Brand Matters...
Brands rewrite history to create own legacy
Coca-Cola is one of the best examples of how rewritten
history can even become accepted over time.
Young brands often create traditions and rewrite history to form
a legacy for themselves. But to avoid falsifying the past, any
story that is built around a brand must be based on fact.
Using history to tell a story has long been a strategy to create
a place in the hearts of consumers. Jack Daniel's still talks about
its founder on posters, bread brand Hovis is celebrating its 122nd
anniversary and cosmetics company Yardley London's forthcoming
relaunch is focusing on how its quality has helped the business
find success for 240 years.
However, some younger brands have to use different tactics to
write their way into the history books. These brands must almost
"rewrite history" to create a legacy for themselves despite their
only very recent existence.
Virgin Media, which has only been in existence for four years,
hopes to create a legacy to cement its alignment with broadband in
the competitive world of internet service providers. Although it
only entered the market in 2006 after taking over from NTL, it is
attempting to lead the way with a large-scale celebration of
broadband's 10th anniversary.
The Branson brand is marking a decade of broadband internet with
a high-profile exhibition, which it hopes will help persuade
consumers to think that the service provider owns broadband. Speed
of Light, created by designer United Visual Artists (UVA) will
feature on four floors at London's Bargehouse behind the landmark
Oxo Tower. It will use a network of laser sculptures, with the idea
being that speed is light and light is data.
Creative solution
Celebrating broadband's anniversary in this way is a creative
solution to getting the brand and category noticed, claims Simon
Dornan, head of PR campaigns for Virgin Media. "Broadband itself
always struggles against the sexier brands such as Google and
Apple. But we want the fastest [broadband] and feel that we have a
legitimate stake to own it," he says.
Virgin wants to "own" broadband in the customers' minds, says
Emeka Njodi, a director at PR agency Borkowski, which worked on the
strategy and execution for the campaign.
"The anniversary belongs to all internet service providers," he
admits. "But we wanted to take ownership of it. The danger is that
others will do the same. But the key to that is to do something
interesting and insightful enough - so it doesn't matter if they
do."
Using an installation in this way gets consumers thinking, says
Njodi. "Broadband itself is a bit of a tough sell because you only
notice it when it doesn't work. To do something that makes people
stop for a second was important. A huge part of the brief was to
make people feel something about broadband rather than just think
about it," he adds.
The brand hopes to attract more customers eventually and
developing a legacy in a creative way helps to build a strong
relationship with consumers, says Njodi. "Virgin wants people to
associate fibre optic as being something cool, so hopefully further
down the line when they come to renew their broadband they will
think about fibre optic again. We want to create emotion in a very
tangible sense."
Positive brand equity
This "rewriting history" strategy displayed by Virgin Media is a
clever way to help brands without heritage create a story, says
Richard Buchanan, founder of brand consultancy The Clearing.
"There's a real kudos that goes with UVA, it is really innovative
and contemporary and there is some positive brand equity for Virgin
to trade off there."
This is especially pertinent, given BT's
current push towards its Infinity "super fast" broadband service.
This looks at the future of broadband for consumers, so takes a
different approach to Virgin.
Not that Virgin Media claims to be thinking too much of its
competitors as it writes its own story. Njodi says: "The key was to
create something big and impressive so if other ISPs want to get
involved it doesn't really matter because we have this project. We
kind of own it."
Energy drinks brand Red Bull also uses
events to build traditions around the brand, which is a key step to
establishing a legacy, says Buchanan. The brand's annual air race,
for example, feeds into its energy-giving proposition and has
become a talking point among thrill-seeking consumers.
Coca-Cola is one of the best examples of how rewritten history
can even become accepted over time as the most popular version of a
story. Coke's 1931 paintings of a wholesome Santa Claus were so
effective that his current image throughout the world is largely
based on the character the soft drinks company created many years
after the legend was born.
Myth, legend and history are fundamental to brands and
ultimately what it does is really enrich the relationship between a
brand and its customers. People are always trying to build this
history they can trade off.
Source: Marketing Week