Brandjack News

Brandjacking the GOP: An Inside Job

Byline: Lilli Haicken

            The resignation of Speaker John Boehner from the House of Representatives exposes the brandjack that has happened within the GOP. Conservatives from the older generations – Reaganites and Gingrichites of the 1980’s and 1990’s – are being pushed hard by newer Tea Party Conservatives and Outsiders like Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina to never accept compromise on any issue. Older GOP’ers accept that compromise needs to happen and they can still get their way on most issues. Newer ones helped create last year’s government shutdown, and might do so again.

            The GOP has long been ripe for a brandjack from within. Conservatives of the Grand Old Party long ago pushed aside the ‘cloth coat’ party elements. Reagan and Gingrich helped create the lock-step party most of us grew up with: the party that always voted together on every issue, the party that held a single line and single voice. The past decade and a half have seen conservative elements from evangelical and economic sectors, from social and scientific ones, come forward and demand their own voices be heard within the GOP. These voices refuse to listen to the single-line-voice commandment. They want to fracture the GOP, create a harder line conservative party than it already is.

            They are succeeding. Boehner’s resignation makes it clear that his hold on Congressional GOP members was shaky at best. In the Senate, McConnell seems to have better luck, but he has not yet come up against a bastion of Tea Party Senators or outsiders. When he does, there will be more shake up from within.

            The current presidential election also shows us how brandjacked the GOP is. Trump, Fiorina and Carson espouse conservative viewpoints, but not the tried and true lines from within the party. They speak out in their own voices, yet they still claim GOP membership. Media attention to their vocalizing creates even more stir within the party. Carson appeals to the evangelical elements, Fiorina to conservative women, Trump – all charisma - a modern-day Reagan (without the political background).

            The brandjacking of the GOP may be a long term thing. Boehner’s resignation may be all we get as an ‘apology’. No matter what happens in the future, the GOP will never again be the political party we knew. 

The Downfall of a Respected Brand

By Lilli Haicken

The fridge began to die. At 25 years old it definitely was on our radar as 'will need replacing'. But it stopped keeping things evenly cold all the time, so, off we went. Our immediate thought was 'go to Sears'.

Sears has been one of the top companies as far as appliances and sales of appliances for decades. We figured we would have a good experience buying from them. We were wrong. 

Not only were the sales staff not up on all the features of the models being shown, they insisted that a model we like and had good reviews on could have its doors removed to facilitate delivery through somewhat slim doorways. Delivery, needless to say, did not happen because the delivery company's person could not remove the fridge's doors due to an integral water line hookup in the doors. The delivery person told us that this was not the first time a delivery had gone bad because of bad information on the part of sales staff to customers. 

But our odyssey was just beginning. We went back to Sears to try and rectify the situation. And their sales and management staff could not get us a replacement. We ended up asking for our money back - which then had to be delivered to us in cash because the store could not cut a check and give it to us. 

I am saddened to say that Sears, a bastion of good enterprise and good brand recognition, has sadly gone the way of the dodo. They are more interested in getting a sale than making sure the customer has all the information needed on an item, and they farm out deliveries (like most stores these days) to companies that do not employ trained techs to help facilitate deliveries of appliances and the suchlike. 

Its all about the profit, its all about the money and not the customer. When a company puts profit over customer satisfaction, the company is going to suffer and its touted brand is going to suffer as well. 

How many companies are suffering these days because of profit over customer satisfaction and good branding? Start naming,  because the list is going to be long. 

Rebranding a Bohemoth of the Last Century

The United Nations needs a rebrand apparently. The 70 year old international institution, from its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland (pictured above), has announced a campaign to work on changing public perceptions of the work that its programs do in the world. 

Oh the opportunities presented! What public relations person with a passion for branding wouldn't want to at least try to come up with ways to make the U.N. more palatable to the current world? There are hundreds of programs managed by the UN. There are non-governmental organizations whose work is tied to the UN. Every one of these bodies needs to have its brand made over, and all of them need to be tied to the UN in general. 

The campaign is in its infancy, and I am sure there are dozens of agencies, consultants and freelancers all trying to find a way to do some of the work needed. Even the college I currently attend has its masters candidate students in the media department doing work on this. 

What will ultimately be achieved by this rebrand should be something that the international communities can embrace and that the publics of the world can better related to. It will take some time to see the full change, but all of us in the media will be watching. 

 

For Profit Colleges - Branding Themselves with Shame

Corinthian Colleges are closing their doors come next Monday. After years of federal investigations into its loan practices, the college is forced to admit that it bilked thousands of hopeful students, the government and various other institutions in order to line the pockets of the organization's owners. 

With the pressure on today's young people to get some kind of higher degree in order to succeed in the workplace, Corinthian branded itself as an organization that could help students get these degrees and certifications, and would make sure they could afford the classes by helping them take out loans that most should never have been approved for. These students are now tens of thousands of dollars in debt, and with no way to pay the loans back. Promised jobs never materialized even as debts piled up. 

Corinthian is just one of many for profit colleges out there, and they are all branding themselves as part of the future, able to help young adults get ahead in today's world of technology. What happens when a brand lies to its customers? Hopefully, the brand gets its rugs pulled out from under it and people go to jail. 

With the collapse of a for profit collegiate brand because of financial mismanagement, others of the same ilk will be scrutinized as well. And their students should be scrutinizing on their own. Remember, a college's brand will be looked at when you go to get a job. 

Has Hillary Been Brandjacked Already?

by Lilli Haicken

Hillary made her Big Announcement. And unveiled her new logo. And the internet reacted immediately with a lot of negativity, sarcasm and outright hatred. Has her brand been jacked already? I'm leaning towards a yes on this one. 

She's got a lot of baggage to deal with: Bill for one. Having been the First Lady of a president whose record is mixed; her name conjures up images of a president whose legacy in the public's mind is denying impropriety with an intern. We also remember the Whitewater thing. And her place in starting the US down the road to the ACA. With all this - and that logo - brandjack. 

Hillary wants this. She wants it badly enough that she's starting her campaign early. She knows that 8 years of Obama are also going to be tough to overcome. She's going to have to remake herself in the public eye yet again to overcome this early brandjack. Let's see what happens over the next few months. She may surprise us. And then again, she may have lost enough control of her brand that recovery is impossible. Sit back with a bowl of popcorn, wince with me. 

A Crisis I See in the Media is Not Necessarily My Crisis, Or Is It?

by Lilli Haicken

If one keeps up with the news or other media about happenings in the world or with your favorite celebrity one can always find a crisis of some sort. It may be happening in your backyard or half a world away. What differentiates each happening is whether or not your life will be affected by the crisis. And you would be surprised at how your life might be affected by a crisis far away.

Take the recent law passed in Indiana. This one law – one of many of a similar type – seems to call for the ability of anyone, be they an individual or a business, to be able to refuse to do business with someone on the grounds that their religious convictions do not agree with that person’s wants or desires. At least, that’s the interpretation of the law by today’s democrats and liberals. And now Mike Pence, governor of Indiana and a GOP favorite, is looking at a crisis created by the media over this law. Various groups are calling for boycotts of things happening in Indiana. The governor has responded in many news outlets to those who are criticizing the law and its timing. Social media is awash with groups calling for the repeal of the law or boycotts.

For those who live in Indiana, this probably is a crisis because they live and probably work in the state. They have opinions on both sides. There might be economic and social ramifications for the state if the crisis isn’t handled well. There will be political ramifications for Governor Pence. However, for someone like me who does not live in Indiana and has no reason to travel there or do business there, does this crisis mean anything? Because it might affect the stances of potential candidates in the upcoming 2016 elections, I should pay attention. If I understand what a law like this might mean for me doing business with people who take offense at my beliefs, then I can choose a candidate who can make it easier for me to do business without the interference of personal belief.

             Paying attention to crises and parsing out the meaning to you and your life could indeed make a difference. Just saying. 

[dot]SUCKS Is the New Brand Nightmare

by Lilli Haicken

Every time I think I have a handle on what brands can do to get on top of problems out there on the web, another genius comes up with something new. This time its a web extension - [dot]SUCKS - which is supposed to help foster brand criticism. The new extension goes on sale at the end of this month from Vox Populi Registry.

I suspect there will be a run from the brands themselves to buy up the extensions and prevent the kind of criticism the originator of the idea has. Although as Kevin Allen pointed out on his excellent post for PRDaily the other day, we humans have ways of getting around brands having more money than we do. cocacola.suck could become hellocokeyou.suck. Or any other permutation of the name of the brand. Do big name brands have enough money to buy up every permutation of their name? Can they really figure out every permutation? 

From the consumer end, I am sure we all out here have criticisms of the brands out there. I know I have many criticisms, and sometimes I even post about them - privately. Usually I just stop using a brand I don't like. Or if I have issues with a brand's ideals, I don't use them. But consumers have latched onto this two-way conversation medium and are trying hard to 'fix' things out there. McDonald's, for instance, has responded to consumers by announcing they will no longer use chickens given certain anti-biotics and have changed their sourcing for this item. A win for consumers? Maybe. 

What about celebrity brands? Or politicians? Or countries? Can they all buy up their own [dot]SUCK domains? What legal protections are there for international criticism? Can I, as an American citizen buy up putinyou.suck and create a website that Russians can see? and what's more, use? 

Consumer criticism in this day and age is critical for brands to monitor and respond to, and this new domain extension could be a new way to brandjack. Brands have more to fear out there. Nightmares are coming. Brands, beware.