John Tantillo’s Winner and Loser of The Week: 

Brand Winner...	And Loser...

Winner:  Tiger Woods

Loser:  General Motors

Tiger Woods came in fourth at the U.S. Open.   What a performance!

If Tiger Woods is doing this well on the golf course now, a return to consistent winning and legendary playing is only a matter of time and with it the re-ignition of the driving force behind his brand.

Once again, you have the usual dichotomy between the public at large and their perception of Woods and the golfer’s main Target Market, the people who know and love golf.

These are the people who know what matters about golf and golfers and anointed Tiger Woods as a top golf brand years ago –long before the general public even knew his name.  

These same people know the fact that Tiger Woods was in serious contention for a win at Pebble Beach is in itself an astounding triumph given the events of the past year.  

Fact is, golf is a game that defies consistency yet Tiger Woods has been consistent more than anybody else.

Don’t get distracted by the headlines announcing another few million in lost endorsements or the exaggerated expectations that he should have won this one.  The real story is that Tiger Woods is showing that he’s back, still doggedly persistent and already making the incremental improvements that will make him win again and again and again. 

Fortunately for Woods, he’s still early enough in his brand’s life cycle that this will probably translate to an even more legendary sports brand than the one we thought we knew.

Loser:

General Motors recently made a mis-step that we’ve really got to take a closer look at.

A memo was sent out to Chevrolet employees promoting “consistency” in branding by encouraging them to stop using the word “Chevy.”

Apparently, the memo writer thought that depriving the American people of the legendary shorthand name for a beloved car brand was something in General Motors’ power to do.

My answer: Fuggedaboutit.

First, Americans like to shorten names.  Coca Cola is called Coke.  Federal Express is Fed Ex.  Smart companies recognize this trend and go with it.  Sometimes they even officially change their names: Fed Ex shortened theirs and so did Kentucky Fried.  Intelligent branding always takes the reality of how language is used into account. 

What bothers me here is that General Motors (or shall we say, GM?) should know better than to over-reach.  Is this some old marketing arrogance creeping in?  A company might own a brand name, but at the end of the day nobody owns the common language.  We share it.  All of us change it by adding to it and making it our own.

You simply cannot stuff words that people don’t want to say into their mouths and expect a miracle.  Just like marketing is about discovering real needs, the naming of brands is about discovering the best language, your Target Market’s language, and marry that to the product or service you want to name. 

Bottom line, listen first and never impose.  Build-it-and-they-will-come doesn’t work for brands and it doesn’t work for brand names.

The savvy marketer uses this fact to his or her advantage by encouraging the Target Market to embrace their ownership of the brand name.

And that’s another thing that GM seems to be forgetting here.  Nothing says the power of Chevrolet’s accumulated brand equity like the fact that the word Chevy is a beloved part of the general American vocabulary.  Rather than force change onto the word, GM should harness the word to help re-invigorate the brand.  Coca Cola does this kind of thing regularly by constantly updating not the word Coke but the way the consumer encounters the word.  Coke stays contemporary, relevant, exciting and always reminds the consumer of the great product behind the word.

So, too, with Chevy if only GM remembers what a great word and brand they have.  What could be more American than Chevy?  Let’s hope that GM has the imagination to use it instead of forcing artificially change and calling it progress.

And, remember, things are always easier when you keep marketing and branding in mind.