Awareness of the problems and challenges brands can encounter is an important step in maintaining a strong, healthy brand. So we set out to identify, analyze and solve the 50 Most Common Brand Problems faced by marketers today. Which ones are threatening your brand?
After thirty years experience in brand management and marketing, I have directly advised more than 150 brands (with The Blake Project) and indirectly advised (through educational workshops, Just Ask responses, pro bono work, etc.) more than twice that number.
I’ve just been re-reading parts of Matt Haig’s Brand Failures: The Truth About The 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes Of All Time. While the edition I’m looking at is now close to ten years old, its ideas are a timely reminder that though the purpose of brands is to generate goodwill and margin, failure to deliver on expectations and the subsequent “badwill” that engenders is never far away.
It’s often not hard to see why other brands have died – especially after the fact. There’s also one interesting and abiding constant in all the casualties. What kills a brand, more often than not, is what it lacks rather than what it does: conviction; energy; value; humility; cash; discipline; imagination; focus…
Today we’re adding a new entry to our list of Common Brand Problems, though the problem itself is quite timeless.
