Top companies are serious about their brands
Find a company that’s deadly serious about its brand, and that company will dominate its market. Its brand energy will keep it at the innovative edge, free from moribund thinking, and moribund markets. It will also prevent the company from collapsing into sclerotic bureaucracies where “brand” is reduced to media games.
Toyota leads with the brand
That’s my takeaway from an October 14 WSJ piece (sub req.) on how Toyota reinvented itself to be able to produce vehicles for global markets outside of Japan. Such “local production” was (and still is) a Herculean task of focus and execution on principles aimed to make Toyota vehicles truly world class. Honda and most recently Nissan also show the same fortitude to “lead with the brand.”
Brands lead by example
Like all brand endeavors, “leading with the brand” starts at the top. It means leading by example. The CEO sets the brand tone, up and down the line. Once that’s done, if the tone is serious there’s no screwing around.
Top brands are serious about their customers
Alas, American car makers, who treat their brands like something out of Battle Creek, ceded brand leadership to others years ago. Toyota currently has 12 plants in North America; Honda has 8; Nissan has 4, all with more to come.
Customers saw these better cars and flocked to them. They could tell the companies were serious about their brands, because the cars were serious about the customers. The cars themselves delivered the message, creating new customers for vibrant new markets.
(Pictured: Toyota Fine N fuel cell concept car)
October 26th, 2006 at 9:54 am
“They could tell the companies were serious about their brands, because the cars were serious about the customers.”
Exactly, and customers will ALWAYS respond to companies that put a priority on them.
October 26th, 2006 at 10:10 am
What’s interesting is that you can often feel that sense of customer purpose when you first come across such a product. Via design, materials, build quality, etc., they can radiate that purpose to customers. It’s embedded in what they are.