The more I'm looking at
articles about brands, the more I see people writing about « brand
heritage ». I understand, Pepsi vs Coke, David against Goliath,
people getting passionate about it. Given the fact that I can't
distinguish Pespi's taste from Coke's I don't really understand what
the fuss is all about.
What's an heritage ?
To me, it's something that someone leaves you when he/she dies (you
can call me Larousse or Robert). Let's put aside the fact that people
tend to humanize brands, we'll cover this topic later. So, to have an
heritage the brand has to die and somehow it ressussitates ?
Pepsi has an identity,
even though I don't drink it myself, I always associate it with a few
images or words. The same goes with every brand. I get used to it and
remember telling myself at a few occasions while shopping « what
happened to that brand ? It didn't look like that before ».
For instance, people tend to say that changing Pepsi's logo in the
late 90's was a huge mistake. Because they were surprised by the
novelty ? No, the change was minor. But in the end, the consumer
could not associate what he was seing with his perception of what the
brand is. People were really critical about it : here's a
testimony i found on designshack.net « Years
later I still can’t muster up anything but disdain for this
rebranding project. Call me old fashioned but I think Pepsi took a
baseball bat to their brand heritage. Meanwhile, they made the “e”
in Pepsi mirror the old logo! It might be an attempt at cleverness,
but it seems indecisive. »
Pepsi's
logos between 1898 and today
Coke pretty much did the same with their logo (maybe it was the decade for
change in the US, apparently in France « le changement c'est
maintenant »).
Coke's
logos between 1886 and today
They
changed their formula trying to make it taste more sugary. Wasn't
their objective to taste more like David (or Goliath, I don't
remember which is who) ? Everyone knows that Pepsi tastes
better, Pepsi bragged about it enough... Result of the big change in
the formula ? Apart from the fact that I would have more trouble
distinguishing Pepsi from Coke ? People were shocked and wanted
their old drink back. First lesson of « marketing for
dummies » : the customer is always right. Thanks Coke for
listening to that class and giving millions of people their daily
sugar the old fashioned way.
Of
course those examples trying to explain how brand heritage works are
not the only ones.
Let's
resume: a brand sets a range of key words, values, attitudes...
around it. Changing a small thing confuses everyone and since people
don't like change (even in France for now) it creates a mess. One
should be carefull while playing with fonts, colors, shapes... Isn't
it what kindergarden was all about ?
Maybe a few of you know
this rule of Barney Stinson in "How I Met Your Mother" (a brand himself
even though he's fictional) : « new is always better ».
In the consumer's mind, it might not always be the case...
Emma G
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