The BIG Kahuna

According to Domino’s Pizza’s latest TV commercial they think their pizza is pretty bad. The commercial features some feedback from clients stating “the crust tastes like cardboard” and “the sauce tastes like ketchup”. Ouch.

I have to agree, but does their target market really expect more for the money? After all they’ll give you two medium pizzas for like $5. They’ve been the low cost provider for decades. Do people really buy it for the quality? Or was it because Domino’s built their brand identity on speed of delivery?

Here is their new “Guarantee”:

“Domino’s new hand-tossed pizza has been reinvented from the crust up to be our best tasting pizza ever. Guaranteed. If you are not completely satisfied with your Domino’s pizza experience , we will make it right or refund your money”.

And they have a new website: http://www.pizzaturnaround.com/. And the Early Show on CBS Chimes in here.

What do you think kahunas? Good branding strategy or not?

Says Irish budget carrier Ryanair and their CEO Michael O’Leary who have cultivated a reputation for controversial innovations and colorful language.

O’Leary says branding is dead. Good for him. Here are my thoughts.

We all need the Walmart’s of the world which is exactly the brand you get in Ryanair. Their brand identity is cheap, no nonsense flights. Believe it or not O’Leary has done the thing he so openly despises, or does he?

Walmart has been brilliant at being creative in cutting costs and delivering price value to the customer. And their niche to middle to lower income target market eats it up. Same with Ryanair. All their really doing is targeting their market effectively with a low cost strategy. Kudos, way to live the brand.

They’ve gone so far as to consider charging for their toilets on a flight. Explaining the toilet charge, O’Leary says that again, it’s not about the money. It will train passengers to use toilets in the terminals before and after flights, which means the airline can replace a few toilets with more seats and reduce fares some more.

Brilliant, way to live the brand. Oh this is branding people, at it’s best. You or I may say hogwash to this airline but that’s just what they want. They’re excluding you because they really want only price conscience fliers. And if something goes wrong with your flight these customers will expect nothing in return because that’s the deal. You’re a number to them and you know it going in.

How’s it working for them? Ryanair’s ancillary revenue grew from 8% of total revenue last year to 20% this year. Ryanair carried 66 million passengers with a 15% jump in year-on-year traffic, resulting in revenues of €1.8bn with an 80% increase in net profits. As of now, Ryanair is the single-largest carrier of international passengers in the world.

And how does O’Leary describe his brand identity:

He says “You’re not getting free food. We don’t want your check-in bags. We’re not going to put you up in hotels because your grammy died… It’s a commodity. It’s not some life-changing sexual experience, which is what the other high-fare airlines have tried to convince you that it is.”

Now does anyone really think it’s a commodity or are they doing a great job at branding?

I’ve been waiting to post on Tiger Woods and his branding problems until the dust settled a bit. It’s been interesting to see who is sticking with him and who is not.

I’ve been saying that brand identity is the most critical asset a company or person can have for almost 20 years. Most people still really don’t know what brand identity means, no it’s not a pretty logo. So this Tiger Woods epic is a great way to understand what brand identity really means.

Tiger Woods had a brand identity of a winner in every aspect of his life. The best golfer, family man, husband, father etc. He worked tirelessly to bring this identity forward to make him into the most powerful athlete I’ve ever seen.

A month or so ago if you asked anyone what they thought of Tiger Woods you would have got the same answer over and over again. A champion of life. That’s what we call brand image. When your brand identity aligns with your brand image you’ve achieved brand success.

This was Tiger’s brand identity before the drama:

This is Tiger’s new brand image:

You’ll notice they no longer align.

Tag Heuer, the Swiss watchmaker, has dropped its sponsorship of Tiger Woods  following the golfer’s admission of marital infidelity. Tag Heuer joins a growing list of companies to part ways with the top ranked golfer.

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) have dropped Woods from their sponsorship roster and Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG) said its Gillette unit would no longer run ads featuring Woods.

For the moment, Nike (NYSE: NKE) appears to be sticking by Woods.

Now you should have a good idea of what brand identity really is. It’s the heart and soul of who you are as a company or a person. It permeates everything you do. Faking it leads to disaster.