You spend years and millions of dollars carefully developing a brand positioning to help move your company/client to the next level.
You’ve gone through copious amounts of focus groups and internal workshops to end up in a place where all the main stake holders are in agreement.
You run tens of millions of dollars communicating your advantage to the masses via a highly planned integrated brand campaign.
You’ve invested ridiculous amounts of time and money to ensure all markets and staff are ready for the inflow of enquiries.
Then an earthquake happens and it all turns to shit.
Years of work and millions upon millions of dollars down the drain in an instant.
Instead of communicating in the style of your ever happy ads … the reality is now a none-stop stream of bad news.
News that tells people they’re not going to get what they want.
News that can’t tell people what to expect.
In other words, no news … just a standard response that says nothing and commits to nothing.
A response that undermines everything … every research group, workshop, staff meeting, ad and positioning document.
The brands who win are the ones who live via values and philosophies, not speak from powerpoint decks and straplines.
They are the ones who can adapt to change because they are the ones who know you can never ever dot every ‘i’ or cross every ‘t’ in this constantly evolving, ever changing World.
And that is why unless you’re God, creating a strategy in a corporate vacuum is always susceptible to destruction … because a brands success isn’t built on following a 1000 page document, it’s about doing stuff that reflect who you are, what you believe and what you want achieve in a manner that is resonant with peoples requirement and relevant to where the World is.
Which is why I am deeply saddened how few companies in the travel industry have been able to turn the nightmare of the Icelandic volcano eruption into reasons why people should trust them with their travel needs for life.
Reputation is built more in bad times than good … and yet so few have embraced that opportunity.
Their loss.
Mother Nature: 1 // Branding: 0