A while back I wrote a post about Mont Blanc’s seemingly mental decision to extend their brand into premium-priced aftershave.
Despite lots of discussion with various people, I am still none the wiser why anyone would do this – however just as I was happy to put the issue to rest and write it off as another example of strategy counting for nothing when companies think there’s money to be made – another moment of brand madness hit me square between the eyes …
For those of you who can’t see what I’m on about … it’s SanDisk’s licensing of Ducati Motorcycles for their ‘Extreme’ range of SD Cards.
SD cards … those little things you can now place in almost anything electronic for added memory storage!
OK … so they’re obviously trying to link the speed of a Ducati motorbike with the speed of their, errrrrrrm computer data cards … but come on, how absolutely shite is that?
No doubt SanDisk paid a small fortune to Ducati for the privilege of using their name and yet there are so many other ‘speedy things’ they could of associated with for a fraction of the cash …
Cheetah’s
Women In A Shoe Sale
A Fat Kid In A Cake Shop
Apple’s Launch Of iPods
Andy’s Lovemaking
I have to say though, my personal fave of Sandisk’s ‘Extreme’ range is a USB memory card that resembles a motorbikes petrol tank.
No, I am not joking.
And apart from the fact it would immediately label you a complete twat … it’s so bulky that it defies the logic of portable memory storage!
I am [almost] willing to bet that the person who brokered this deal is a mad Ducati fan and did this in the hope of either …
[1] Getting a free bike
OR
[2] Just being able to hang around like the bike groupie he/she obviously is
At least when LG do alliances with Prada, Armani and soon-to-be-announced Rolex, there’s some logic to the dalliance [even if it almost always benefits LG more than the other brand partner] – however when brands like Sandisk [and pretty much any tech company that associates with Ferrari] do it, you can’t help but feel it’s done more for the ego of the CEO/Marketing Director than liberating the brand.
There’s a rather wonderful story that a few years ago, an International fast-food company paid well over the odds for a licensing deal with a very famous – but slightly outdated – children’s entertainment brand because the Marketing Director was gay and wanted to impress his counterpart.
If the story is to be believed, the strategy worked because supposedly when both families met up on the way to the 1998 World Cup Finals, the two men announced to their shocked families that they were in love, they they were going to attend the finals by themselves and on their return, were going to seek a divorce from their respective partners.
Unsurprisingly, the companies both men worked for were appalled – not just because they represented classic family values, but because one of the parties had [potentially] paid out millions more dollars for no other reason than to aid in the seduction of his counterpart.
Apparently they were both sacked – but got away without being sued because the embarrassment of the case would be potentially brand destroying.
I can’t say for certain this happened because I wasn’t there – but I was told this story by an incredibly senior executive at one of the companies involved – so my advice is that if you’re a shareholder in a company that suddenly announces it is doing a major strategic alliance, I recommend you look carefully at the specific people involved in forging the deal – because you might just find the only strategy involved is the one that benefits the individual rather than the company as a whole.
Just a thought 🙂