Failure to Launch

Failure to launch.

Just like businesses, software upgrades, relationships, outfit choices, carefully-followed recipes and rock bands’ second albums, brands sometimes fail.

But why?

Our creative strategist Russell Holmes gives us his thoughts:

Take away aspects that can’t be mitigated for — such as natural disasters — (Tsunami sounded like a dynamic name before 2004’s disaster), or a competitor unveiling a similar rebrand a week before you launch (it happens) and there are a number of reasons why they don’t succeed. 

Here’s three:

1. The ‘it never should have happened’ failure

As a Leeds United fan it was particularly painful to see the unveiling of a poorly considered brand back in 2018. The club badge naturally became the focus for contention: the new design had just too many conflicting ideas. It ditched LUFC in favour of a shortened Leeds United, it tried to make a direct link to the fanbase by showing a player’s torso giving the Leeds United salute. 

But isn’t that a male torso - how is that progressive? Why shy away from ‘LUFC’ and make us appear like a snappy NFL franchise? Why try to commercialise the salute, this unwritten link between fan and player? Too much to critique, nothing to love.

Many football badges are terrible (the Red Devil in Manchester United’s is an absolute shocker), but choosing to redesign it so radically was a massive mis-step. And, btw, Leeds already had one of the most radical sport logos ever; its 1970s smiley.

2. The sudden lack of belief failure

On the face of it Cosignia, the new name the UK’s Post Office Group unveiled in 2001, was a perfectly good solution, and came from a strategically sound place. 

As an organisation wishing to take advantage of potential overseas expansion and new methods of delivering information (the internet!), being lumbered with a pragmatic sounding name and links to a ‘Royal’ Mail sounded outdated and too nationalistic. The new name was vague enough to sound global, yet had the word ‘consign’ at its heart. Perfect.

Management failed to consider the emotional link that their audience had to the existing name. Britain’s postal service goes back over 500 years old; the image of a village post office conjures up wave of nostalgia even for many who’ve never ventured into the countryside.

As a holding company Consignia wasn’t about to change any of that. But the management handled the launch so badly that eventually they had to back down. Their lack of launch strategy looked suspiciously like a lack of belief in the new brand. Once journalists got involved, all the public imagined was that Plumpton Post Office would suddenly be transformed into Cosignia Sussex depot 2. 

Too much emphasis was given to the bright shiny new brand, and not enough respect shown to what existed that it began to look like a replacement, rather than simply a holding company. Eventually Consignia was phased out to be replaced by Royal Mail Group.

3. Where’s the investment, failure

Finally, many rebrands fail to get the traction they deserve because of a lack of investment. Launching a new brand won’t have the impact you expect if you’ve not put aside a budget to spread the message. 

Enter Gap, with possibly the lamest ‘rebrand’ in recent history. Not a roar, not even a whimper; simply a logo. From a retail giant (albeit one in decline) such as Gap you’d expect a concept store, a line of clothing, maybe a colab. Anything to usher in a new era and get the public excited. But no, not in this case. Simply a logo that came to symbolise the once huge clothing company’s slip into irrelevance.

If Gap had handled this correctly and invested properly perhaps the audience would have been intrigued, interested … invested, even.

A rebrand should be seen as an incredible marketing moment because it offers a very unique opportunity — the chance to talk about all the positive aspects of your organisation without actually trying to ‘sell’ or ‘push’ anything to your customers. To usher in a new era on your terms — when can a business do this without sounding arrogant or dull? When is the press simply going to write about your business not because of what you sell, buy, acquire or fire? 

Gap should have seized this moment to get a new generation onboard, instead it blew any chance of credibility it might have once had.

A tip: Consider the launch as a magical opportunity to raise awareness on your own terms.

What links these failures?

If all three of these routes to failure have one thing in common, it’s a disconnect between creatives, clients and consumers. 

The Leeds United example is interesting in that 10,000 people were consulted as part of the branding process, yet it still was so wide of the mark. How so? I’d say that research is one thing, but accepting something so close to our hearts is actually changing, is another. As a focus group we’ll say A, as passionate sports fans we might fervently believe B.

Clients and creatives have to constantly put themselves in the shoes of their audience — before and during the process. And remember that nobody (i.e. the press and public) cares or thinks about your brand until it becomes problematic. Then it’s far more likely to fail.