Just been re-reading parts of Matt Haig’s Brand Failures. 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.
As Haig observes in his opening chapter, “The process of branding was developed to protect products from failure … Brand identities were designed not only to help these products stand out, but also to reassure a public anxious about the whole concept of factory-produced goods … Fast forward to the 21st century and a different picture emerges. Now it is the brands themselves that are in trouble. They have become a victim of their own success.”
Generating badwill
Badwill is a term that investment analysts use to describe the effect of bad behaviour on investor sentiment. It is of course the converse of the goodwill that stocks depend on to help lift their market price above their net book value.
Investopedia defines badwill as “The negative effect felt by a company when shareholders and the investment community find out that is has done something that is not in accordance with good business practices. Although typically not expressed in a dollar amount, badwill can play out in the form of decreased revenue, loss of clients or suppliers, loss of market share.”
The concept applies equally to brand equity, where the disappointment also springs from behaviours or attitudes but can manifest itself directly in lost revenues, lost clients, loss of market share and a whole lot of bad publicity.
The seven deadly sins of branding
It’s easy to see how stocks can be affected by factors that are beyond their control but given the tight control that brand professionals have over their assets, what do brands do to generate badwill or actually fail? According to Haig, they surcome to one or several of “the seven deadly sins of branding”:
- Amnesia – brands forget what they stand for and quickly run into trouble.
- Ego – brands can over-estimate their own importance and capabilities and this can cause them to stay in a market where the tide is going out or to attempt to enter markets for which they are clearly unsuited.
- Meglomania – brands can be too ambitious. They can attempt to be into everything and to be everywhere and that can cost them dearly.
- Deception – brands can market their products in ways that bear no resemblance to the reality. Haig calls this “brand fiction”.
- Fatigue – brands can lose interest in what they’re doing, then the energy to innovate evaporates.
- Paranoia – brands become over-reactive. They run themselves to a standstill with lawsuits, brand relaunches and desperate me-too actions
- Irrelevance – brands fail to keep pace within a dynamic category and are overtaken.
I’d add several more – Distraction, Inattention, Impatience, Insensitivity and Isolation. In the rush to be edgy and competitive, it’s easy, perhaps too easy, to dismiss or even fail to notice ideas or ways of behaving that damage a brand on a daily basis, or to believe that providing customers with the levels of service and attention they feel they deserve is an unnecessary cost and inconvenience to the brand.
Badwill is often the result of bad judgment calls as much as bad behaviours
Of course badwill is not generated by the action itself, but by perceptions of the actions. And those actions are often as much the result of bad judgment calls as bad behaviours per se. A brand can be behaving in good faith and with good intentions and still engender badwill. And of course market scrutiny of brands is not just multi-channelled but also multi-faceted – from what they say to what they show to how they react, brands are always-on.
38 ways that brands generate badwill
If customers believe any of these things about a brand, chances are that brand is under-performing in the marketplace and in terms of its intangible equity:
1. They’re arrogant
2. They’re insensitive
3. They’re stupid
4. They’re careless, even dangerous
5. They’re ruthless
6. They’re exploitative
7. They lie
8. They don’t deliver value for money
9. They’re awkward
10. They refuse to take responsibility
11. They’re slow
12. They’re inefficient
13. They stereotype
14. Their stuff doesn’t work
15. They don’t offer what people want today
16. They disappoint
17. They’re embarrasing
18. They’re offensive
19. They’re deceptive
20. They’re tasteless
21. They’re greedy
22. They’re annoying
23. They’re clumsy
24. They’re rude
25. They say they can do things that they can’t
26. They’re embarrassing
27. They’re disingenuous
28. They’re political (or their actions are interpreted politically)
29. They don’t move with the times
30. They hurt people
31. They’re confusing
32. Their own people hate working for them
33. They’re inconsistent
34. They’re obsessed with policy
35. They don’t listen
36. They trivialise things that matter
37. They’re passive (aggressive)
38. They’re boring
Contrast all that with the 30 things that likeable brands do to generate goodwill.
