Branding Tidbits – Washington Mutual Whoo Hoo!
Shares of Washington Mutual aka WAMU?are down 80%, Whoo Hoo or should I say Oh NO! If you remember I wrote about them here and here on their PATHETIC attempt at branding. Their Whoo Hoo campaign is useless and serves no purpose for their branding efforts. I still see them on TV and I wonder why? Soon they will become another victim of the mortgage crisis.
Let’s not forget what WAMU said just over a year ago:
?We want to become an iconic brand that people love,? said WaMu CMO Genevieve Smith, in a statement. ?Through ongoing brand tacking, we know we always outperform our peers when it comes to being emotionally relevant to people. [The new campaign] gives us a unique opportunity to talk about who we are.??
?The campaign creative taps into that [?Whoo hoo!?] experience and the enthusiasm of WaMu?s employees,? said Rob Schwartz, executive creative director for TBWA/Chiat/Day, in a statement.?
Here’s what Forbes has to say.
Maybe it’s time to rethink your “brand tacking” a bit?
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September 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Not sure if this is technically branding or not, but thought you might enjoy a funny little battle happening in a shopping center in my area.
This little shopping center on the corner has had, for a long time, a Chipotle, a Starbucks, a Baskin Robbins, a Radio Shack, and a boba place. It’s a good location–within walking distance from one college, and short driving distance from another.
Well, a year ago, the boba place sold, and a new frozen yogurt shop came in. It’s now a franchise, but it got its start in this little storefront. And it’s driving Baskin-Robbins wild. Yogurtland has a hip look, and a unique product–their yogurt is self-serve, fat-free, with interesting flavors, and with a huge variety of toppings available. It’s sold at a flat rate per ounce–and it’s absolutely delicious. It’s HUGELY popular, and it sucked all the business right away from Baskin-Robbins.
So what did B-R decide to do? They decided to add their own soft-serve ice cream.
Somehow, this isn’t working. Their same-old same-old soft serve, which is fattier AND more expensive than Yogurtland, and does not give the customers as many options.
Maybe it’s just me, but that seems like a colossally stupid move on B-R’s part. It certainly hasn’t brought them any more customers, as far as I can see; they usually have one or two people inside, while Yogurtland has a line out the door most evenings.
It seems like they would have served themselves better by stressing their regular ice cream, waffle cones, etc–the things that Yogurtland doesn’t offer.
I don’t expect that Baskin-Robbins franchise to be there much longer, unless they drastically change their message.
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:36 am
[...] been a while but Andy Sernovitz has made the branding blunder blog again, as WaMu used to say… Whoo Hoo! As you know Andy Sernovitz is a self proclaimed “word of mouth marketing guru“. Today [...]