Branding Power

Or as Emily Latella would say, “What’s all this I hear about Servicing Customers?”

Let’s not sound the death knell yet for the automotive industry, even the American automotive industry, please. The ability of the ‘cash for clunkers’ programme in the United States shows that something aggressive and innovative can move the consumer to shop – and shop for high ticket items – when the deal is right and there’s an environmental halo attached.

The age-old advertising adage: “I know I’m wasting half of my marketing budget, I just don’t know which half”, is about to be stress tested. The current economic environment has clients, agencies, media and sponsorship venues edgy and anxious. The sound they all await: the other shoe to drop.

On the face of it - and because we're sort of invested at the moment in seeing Starbucks "on the ropes" - the immediate caveat to the news of the launch of Starbucks ice-cream via Facebook is that it's borrowed interest and perhaps a bit desperate. But let's hold our quibbles. It seems to me at least the very essence of passion branding and spot on from a strategic perspective.

What happens when yesterday’s passion brand doesn’t ignite the same lust in today’s tamer times?

The brand I get asked most about – and the one, frankly, I worry most about – is Starbucks. Is it simply the poster child for two decades of “trading up” that we’re now trading off? Is it doomed to die a tortuous and very public death by a thousand cuts as McDonald’s, Dunkin Donuts and anyone else with the ability to sell coffee for a buck slices and dices its share? And what’s with that earnest, honest print ad campaign? Does anybody read that kind of stuff anymore?