Audi carefully honed its brand to sheer perfection over the past two decades. From an also ran with little aspiration it is has become the benchmark for top-quality interiors and modern consistent design. A few years ago however it noticed that its reputation was slipping in the polls. The Brand got more and more associated with arrogant and agressive drivers, with similar road manners, an image that belonged more to BMW and some Mercedez Benz drivers. Audi's board then issued the task to its branding and marketing people to turn this around.
The board simply issued a simple brief: Audi should delight customers as a Brand. That's a clear call for more emotion. Through a host of changes in the Corporate Image guidelines, changes in sponsoring programmes and in marketing, the brand transformed itself to the more solid, cool and somewhat understated brand it is today. The excitement was clearly achieved via the R8 and the victories at the 24 Hours of LeMans. In the product marketing, even the faster and more agressive models, such as the RS series, come with descriptions that are not referring to its extreme speed and acceleration capabilities. Instead the focus its on the design details that set the RS5 apart from the standard A5 model.
The interesting aspect of the branding repositioning exercise is not that the fact that every now and then a Brand has to go through such an exercise. These days, a shit-storm in the internet can create more damage in a few days than a branding department can handle and correct in a few months.
"Vorsprung durch Identity"
What makes Audi an interesting case is the fact that their branding is fairly monolithic. The often called 'Marushka' dolls design principle leads to cars that look alike between series. You need a trained eye to spot the difference between an A4 and an A6, specifically from the back. Audi only does one type of design for a series of cars that sell extremely well, specifically in Asia. The brand has become extremely recognizable but also more one-dimensional and it has also gained substantial global presence.
The associated brand identity works well because with brand promise, 'Vorsprung durch Technik'. The advantage is reflected in the design and in the specifications of the actual cars.
Audi has what I would call substantial Brand Mass. Whether you like it or not, as soon as you get in touch with any Audi product or touchpoint you will meet the same 'Audiness' everywhere. Its comparable to an oil tanker. Once pointed in a certain direction it is hard to change its course and even harder to reverse.
Brand Mass in itself is not bad. Its come with efficiencies that consumer product giants like Nestlé and P&G can only dream of. Yet it also comes with a certain risk. If consumers keep seeing Audi as an arrogant brand for drivers of the single-male-macho kind it could loose its appeal as a whole to a group of consumers that suddenly associate the monolithic brand experience as one big affront.
In other words, increased Brand Mass means increased Brand Risk, specifically in the reputational area.
Is there a way to mitigate this risk? The obvious answer would be, yes through diversification, i.e. the creation of Sub Brands. Toyota and Nissan have done this through the creation of the Infinity and Lexus luxury brands. Although it requires the creation of new Brands it does help spreading reputational risk, specifically if the sub-brand are still subtly but firmly attached to the 'Master' Brand. The Best in Class example here is BMW with their superbly integrated MINI and Rolls Royce Brands.
Audi seems to have taken one step in that direction by acquiring Lamborghini and recently Ducati. But for now this connection is hardly ever highlighted. Its mostly the Automotive Media that refer to this connection.
Audi remains though a class-act when it comes to the total integration of Corporate, Brand and Product Strategy with a superbly consistent Design and Experience based on the Brand's values.
For further reading:
Audi's Corporate Strategy
A very good Audi SWOT by marketingteacher.com
Red Bull's rise as a global brand is phenomenal. It created singlehandedly the energy drink category and rules it in over 160 countries around the world. A great case of Blue Ocean strategy in a business that many thought would be the playground of Coca-Cola and Pepsi for years to come. Red Bull seems to be able to apply their own slogan 'Red Bull gives you wings' perfectly to their own business. In an almost perfect orchestration of sponsoring extreme sports that are adventurous, fast paced or downright dangerous, Felix Baumgartner's jump from the edge of space fits completely.
Or does it? Interestingly enough Felix was taken into near orbit by a helium balloon slowly rising for nearly two hours. Getting out of the cabin came across as a needlessly long and tedious process. When he finally made through the hatch, having no wings he plunged back to earth, exceeding the sound barrier in the process and landed after only 4 minutes. Where were the Red Bull wings in this process? Felix speeding down made me think about the story of a certain Icarus and has hand-made wings.
From a Brand perspective this whole thing should have been the other way around. Felix should have been catapulted to 39 kilometers altitude in some crazy plane, preferably of some obscure Russian brand. Then we would have seen him whizzing down in a space suit with wings that would unfold once reaching the earth's atmosphere allowing him to slowly glide back to earth while being followed by a helicopter or flying camera.
But so much for the Wings in Red Bull's Brand slogan.
Of course the whole Jump from the Edge of Space is a great fit with the Red Bull brand, I would even say a Branding Masterpiece. The world records that were set or broken will stay for a while to come and will be associated with the brand's extreme-sports image. Red Bull's wings do apply to dare-devil character of this event and today you wouldn't be able of another sponsor that would remotely have the means and the Brand story that Red Bull has.
The big surprise to me though was that only 7 Million people followed the jump live on the web on YouTube. I have not seen any other 'eyeball' statistic so I am really wondering, did only 7 Million people watch this fantastic project? I hope not.
For the other Millions who missed this fantastic stunt, here is the Red Bull Stratos website.
The iPhone5 vs. Lumia 920 infographs keep popping up on the web and more specifically on Facebook. Whether directly driven by Nokia or not, the comparison of the Camera quality, the touchscreen sensitivity or the wireless charge feature, show that Nokia and its community are still thinking that more features mean a better product, a better user experience and ultimately Brand loyalty. But to beat the iPhone at its game there's more at stake than a choice of device colors.
Its no news to most of my blog readers that the iPhone5 beats the Lumia on all accounts is its eco-system. If you set-up your iTunes account properly in combination with Apple's cloud service, migrating from any iPhone to the iPhone5 is fairly painless, although some major 'fxxx-ups' have been reported.
Yes, we know by now that the new Apple Maps is not what it should be, not by far. With Apple openly apologizing and suggesting the use of other Map apps I'm not sure whether this is the first of more blunders to come in the absence of Steve Jobs or just a temporary bump on the roadmap (pun intended). This interesting article sheds some light on Apple's changes under Tim Cook.
Whatever it is, none of these Apple problems will stop them from having the better integrated user-experience with music, apps and media available over one coherently designed platform.
Lumia in yellow anybody?
With the Lumia 920 Nokia will have a device on offer with a number of sleek features (and colors!) but there's not much of a consistent eco-system coming with it, at least not at first. So for now the Lumia 920 is a device, heavily leaning on a Windows Brand feature, its UI and less on Nokia's Brand values which is, as far as I can remember, about 'Connecting People'.
This won't change much when Windows 8 is rolled out and Microsoft, who all of sudden discovered User-Oriented Design and seems to be winning back some of its mojo, gets its eco-system act together. Because the question remains, where does it leave Nokia as a Brand in this equation? Their focus on hardware and features, instead of offering a compelling experience in line with the Brand values, is not the right way forward. When it doesn't integrate deeply in a user's life, it will not be a sustainable offering against the competition.
Microsoft forced more or less all Hotmail users to migrate to an Outlook branded interface. This is, according to some internal sources at Microsoft, one of the steps towards a thorough harmonization of its consumer brands. Only if that happens any time soon will Nokia stand a chance luring some users towards their smartphone products, specifically among those who are currently on BlackBerry for professional reasons. Why? Well because a strong and streamlined eco-system will help convincing potential users to make the switch. The question here from a Branding perspective is still how Nokia will remain visible in an otherwise Microsoft branded eco-system. But maybe it would be good if they can survive by selling more hardware in the first place.
I am currently keeping a close eye on how the IT-community is picking up Windows 8 and what the speed of migration here is. Once small, medium and large companies have adopted Windows 8, switching the workforce to Windows Phone mobile devices will make sense. With Apple remaining weak in the mail and calendar applications space, there's a real chance for the Nokia-Windows tandem to gain serious traction at the expense of BlackBerry and Android and ultimately, also at the expense of Apple if they keep committing Map likes gaffes.
Focus on smart not on phones
Strategically it is actually refreshing to see how Nokia starts playing the role of the underdog. They finally seem to understand that being small and agile has an advantage. When also having the immense pressure of potential failure in the next few years on their shoulders, smarter thinking starts popping up.
I would sincerely welcome Nokia as a player that drives Windows 8 devices forward. They have to start thinking eco-systems though and the opportunity could be in the small and medium sized business space on the one hand. On the other side I think that there's an opportunity in creating solutions that would integrate with user's daily lives. With the upcoming surge in connected household appliances Nokia could think of solutions that embed their devices through a clever eco-system, e.g. a dedicate platform, in their daily activities. When you think about their credo 'Connecting People' than this concept would make total sense.
Why don't they focus on a phone that takes their own Maps experience to the next level. Much like Apple made iTunes indispensable for iPhone, Nokia Maps could integrate so well with the Lumia devices that you want to use it since it improves your life for particular use-cases you tremendously. Out of the box thinking, or really getting rid of the whole box altogether is required here. But whether Nokia's leadership is in the right place to got there?
So far there's little sign of Nokia going in that direction. In a recent interview with cnet Stephen Elop says even 'We'll spend to break through', the question remains: spending it on what? In the interview it is clear that one more time they focus on hardware. But its like selling Ferrari's in Africa. There's no infrastructure there to enjoy such a car to its full potential.
Maybe there's a small guerrilla group somewhere in Nokia House driving this change, completely under the corporate radar. That this can result in great changes is what we've seen at Audi with the Quattro concept. If not then all the spending in the world is not going to connect Nokia to reality and it will remain the burning platform as described by Stephen Elop in his first internal memo he sent at the start of his tenure as CEO.
Nokia is on my radar-screen in any event.
MV
