Brand Winner & Loser of 2005

Winner: Razr

The Razr is the only cellphone is focused on being a phone. It is small, sleek, stylish and selling like crazy.

Since unveiling the handset in November 2004, Motorola says it sold 12 million Razr phones worldwide as of October 1. More than half of those sales, 6.5 million, took place in the last quarter. That is despite the fact it was only made available last month to Verizon customers.

As a Verizon customer, I bought mine the other day as soon as I realized they were available and found the store selling them like hotcakes.

Motorola has re-pioneered the small phone where every other phone company has been busy adding features, size and bulk.

But not all is perfect. Motorola struck out with a brand called Rokr, a product that tried to combine a cellphone with an MP3 player. The brand fell flat with the critics and consumers.

In the end, if Motorola keeps the Razr focused on phones and forgets the silly convergence ideas, they will keep a winning brand in my hands and maybe your hands for a long time to come.

Loser: Bud Select

I thought about selecting the Green Bay Packers as the worst brand of the year. (My husband’s parents grew up in Green Bay and every game day drive from Peoria to watch the Pack play at Lambeau Field. My father-in-law’s favorite story is that my husband Scott was in-utero during the famed Ice Bowl in 1967.) But 2005, with Bret Farve on his last legs, was not a good year for the Green & Gold. Although adding insult to injury about the Packers on my blog would likely lead to a Brown family excommunication.

So instead, my choice of the worst and craziest brand this year is Bud Select. Does the world really need another flavor of Budweiser?

The answer is no. How many flavors of Bud can they dream up anyway?

Let’s take a recap of the selection so far:

Budweiser

Bud Light

Bud Ice

Bud Ice Light

Bud Dry

and now Bud Select.

Bud Select is by far the worst of the line extensions at Anheuser-Busch. A close second and third goes to Anheuser World Lager and B^e; but I just don’t have time to go into the craziness of those extensions at the moment.

The other Budweiser extensions (Light, Dry, Ice) suggest flavor variations. Bud Select suggests that all the other flavors of Budweiser, the “unselected” ones don’t measure up.

Why knock Bud Light, the largest-selling individual beer brand in America? Let Miller do that.

The problem is, Miller has been doing just that. But introducing Bud Select only gives Miller more fire. Bud Light must be a lousy tasting beer if they need to introduce a better-tasting beer called Bud Select. Bud Select just adds more water to the Budweiser brand pretty soon they might as well call it Evian.

Honorable mention: Airborne

Airborne, the folksy cold-prevention remedy invented by a second grade school teacher hit sales of $90 million in 2004 and more than doubled that in 2005. Without any advertising but plenty of PR, word-of-mouth and celebrity endorsements, the brand has become a blockbuster. The tipping point seemed to be an October 2004 episode of the Oprah show which spotlighted the brand. Sales for the brand on Drugstore.com jumped 700% the next week. Beginning this year with new competition hitting the shelves, the company has begun a reported $20 million advertising effort. Using PR to build the brand with a wonderful credible spokesperson like teacher/developer Victoria Knight-McDowell and waiting until the brand takes off to advertise is always the right way to go.

Myself like many others have become passionate about the brand. I will be traveling a lot in 2006 and I won’t be going anywhere without out this little insurance tonic.

Comments

[Laura]

Lots of really great comments!

First of all, I agree the Packers are a great brand! And the fans are not just loyal they are fanatics. My in-laws just got off the waiting list for tickets after 30 years.

Burger King is a mess. That new King is indeed totally creepy! They are destroying was was left of that brand. They should get back to flame broiling.

Google certainly wins the year as the brand that got the most and best PR. But as a brand I think they are going in totally the wrong direction by expanding in every direction. Webvan was a stock darling at one point too.

I would have kept all the convergence crap out of the Razr. I don't think it needs it. There will always be a small market for people who want one product that "does it all." But the majority want simplicity. Has anyone seen two great articles that ran reinforcing this point?

One was in the USA TODAY and another is in the Harvard Business Review.

High-tech gadgets should stick to a single task, thank you; Kevin Maney. USA TODAY. McLean, Va.: Jan 25, 2006. pg. B.2

Defeating Feature Fatigue, Feb 2006

http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbrsa/en/hbrsaLogin.jhtml?ID=R0602E&path=&pubDate=null&referral=null&_requestid=58789

- Laura

[Dan]

You also have to consider Google as a winning brand in 2005.

While their stock is going crazy, they have to be careful about over-extending themselves.

They beat Yahoo and the others by focusing just on search. That's it. Now they have pricing tools, maps, images, news and other features. They are becoming more like Yahoo.

The pressure to increase earnings every quarter force them to do this. There is only so big a market for search ads. They are compelled to expand to other areas, and it will be the end of their reign soon enough.

[Dan]

Laura,

A strong brand with loyal fans can weather rough times.

The Packers brand is just fine, even though they are in a very small geographic market.

With a 60-year waiting list for tickets, and the most loyal fan base in sports (even considering the beloved Chicago Cubs), the brand is strong and has exceptional value.

The Packers are among the most profitable team in sports every year, through good and bad seasons. The brand just sells.

Compare that to the Bears, whose fans won't fill their stadium unless the team is playoff-bound. A bad year on the field is disastrous for them financially.

When the Bears had a few bad years the owners threatened to move the team out of the city and into the 'burbs (or even Indiana). And the 'fans' still complain about the new stadium, which was a branding gaffe in an of itself.

[Lenny]

You are married? Lucky guy.

I would have picked anything from the Burger King menu as the brand loser. Alongside it's creepy commercial that serve as nails in the coffin on the brand that is/was know as Burger King.

[Jane]

Bud Select did a terrible job of explaining what it was supposed to be. I bought a case of it for a party in September and nobody touched it. I tried some later and it's fine for what it is, but something about it seems to make people wary. I still have about a dozen bottles of it in the fridge.

[rob bergin]

Want to see beer guys review this article - check it out.

http://beeradvocate.com/forum/read.php?thread=637194

[Paul Hotze]

I agree with you that the razor is the Biz-omb but it appears that you become tolerant of convergence when it is placed in a neat and sleek package. I believe as technology advances, we will want all the bells and whistles on our phones. Why do I think the Rokr bombed? Who wants to buy a phone that only holds 100 songs. However, give me a phone that can 3k songs and has a 4 megapixel camera and I would be happy as an oyster....or is it a clam?
I believe there is a time for convergence and a time simplicity. I think that technology has yet to catch up to our expectations and once it reaches that point, watch out.
Technically, my computer is a convergence product. I can use it for photo shop, email friends, surf the net, run excel spreadsheets, write reports, and the list goes on. It's not like I need a computer that is dedicated only to each of these functions. Anywho, no need to bore all of you but that is just my spin on it.

[Laura]

Of course your can't eat burgers all the time, that's why people go to Taco Bell, Papa John's and Subway! If Hardees confuses the brand with too many menu choices consumers will go somewhere else for burgers. You can't satify everyone all the time with one brand. Remember Boston Market. Thanks for you comment Mack.

[Mack Collier]

Laura I noticed the other day that Hardees has started selling tacos now, and had a new commercial for them. Showed a girl eating one, and said 'because you can't eat burgers all the time'. Looks like after paring down their menu to focus on just hamburgers, and growing profits, they are going to screw around and go right back to offering too many items, and losing focus. When will companies learn that more is sometimes less?!?

[Laura]

I wouldn't rule out Bud Soda, if Coca-Cola can introduced Blak a coffee infused soda anything is clearly possible in the world of stupid brand extensions!

[Caleb]

What a wonderful selection of brands!

I wonder if Budweiser will have Bud Soda anytime soon?? LOL!

[Mike Bawden]

Excellent choices, Laura. It's interesting to see how poorly Rokr did for Motorla while the Razr seems to have taken off. And your rationale for the Bud Select choice was right on target.

I'll be adding this blog post to my list of blog posts marketers should read on my "Much Ado About Marketing" blog.

Thanks again,

Mike Bawden
Brand Central Station