mentioned on a blog in August 2005, and its star insisted that the film be called that, after the studio attempted to change it to a more generic Pacific Air 121. Because of its odd name, it began circulating around the web, mostly with bloggers. By the end of the year, Wired had published an article about it in its print edition,²⁴ and unauthorized cups, T-shirts and even a blog (Snakes on a Blog) had been created. Some even went so far as to say that snakes on a plane had become a common phrase akin to ‘C’est la vie’ and had input it into the Urban Dictionary, a site where colloquialisms and slang can be entered.
   The buzz was so strong that New Line went back to the studio to shoot for five extra days to satisfy fans.²⁵ A fan-designed logo even became the official logo for the film, to be released in August 2006.²⁶ One news source even believes that a parody line that appeared on a blog will make it into the film.²⁷
   Finally, it may be worth considering Google, since it was not as strong at the time of the earlier study. An upstart search engine is now the primary search engine on the internet, with 80 per cent of searches for the author’s own web site coming from it. Google has branched from its core search service into Google Earth and Gmail, neither of which would appear, on the surface, to be connected to finding information. Google Ads has become a force in the online advertising arena, and might be influential enough to branch into offline advertising.
   These three represent three very different parts of the web. Flickr is part of the much-vaunted ‘Web 2·0’, which in a layperson’s terms is a more interactive evolution of the World Wide Web where everyone has a chance to create their own dialogues, networks and web sites, with richer user experiences.²⁸ Snakes on a Plane is an intentionally fleeting choice: it was not set up as an online venture per se, and is merely reflective of a conversation taking place on the web. Google is well known and began as a single application in the time of Web 1·0, but is adding services (and has added services) such as Blogger, representative of Web 2·0.

2.2 Do they fit into the branding scheme?
2.2.1 Flickr.com
   Flickr’s offering, however, is simply stated. It is a photo-sharing service, with a difference: it allows users to tag their images, thereby ordering them under different topics. Those searching for images for tsunami, for example, will find all photos with that tag, regardless of photographer. Prior to that, photo-sharing services tended to be grouped by users, so they were shared only as far as one user was able to spread the word.
   The idea, perhaps, is not new. Del.icio.us, another Web 2·0 service, allows users to group blog posts. Professional photo libraries have been grouped using keywords. Flickr democratized not just the library, but the ability to create those keywords—tags under the latest parlance. The difference was that there was an intent about sharing, and the site is typical of the “social media” made possible by the internet.
   But on the surface it appears to be a well defined company with a single offering, enough to tempt Yahoo! into acquiring it. (Google was reportedly interested, too.) However, the original vision was not necessarily of this service.
   Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, suffering from food poisoning, had a dream about a multi-player game ‘built around sharing photographs.’²⁹ The original Flickr site actually centred on instant messaging with some digital photography support. Early members were gamers and bloggers, with an interest in photography. Butterfield made use of Flickr’s loose vision to emphasize the strength that was emerging from its user base: users who were conversing but setting the tone using digital photography in their instant-messaging.
   That same looseness meant a certain level of experimentation, rather than formal research. Flickr noticed where its strengths were by letting users find their own feet and interests.
   Flickr does partner with others to spread the word. But rather than through formal alliances, it does this by bringing its users into the fray. Users become the editors for sorting the photographs. In effect, organization and user are on the same side, in an expression of the One principle espoused most heavily by Engeseth.³⁰
   Its strongest advocates were its users, and Yahoo!’s own interest came from an email from a ‘Flickr fanatic in Bangalore, India’.³¹ That eventually led to a $30 million deal.
   Flickr is now ranked 90th in Alexa, the service that examines where web sites are placed on the web. It can be said to have a strong image, if measured in brand equity terms: it has ever-rising brand awareness, it is positively considered by its users, there is a great deal of loyalty to the service, and its perceived quality is high. The value of its proprietary brand assets—its trademark and intellectual property—may be considered to be high, given what Yahoo! had paid for the company.
   Flickr confirms the original criteria set down by the author for a successful online brand.

2.2.2 Snakes on a Plane
   Snakes on a Plane is an unusual choice for this paper. It is not a venture, therefore it could not be said to have a vision per se. It is a movie title whose quirkiness led to an initial round of blogging, an article in Wired, and a decision by the studio to shoot for five more days given the buzz on the internet. That prompted more mainstream media coverage.
   The author first heard of Snakes on a Plane as Pacific Air 121, when Lucire was first asked to participate in the movie. The studio, New Line, states now that Pacific Air 121 was a working title used to solicit support, though there are claims that it had wanted to change the name to avoid ridicule.
   Its Google references have gone up and down since word first got out that Snakes on a Plane was the decided title. Before January 19, 2006, they rested on 96,900, rising to 461,000 by February 1. However, there was a fall from that point: 380,000 on February 5 and 176,000 on February 15. It was New Line’s decision to shoot extra footage that piqued the interest of the mainstream media, and the hits started on an upward trend: by March 25, this had risen to 880,000.
   Given there is no “organization” that is called Snakes on a Plane, it is hard to consider if it had a loose vision or not. Perhaps one could say that its producers had an open mind in considering all the attention the film had received on blogs; and that if the vision was “tight”, there would not have been a reshoot. Nevertheless, this inquiry cannot be academically rigorous.
   However, other branding aspects can be considered from the perspective of the production company. Evidently, research was informal and inexpensive: the preference for Snakes on a Plane was signalled most by bloggers, not by the studio. Samuel L. Jackson chimed in to say that the title should be retained, but that appears to be a more recent development. Listening and monitoring blogs indicates a willingness to incorporate modern technology in researching how well the Snakes on a Plane title was being received.
   The communication of the name has come from not just the studio—New Line pays lip service to it on its web site and snakesonaplanemovie.com, the official site, is barely more than a home page—but from the internet audience. Therefore, the “advocacy requirement” for a successful online venture is more than present—it could even be said now to be Snakes on a Plane’s raison d’être.
   The consequences ofall this cannot be measured at this time. Providing the interest in the venture does not wane—as it did in February—then Snakes on a Plane will enjoy a sizeable audience. Perhaps with the extra footage, it now will, because New Line was willing to show it would participate in the dialogue with its advocates. Only then can one measure brand equity—whether the brand loyalty is strong enough to be maintained until the film’s release in August.
   Snakes on a Plane could be said to be a brand, notwithstanding the absence of a vision. It symbolizes, communicates and differentiates a product. Furthermore, like Star Wars figurines and the like, the Snakes on a Plane name has extended into cups and T-shirts, even if they are not formally merchandised and endorsed by New Line.
   But only on certain aspects can one say for sure that Snakes on a Plane fulfils the earlier criteria. However, on those that can be considered at the time of writing, they are met.

2.2.3 Google
   There is less similarity between Google and the other two brands examined to date. It is the oldest venture of the three and has received the most coverage. Its name has become so ubiquitous that it is now a verb: to google means to search for something on the internet,³² specifically using the Google web search service.
   The history has been dealt with many times before, and is a familiar story: two Stanford University students began tinkering. Larry Page had a fascination for back links pointing to any given web site and built a program to compile them. The offline press began noticing Google as early as 1998. The Google culture, however, was not one of formality. New ideas emerged from Google’s staff and many were implemented, the most famous being Google News. Google never intended to be in the news-editing service, but Google News analysed stories that a web spider found and ranked them on a page of headlines. By 2000, it had introduced AdWords, a keyword-targeted advertising service. Other acquisitions illustrated that Google was not just about search. If it had a tightly defined vision, none of these developments would have been encouraged, let alone see the light of day.
   As told by Heilemann in GQ:³³

But beneath the comically clichéd trappings, Google was becoming something interesting—and powerful. Having cut deals with an array of companies, most critically Yahoo, Google was processing more than 100 million searches a day and indexing an unprecedented 1 billion Web pages. Fueling this growth was a relentlessness about innovation. [Founders] Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] were openly, brutally elitist when it came to hiring engineers. (Job applicants, no matter their age, had to submit their college transcripts.) In software and hardware, Google’s innovation was remarkable. Using off-the-shelf components, the company was building what was, in effect, the planet’s largest computing system. And its official mission—“to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”—extended far beyond searching the Internet.
   “I did not understand when I came to the company how broad Larry and Sergey’s vision was,” [Former Novell CEO Eric] Schmidt says. “It took me six months of talking to them to really understand it. I remember sitting with Larry, saying, ‘Tell me again what our strategy is,’ and writing it down.”
   At the same time, the boys had fostered an environment that was flamboyantly idealistic. Search was all, profit peripheral, “Don’t be evil” the corporate motto. (Asked later what the slogan meant, Schmidt would say, “Evil is what Sergey says is evil.”)
   In short, Larry and Sergey had already encoded the DNA of the company Schmidt was supposed to run. The character they instilled in Google could be summed up in three phrases: Technology matters. We make our own rules. We’ll grow up when we’re damn good and ready.
   The boys’ reality took some getting used to for Schmidt. It wasn’t just the dot-com fripperies that fazed him or the dogs trotting up and down the halls. It was the squatter in his office. (The interloper was an engineer frustrated with the bustle in his own shared quarters. After first attempting to evict him, Schmidt gave up and endured the situation for several months.) He also found himself frequently occupied with grounding Larry and Sergey’s flights of fancy. There was the time the boys suggested having Google enter the business of low-cost space launchings. And the time Larry reportedly tried to ban telephones from a new Google office building.

   In terms of research, Google relies on the inspiration of its staff. This informality has almost become legendary, shunned by some traditional business experts and praised by those who believe an entrepreneurial style should be maintained by an organization. At its first post-IPO investors’ meeting, Google was so informal its chef wound up explaining the food on the menu—a move heavily criticized by the Wall Street establishment.
   Its growth did come from people spreading the word about the search engine. The initial 1998 press came well before Google secured large financing, and was a direct result of everyday users. Given that the late 1990s and early 2000s saw a dot-com downturn, Google weathered this thanks to users spreading the word and, of course, through delivering a quality service.
   Its brand equity is strong. The initial public offering, according to CNN, indicated a worth of $24 billion in 2004.³⁴ Its brand loyalty and perceived quality are high, given that rivals have not managed to dethrone Google. Brand awareness can be little higher—Alexa ranks it at no. 2, behind Yahoo!. Google was found to be a top brand according to Brandchannel,³⁵ while branding shop Landor found it in second but predicts a Google win for 2006.³⁶
   There is some negativity relating to its more recent developments—offering Red China a censored version of its search engine, Google.cn, for instance³⁷—but not enough to signal that its image has been tarnished in a major way. Again, only recent events have indicated that Google is anything but a dynamic, entrepreneurial and almost anti-establishment firm—even if its founders are multi-billionaires who have the financial worth of the establishment.
   Google also confirms the author’s earlier work on the ingredients of a successful online brand, though it may be useful to examine the consequences of its most recent actions in Red China with Google.cn. The Chinese market itself may opt for other services should the political climate change and the people enjoy greater freedom.³⁸
   The three brands examined also illustrate that while the author’s earlier work was directed at Australian and New Zealand enterprises, the rules apply in the United States, too. Indeed, the author advances that they are universal, given the global nature of the internet and very similar online browsing habits between all cultures and creeds.

3. Secondary meaning
It may be worth, in a legal inquiry, to see if the online branding model can endow a brand with secondary meaning.
   Traditionally, brands have acquired secondary meaning through ‘advertising or massive exposure’, establishing a trademark ‘in the minds of consumers as an indication of origin from one particular source.’³⁹ Tyndall offers a fairly standard explanation:⁴⁰

A descriptive name, word, term, or mark will have achieved secondary meaning when a significant quantity of the consuming public for the goods and/or services in question understand it to refer exclusively to a particular party. …
   Courts examine the following factors in determining whether a name, word, term, or trademark has acquired secondary meaning:
   1. The length and manner of use;
   2. The nature and extent of advertising and promotion; and
   3. The efforts made in promoting a conscious connection between the name, word, term, or mark and the product, service, or business in the minds of consumers.

It is accepted that the antecedents of branding, even in an offline model, do not necessarily provide a brand with secondary meaning. This is usually due to insufficient exposure.
   In the internet world, where there is a potential global audience, do the standards for secondary meaning differ? The three examples in §2 can be said to have acquired secondary meaning: they cannot be mistaken either for anything else or having been from anyone else but their creators. They had got there without heavy (conventional) advertising or promotion; instead, it was their user bases or fans that propelled them into the minds of consumers in their market-place.
   Indeed, an inquiry into the length of use may be less applicable on the internet: Snakes on a Plane has been mentioned only since around August 2005 and has managed 880,000 hits in Google (in seven months). The internet is not the only place where timeframes are more compressed than they were many decades ago: the same pattern can be found in new product development and in the product life cycle.⁴¹
   Only the third factor quoted above may be said to have relevance in an inquiry about secondary meaning in online branding.
   One approach may be to obtain Alexa statistics of all web sites, making a judgement on each one to see where a cut-off point might lie between online brands that have acquired secondary meaning and those that have not. However, this may prove unreliable: there are offline brands that have ventured online that have a low Alexa ranking⁴² but possess secondary meaning, such as the New Zealand clothing brand Karen Walker.
   The best approach is to examine, instead, how well linked they are on the World Wide Web. As advocates will post about their favourite brands, and provide links to them—especially in the age of citizen media or social media—they will get picked up by search engines.
   Google, which ranks sites in its index through an algorithm, is best placed as an analysis tool. The algorithm includes a consideration of how many web pages link to a particular site, and even how credible those pages are. It is partly based on web traffic. Further, it is an international consideration, of consumers worldwide, although given the United States’ position as the leading nation on the internet, there will be more American viewpoints covered. It is also, fortunately, independent: no one person can influence the Google algorithm, even if some lawsuits have been started over it.
   Flickr, Snakes on a Plane and Google are all unusual words or terms, but Amazon is not. A search for Amazon does not come up with the river, but Amazon.com, the retailer, first. The first mention of the rainforest is the third site. Only two in the top ten do not refer to the retailer. Within its market, it is highly unlikely anyone would consider Amazon to relate to any other organization but Amazon.com.
   In short, if a brand has met the criteria from the author’s earlier paper, summarized here, then it can qualify as a ‘strong online brand’. If, in addition to this,⁴³ it has achieved some success in the Google index, then a future court should regard it as having acquired secondary meaning.

4. Summary
Organizations cannot expect to employ the old, offline rules of branding in an online sphere. But at the same time, they cannot expect that the old rules will apply offline, either.
   Importantly, the internet has helped identify consumers who are conscious of corporate social responsibility, and public opinion now favours entrepreneurial-style firms over establishment-style ones. These trends have not changed since the author first examined online branding in a pre-9-11 paper.
   But even more vitally, the democratization of media—the emergence of citizen media or social media—has meant that individuals have become brand advocates. Online brands find success through tapping in to their respective advocates, providing them with a “reason to spread” their names. Those that follow these requirements have found success, and some of 2006’s most talked-about brands—new, fleeting and established—have done so, by and large, perhaps unwittingly.
   This has an impact on the way secondary meaning is to be considered by the courts, changing drastically any consideration into advertising. This needs to be replaced by a consideration of “chatter” on the World Wide Web, resulting in links or a high Google ranking. Secondly, the consideration into time needs to be altered, as brands can be built on the internet at a rapid pace.
   The internet has forced such changes that few organizations can have an offline-only existence, so the processes described in this paper need to be considered in any branding exercise or inquiry into a brand’s or trademark’s secondary meaning.

Notes
   1. LL B, BCA (Hons.), MCA. CEO, Jack Yan & Associates (http://jya.net); President, JY&A Consulting (http://jya.net/ consulting).
   2. W. Olins: The New Guide to Identity. Aldershot: Gower 1995.
   3. N. Ind: Living the Brand: How to Transform Every Member of Your Organization into a Brand Champion, 2nd ed. London: Kogan Page 2004.
   4. N. Ind (ed.): Beyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands. London: Kogan Page 2003.
   5. S. Engeseth: One: a Consumer Revolution in Business. London: Cyan Books 2006.
   6. Many of the papers discussing online brand-building are general, without creating a credible model. See, for example, the papers collected at Allaboutbranding.com.
   7. J. Yan: ‘Online branding: an antipodean experience’, in Kim, Ling, Lee and Park (eds.): Human Society and the Internet. Berlin: Springer 2001, pp. 185–202.
   8. J. Yan: ‘The attitude of identity’, Desktop, October 2000, pp. 26–31.
   9. W. Olins: The New Guide, op. cit.
   10. N. Klein: No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies. New York: Picador 2000.
   11. J. Yan: ‘The attitude of identity’, op. cit.
   12. Brand managers could well become managers of consumer perceptions some day, helping guide them and feeding them back into the corporate vision. The brand could become a pluralistic “collective of perceptions”, rather than a single idea under the current model. So far, that has not happened, but it is a logical outcome of today’s trends.
   13. Op. cit.
   14. D. A. Aaker: Building Strong Brands. New York: Free Press 1991.
   15. Secondary meaning arises when consumers have come to identify a trademark with its owner over time.
   16. J. Yan: ‘Online branding’, op. cit.
   17. Ibid., at p. 186.
   18. J. Engel, R. Blackwell and P. Miniard: Consumer Behavior, 6th ed. Chicago: Dryden Press 1990.