Politics Over Principle Damages America-the Brand

Getting back to the Toyota – BP – America branding discussion, perhaps it is America, the brand, that suffers most when corporate America puts profits over responsibility. This is often compounded by our elected officials who engage in obstructionist partisan politics at just the moment when they need to pull together for the common good. Take Texas Congressman Joe Barton, the jackass who came out and said BP was owed an apology for being subjected to a “shakedown” by our government. He was taken to the wood shed by his own party for that one. He represents Houston, the big oil town. No surprise there. And wouldn't you love to follow the money trail between him and big oil?

I suppose in a perfect world, there would be a long-term boycott of Toyota vehicles and BP oil, and Congressman Barton would be tarred and feathered. But that’s the problem. Like certain banks we all learned about in the big financial meltdown, they are too big to fail.

I’ve heard Congressman Alan Grayson, a Florida Democrat, say the GOP stands for Greed Over Principle. Well, putting politics aside and sticking to branding, the same could be said for corporate America. It is more than disturbing to consider how the biggest corporations – from big oil to big box retailers, put their profits first, and the bigger picture – the environment, the safety of their employees, etc. – second. When taken to task, they sing the same old tune: “We’re the good guys because we create jobs. If you fine us or impose too many restrictions on us, you’ll take jobs away from hard working American families.” I say shame on them all for diminishing America, the brand.

How is America's Brand Doing?

On this, the eve of America's 234th birthday, I'm compelled to think about how America, the brand, is doing. To some, I suppose we're still the envy of the world. To others, especially when you consider the emerging super-economies like China and India, we must seem like a stumbling former champion.

When is a brand irreparably damaged?

Having just heard about new recalls by Toyota, the world’s biggest automotive brand, I can’t help thinking the marketing folks at Toyota – the company that sold thousands of vehicles in the U.S. with faulty accelerators – must be happy these days. To quote an old campaign tagline of theirs, “Oh What A Feeling!”

In the wake of a humiliating, brand-ruining nightmare, Toyota is buying huge amounts of TV time to shift perception and restore consumer confidence. The company says it’s spending a million dollars an hour on safety engineering. Very strategically developed graphics – like the word “SAFE” in big letters adjacent to the Toyota logo attempt to make the corrective association.

Getting back to the marketing types at Toyota, why should they be happy? Because no matter how badly Toyota has screwed up, it’s nothing compared to Uber screw-up BP. When a new villain comes along, the public forgets about the old one. Because the consumer tends to have a short memory, the old villain is no longer the villain; he’s yesterday’s news.

The new villain, BP, essentially did the same thing Toyota did with its faulty accelerator problem. In the early stages, they minimized the problem, avoided cooperating with federal investigators and hoped it would fix itself somehow.

BP is going to wind up spending about $30 billion to pay for its screw-up. But the question remains. Is the BP brand so irreparably damaged that British Petroleum will soon spin off its U.S. operations into a newly-named division?

Forbes' list of "Best-Ever" Advertising Taglines reminds us of how good we can be.

This is a quickie. While we're surrounded every day by advertising that is total garbage - derivative, immature, me-too and totally forgettable, the list of "Best Ever" Advertising Taglines compiled recently by Forbes is a good reminder of how effective, and enduring, the industry's best taglines can be. It's every copywriter's dream to create one of these. And rightfully so. Taglines become part of our lives.

Dropping Mercury is the latest smart move by Ford.

After 71 years of “cruising up and down this road” the latest domestic automotive brand to be phased out is Mercury, the step-up from Ford, or step-down from Lincoln, depending on which end of the market you’re coming from. It occurs to me that the two Mercury cars I have owned, built in the same decade, represented the best and the nearly worst of that marque. My brother’s first car was a 1967 Mercury Cougar. My first car was a 1970 Cougar XR7. Pure muscle, with a little personal luxury thrown in. Its high-compression 351 Cleveland engine produced 300 horses right out of the factory, so it did not disappoint when the right foot was lowered. On the other hand, my 1978 Cougar XR7 was a typical late-seventies Detroit product. Although it was one of the nicest looking cars of the disco era, especially with a set of aftermarket wire basket wheels, it was a product poorly built by a company that clearly let the bean counters have their way. I still have some of the repair bills. In later years, the innovation vanished, the image as a personal luxury brand was forgotten and Mercury became the stepchild of Lincoln.

In recent years, Ford has done a lot of things right. They are profitable and their quality seems to be up to snuff across the board. Problem with the Mercury brand, however, has been the lack of a clear brand personality. Since the “sign of the cat” days, Mercury cars have just seemed like differently-badged Fords. No distinction. No drama. And that “hockey stick” logo never made sense to anybody. For example, it doesn’t make sense to buy the Mercury Mariner when a nicely equipped Ford Escape SUV is such an attractive product. So it makes perfect sense for Ford to drop the Mercury brand. They will no doubt make the higher-end Ford cars a little classier, and make the Lincolns more appealing. The Lincoln-Mercury dealers will be pissed off, but they will be realigned and live to sell cars another day. By dropping the line, Ford will increase efficiency and brand value, just the way Chrysler has done by dropping their Plymouth brand, and GM, of course, by dropping Oldsmobile, Saturn and Pontiac. As much as I hate to see Mercury go, I have to admit this consolidation is a smart move.

Our newest powerhouse brand - New Jersey. You got a problem with that?

One of the most oddball developments in the whacky world of branding these days is the way the characters and culture of New Jersey are taking television by storm. New Jersey – where you don’t go to the beach in the summertime, you go “down the shore.” And the words water, coffee, dog and whatever are pronounced wadder, cawfee, dawg and wadever. Growing up in North Jersey, I thought I’d never see the day when the Garden State, long the subject of derision by “too cool for school” New Yorkers and comics who loved to crack wise with that “what exit?” joke, would become a powerhouse brand and the darling of reality TV. Who woulda’ thought Style, Bravo, TLC, HBO and others would all be going nuts over Jersey.

If ever there was a case of perception versus reality, it’s in New Jersey. Take a look at the way the media buyers see Jersey, or the way it’s been portrayed in films and TV shows from Law & Order to HBO’s The Sopranos, and you’ll begin to understand the “perception” problem. To the media buyer, North and Central Jersey are part of the NY Metro and practically the sixth and seventh boroughs of NYC. South Jersey? That whole thing belongs to Philly. The reality is that New Jersey is a densely populated cross-section of America – the good, the bad and the ugly. There are lots of people, and many of them are very, very affluent. Many of them actually do not commute to Manhattan to work.

So did Jersey ever have a chance to build its brand? Does Jersey really have anything unique? I think what the television networks, advertisers, magazine publishers and other “shapers and reflectors” of the popular culture have finally discovered about Jersey is its people. In a recent promotional interview, I heard Carolyn Manzo, one of Bravo’s “Real Housewives of New Jersey,” say that people from New Jersey dare to be themselves. She's a smart lady and I agree with her. It seems no matter what their net worth, these “regular guys” and Jersey girls” are interesting to watch because they’re just being themselves. And adding to their appeal is the fact that they really don’t care if you like them or not.

Ad groups don't want FTC "on steroids."

In a story published April 22 in Ad Age, Rich Thomaselli reported the advertising industry is rallying in opposition of a provision in the Financial Reform Bill that could extend the power of the FTC to uncomfortable new levels.

The 4-A’s, the Direct Marketing Association and the AAF are among 30 groups that delivered a letter to the U.S. Senate and took out a full-page ad in the influential Capitol Hill newspaper, Roll Call, spearheading an effort to prevent the Federal Trade Commission from once again becoming the "nation's nanny."

The groups say a "hidden" provision in the already-passed House of Representatives' version of the Financial Reform Bill (H.R. 4173) would expand FTC power and restore the broad rule-making and enforcement authority the agency enjoyed prior to 1975, when Congress imposed restrictions on the FTC with the passage of the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.

The ad industry groups and others believe the provision that would grant the FTC greater power over unfair and deceptive ad practices has no business in a financial reform bill. They fear heavy-handed tactics and an atmosphere where the FTC has too broad an authority over many different industries.