Brand Failures

100 Brand failures
During the 1980s, Xerox tried to reposition itself as a provider of all
technology-based office products. At the start of the decade, the company
launched a personal computer, or (as Xerox preferred to term it) an ‘information
processor’. Again, there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the
product, at least for the time. But again, the product failed. Similar failures
occurred when Xerox tried to launch office networks such as the XTEN
network and the Ethernet office network, which were designed to compete
with IBM’s Satellite Business network. Both the Xerox networks failed to
make an impression.
Despite its best efforts to be associated with office technology, the public
remained stubbornly unwilling to think of Xerox in any terms other than
office copier technology. Although the company had invested fortunes in
creating office information systems, this was an area steadfastly linked to
another technology brand – IBM.
So why, then, did Xerox persist in trying to reposition its brand during the
1980s Part of the answer may lie in the company’s admiration for Japanese
models of business. It had close links with Fuji, and had a unique insight into
the Japanese management style. In Japan, brand extension was, and indeed
remains, the norm, especially for technology companies. For instance, there
are few areas of home entertainment where the Sony brand doesn’t dominate.
Yamaha is another example of successful brand extension. Although the
company started producing pianos in the 19th century, it has not been tied
down to musical instruments. After 60 years of piano-making, the Japanese
company moved into various other product categories with very little
difficulty. Think Yamaha and what do you think Pianos Organs Motorbikes
It is most likely that you think of all three.
Other Western companies have also been influenced by the Japanese
approach to branding. Take Virgin, for example. Richard Branson has been
famous for criticizing brands such as Mars, which refuse to attach the name
to other types of products.
What I call ‘Mars Syndrome’ infects every marketing department and
advertising agency in the country. They think that brands only relate
to products and that there is a limited amount of stretch that is possible.
They seem to have forgotten that no-one has a problem playing a
Yamaha piano, having ridden a Yamaha motorbike that day, or listening
to a Mitsubishi stereo in a Mitsubishi car, driving past a Mitsubishi
bank.