Brand changing times

Yes, it’s getting really ugly out there. We all thought in our ignorance that this was just a passing phase, that a modest readjustment down on windy Wall Street was all it needed to fix a bit of greed and arrogance. Maybe just a six month thing, then we’d be back cruising the car show rooms, flocking to the open houses and living the social life fantastic. We got suckered in big time. This is for real. Real hurt. Reality do without. The beer ran out and the pub’s gone. Some people haven’t had to 'do without' before in their lives. I tell you there’s nothing like deprivation to bring out the best and worst in people. Truth is there’s no money left. This is change we can really believe in, like the man said. Bankers are copping the flack at the G20 meeting in London. Not a good time to wear a suit in the city. Empty bottle on the bowler time. A good time though for the anarchists to come out of hiding and flex their intellectual muscles with a brick or two. I digress. Who’d want to be in retail? Even retail king Gerry Harvey is crying over his unsold LCD screens and TomToms. The simple formula is: consumers don’t spend, so companies don’t spend. And if you’re in the service industry that sucks. Companies aren’t spending because they have no cash. It’s a consumers paradise if you have a bit of that fondly remembered stuff called cash lying around. Retailers will bite your arm off. Blood on the pavements. I never thought I’d see the day when shop windows would display loud signage proclaiming sales discounts of more than 50%... but they’re out there. Just like the mens fashion outlets, our trousers really are down. All this deprivation has heralded the Age of Big Emotional engagement. Brands have to work hard big time. They really do have to get inside your head and press those emotion buttons like never before. Big attraction and big differentiation are the big requirements for the New Brands. Forget the soppy Lovemarks and posturing in new age restaurants in Heysham. This is Brand Reality time over a pint of Boddingtons in Blackpool. Cut the crap time for products. Truth rules. No more romantic nonsense courtesy of big budgets and head-in-the-clouds admen. Good honest products for a good honest price accompanied by good honest 'emotions penetrating' sales patter. Yes, consumers still want the fancy stuff on which to spend their recession shrivelled funds. But they don’t want a multi million dollar ad campaign assaulting their senses, desperately persuading them to buy it. Now you can really choose what you want in your own time. It’s time to reconsider our approach. Yes, it’s time to beat the competition if there is any left, with innovative and cost-effective ideas to get inside consumers’ heads. It’s also a good time to get inside their heads anyway to find out what they’re thinking right now. Recessions can do strange things to consumer buying habits. What was good last year is now all stirred and shaken. It’s time to think differently. Tap into their present desires. Do they want more or less? Or more for less? Knowledge is king. The sobering thought is... get it wrong now and you won’t have a business left. Get it right and you’ll be laughing like never before. Recessions have a habit of spawning new brand heroes.

(with apologies to Kevin Roberts – he’s not a bad chap really for a north country man, just fell in with the wrong crowd)

Tony Heywood is an international branding consultant and founder of Heywood Innovation in Sydney and co-founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.

View some of Heywood’s work on www.heywood.com.au

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