A rebranding or a restaging of the Liberal Brand?

I found this article on dealing with ageing brands. It is obviously for some background on how we Liberals should look at our 'brand'. I don't think we are in need of a rebranding, simply a restaging of the Liberal brand in the minds of Canadians.

http://www.prophet.com/downloads/articles/gelman-aging-brands.pdf


The story of brands getting old is a story of relevance.

By Joseph Gelman
Individual brands, or even whole categories, that were once
important for a particular consumer segment, become irrelevant
as society evolves and tastes change.

In the past, one of the most common situations in which
“brands aged badly” revolved around strong associations with
national pride. Many brands, such as US automakers Ford and
GM, once successfully owned this space. Over time, however, the
kind of brand attributes that they were associated with lost their
importance as purchase drivers. This was due to a diverse set
of realities. More relevant attributes emerged such as the rise of
the Japanese manufacturer Toyota’s reputation for quality in the
US, the lack of relevance in national pride to new generations of
consumers and even the emergence of a “global” mindset in which
consumers were willing to try new things from other markets.

The rise of new generations of consumers — with new
ideas and evolving needs and wants — meant that although
these legacy national pride associated brands retained their
distinguishing characteristics from their competitors, their
attributes were no longer relevant.

This situation has been faced by a lot of European brands
in categories such as retail, air travel, telecommunications, and
many others in which strong brands differentiated themselves by
emphasizing their origin and roots: brands like France Telecom,
British Airways, or Marks & Spencer.

A current example of this situation is observed at Waitrose,
the upscale UK grocery retailer. With the credit crunch,
mainstream consumer segments are moving away from premium
price products as they recognize that acceptable quality exists
elsewhere. The ethical and “British grown” part of the equity of
Waitrose is not relevant enough to consumers, who are switching
to cheaper and even to “foreign” brands such as the European
hard discount retailers, Aldi and Lidl, that are performing quite
strongly in the UK market.

Brands such as Waitrose now face a tough question: Should
I completely lose my current brand equity association so I can
become relevant to new consumers?

The answer to this question is usually no.

Brands need to evolve their legacy to make sure the
things that differentiate them from their competitors are
complemented by more relevant purchase drivers. They need to
upgrade the different touch points of the business, create new
product brands, eliminate others, and launch new product lines.
Recent corporate history is littered with examples of brands
needing to adjust their brand image to cope with new scenarios
and a new generation of consumers.

When telecommunications companies evolved from publicsector
businesses to multi-service providers, first expanding into
mobile telephony, they created new brands. These were not
completely independent from the traditional fixed line operator
branding but incorporated new attributes that were relevant
to this new line of business. Again, the beneficial aspects of the
legacy of the aging brand which provided scale, reliability, and
trust were complemented by the personality of the new mobile
brand. This meant that old fixed telephony brands were able to
compete with strong, young attacker brands.

One of the most successful examples of this was the launch
and consolidation of Telefónica’s Movistar brand in Spain and
Latin America. The Telefónica brand had a strong trust in its
core Spain and Latin American markets, and it leveraged on its
equity as the big, traditional, and Spanish national incumbent. The
Spanish side of this equation lost relevance in Spain and even
became negative in Latin America, where the company wanted
to move away from a perception of “here comes the Spanish
colonialism again.”

Also, the emergence of mobile communications required it
to have a more emotional relationship with consumers. In this
context, Telefónica evolved its legacy brand to dial up the aspects
of its equity that were relevant to residential and corporate
consumers, such as quality, innovation, and any other magnitude
related attributes that would build trust.

Also, its Spanish roots were shifted into emphasizing its
corporate spirit of progress essence, which highlighted the

territories — was no longer relevant for the new consumer
segment that the chain wanted to target. In this context, they
completely wiped out all the brand equity and develop a new
brand and a new mark.

Not all cases are necessary so dramatic. Sometimes brands
just need innovation-driven tactical solutions to rejuvenate
themselves and become relevant. For example, the alcohol
industry noticed that consumers loved to drink from martini
glasses, so you had Sex and the City’s cosmopolitan, bringing
vodka and triple sec back on to the scene; or how about putting
some Baileys on your coffee?

From these examples, we can see the different directions that
companies with aging brands can take.

Telefónica kept its stronger functional attributes and
developed a new brand that benefits from it but that can talk
to consumers in a more relevant language; Burger King made
its brand edgier around its core quality attributes and invested
across the four Ps to reshape its image; and Zavvi became a
completely different brand with little leverage on its legacy brand
(Virgin).

To make these decisions, all these companies needed
to understand the purchase drivers of their consumers and
which parts of their legacy brands, if any, were still relevant and
differentiated them from rivals.

Brands aging — badly — is a reality in multiple industries.
Once the company acknowledges the need for change, which is
often difficult given their legacy and strong brand equity, the most
important decision is to decide which part of the old equity, if
any, can evolve — or whether a completely new brand is needed.
With the right decisions on these points, most brands can live
long and healthy lives.

positive impact that the company had in developing the
economy in emerging markets. In parallel, it developed the
younger Movistar brand. This brand would be supported by
the equity of Telefónica but would allow communication with
consumers in a language that was more relevant in the mobile
business.
But the problem of aging brands is not limited to those
with a patriotic tradition, as can be seen from the example of
Burger King.
Burger King was an “old” brand that consistently
underperformed its category. The essence of its message
was ”We make better burgers, have them your way,” and this
became irrelevant to its consumer base worldwide, who felt
much closer to the more emotional approach to the fast food
consumption experience that McDonald’s was communicating.
It took Burger King time and multiple changes to its
ownership structure, advertising campaigns, management
teams, and go-to-market strategies before it finally understood
that its brand had become irrelevant to males 18–35 years
old. After it recognised this and took appropriate action,
the fast food giant never looked back. It reshaped its brand,
tapping into its roots and embracing innovation across the four
Ps — Product, Price, Promotion, and Place.
Burger King’s brand evolved its “better quality burger”
approach into a rule-breaking, politically incorrect positioning
in which it almost tells the consumer, “Yes, we know it is fast
food, we know it is red meat, but this is what you like, you like
our big and greasy burgers, and nobody needs to tell you what
is and isn’t good for you.” Coupled with bold advertising and
innovative social media campaigns, this put Burger King back on
the map with more than13 straight quarters of sales growth.
In the UK, we have recently observed how complete
product lines at aging brands have died and then reinvented
themselves. This situation is quite different from the previous
scenarios outlined above because it assumes that the equity
that existed needs to be completely wiped out before a brand
is able to become relevant to a different segment of consumers.
This is probably the reasoning behind the radical branding shift
visible at the retail chain from Virgin Megastores to Zavvi.
Management of the CD-retailer-turned-video-gameshop
thought that its strong legacy brand, Virgin, was not
appropriate for the new directions they wanted for the
business. This is quite interesting as it implies that the
irreverent/Richard Branson part of the equity of Virgin — that
has worked so well in expanding the brand into new