Saab Steers Clear Of The Scrap-Heap

In a previous post, I wrote of my sadness at the likely demise of one of the great car brands, Saab.

Naturally, I'm delighted with recent news that the brand has been granted a stay-of-execution, thanks to its buy-out by Dutch luxury car manufacturer, Spyker.

Now, Saab isn't out of the breaking yard just yet; whilst Spyker makes breathtakingly beautiful cars, the six-year old business has yet to make a profit. At the same time, Spyker's attitude towards the brand it's acquired is in marked contrast to the cackhanded management approach of General Motors, which has seen the once-proud brand reduced to a poor shadow of itself.

During early discussions around a possible purchase of Saab, Spyker's owners spoke often about their excitement about taking over stewardship of such a storied brand. As Spyker CEO, Victor Muller, put it: "Saab is an iconic brand that we will be proud to shepherd. I think the unique heritage of the brand requires a very strong focus," he said. "If you are part of a very large conglomerate, it's very difficult to have a focus on all these brands."

Now that Saab is in the hands of an owner that seems to truly appreciate the worth of the brand, there's hope that a car with a personality that's a legend in some circles (Don't believe me? Check out some of the Saab fan-sites online, including Saab Club UK) will soon be back on the road, quirkier and more beautiful than ever.

If so, I'll be one of the first in line to cheer it on.

Over To You: What do you make of the news of Saab's last-minute reprieve from the wrecking yard?

Brandwidth 2009: The Brand Year In Review

If talk has always been cheap, then in 2009 it became virtually worthless as the yawning gap between the words and deeds of many high-profile brands was exposed for everyone to see.

This was the year when more and more brands joined the conversation online, but much of what they had to say was drowned out in the buzz of rumour, gossip and innuendo. Whilst the spectacular crash of the Tiger brand phenomenon was naturally the talk of the place, there was much to keep tongues wagging closer to home as many celebrated Irish brands slid into disrepute and disarray.

When money talks, we’re all inclined to sit up and listen and the word coming from our banks and other financial institutions suggested that many of the promises and assurances we were offered weren’t worth the paper they were written on. With a barefaced cheek that should no longer surprise us, many of those same financial brands continued to boast of their integrity and commitment to customers even whilst further revelations of wrongdoing were being brought to light.

Our fascination in this country with any song and dance act, no matter how grotesque, was best mirrored in the way we cheered on the Jedward sideshow. Whilst it was only entertainment after all, there was still something shocking about our willingness to back performers whose selling point was their remarkable ability to offer enthusiasm and hard necks in lieu of talent.

Meanwhile, a failure to walk the walk on a green field in France triggered an outrage that might have been better directed at those whose sleight of hand in the boardroom robbed us of more than a jolly to South Africa. Whilst Ireland’s footballers attacked a dismal French team with admirable courage and abandon, they proved unable to do the one thing that would have put paid to any talk of moral victories (not to mention wheedling requests to extend the finals competition to a clearly unworkable thirty-three teams): put the ball in the back of the net for a second time. For all of their bold fighting talk, this Irish soccer team were unable to back it up when it mattered.

In sharp contrast, two Irish rugby teams shrugged off the label of lovable nearly-men by matching word with deed and capturing the Grand Slam and European Cup. Led by the incomparable Brian O’Driscoll, both Ireland and Leinster set an example of what can be achieved when promises are made and kept. Meanwhile, Munster whose only real blemish in 2009 was to have been beaten on the day by a clearly-inspired Leinster team, reminded us late on of what their extraordinary brand is about when they travelled to Perpignan with the jeers of the mob ringing in their ears and dug out a courageous and inspiring victory against all the odds. What is it they say down there? ‘To the faithful and the brave, nothing is impossible’. There might be something there for all brands to consider.

2009 saw the demise of Waterford Crystal (at least as an Irish-based brand), Budget Travel, a range of car-dealers (including the legendary EP Mooney) and the fall of a real darling of our Celtic Tiger, O’Brien’s Sandwich Bars. Further afield, neglect and mismanagement led to the announcement that the legendary Saab brand was failing fast and was to be put out of its misery. The talk of a mercy-killing from its owners, General Motors, was unable to mask the ineptitude that led to the wasting away of a brand rich in story and inspiration.

Not too surprisingly, talk was at the heart of the continuing success of two of the year’s highest-performing brands. Twitter appeared to get everyone talking in 2009 (or perhaps only those talking loudest or most often), whilst Apple remained a must-have brand based on its ability to enable customers to communicate easily and elegantly through its boy-wonder iPhone. No other brands really got close.

In the end, it was a near-legendary Irish brand that best demonstrated that whilst talk may be cheap, it doesn’t always have to be worthless. Mr. Tayto – The Man Inside The Jacket showed many bigger brands how best to capitalise on a powerful story. Described as “the incredible story of one man’s journey from the tilling fields of Ireland to become the nation’s top potato’, the book did go on to top the non-fiction bestseller’s list at home, displacing worthy tomes by leading commentators on the economic bust. Displaying a savvy understanding of what’s required to get people talking about your brand, this particular hot potato has proven to be flavour of the year for 2009.

So what can we expect this new year on the branding-front? Perhaps the sobering lessons of the last year will prompt more of a matching of word with deed and 2010 will see our leading brands walk the walk as boldly as they talk the talk.

A Saab Passing

So Saab is on the way out. And I am a little less for it.


To paraphrase John Donne (and with apologies to the poetry purists amongst you):


Each brand's death diminishes me, for I am involved in brandkind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.


News of the imminent demise of what Brandchannel describes as "the first venerable, standalone global brand" to fall casualty to the worldwide crisis in car-production, has provoked a reaction more suited to the announcement of a death in the extended family.


But it's only a brand, you might say. And not a very successful one at that, if sales are anything to go by. And if you're the brand-owner (General Motors, in this instance), then it's only natural that you're inclined to switch off the life-support when your ailing brand is flatlining.


Now, I'm a Saab-owner as well as a brandmaker, and whilst I can see the business-case for shutting down a brand that's not performing (and remember, the purpose of a brand is to influence choice), I am doubly diminished at the passing of this great brand.


Perhaps it's because I've grown rather fond of my own Saab? 


And it seems I'm not alone. I've written previously in Open-Heart Branding that I'm not especially into cars, but my choice of Saab made sense when I went to buy my first new car some years ago. That post prompted a remarkable reaction, not just from my regular readers, but from Saab-lovers worldwide. A number of them contacted me directly to tell me of their own love-affair with the brand.


Judging from the language used by industry analysts, it appears that the brand is widely-mourned by those who appreciated Saab's "quirky designs and mastery of turbocharging". (Even if, like me, you're not quite sure what turbocharging is, you've got to love a brand that's mastered it.) Brandchannel refers to it as a "storied brand" and reports how General Motors (who bought the brand in 1989) "slowly strangled a proud heritage with a paucity of new products."


Elsewhere, CNN talks of the death and loss of a "brand we loved", whilst others talk of the 'devastating' news of the demise of a brand with real character. Almost everyone lays the blame for the death of the brand squarely at General Motors' door, accusing the manufacturer of stripping Saab of its singular, angular design and reducing it to just another lookalike car.


No, it's not just that I'm a Saab-owner and a brandmaker. The death of any great brand diminishes us all.


When brands are at their best, they contribute hugely to the richness of our lives. Representing the distinctive relationship between buyer and seller, they make customer choice easier and a lot more interesting. Like many other global manufacturers, General Motors doesn't understand that.


Saab isn't being killed off because it didn't matter. Starved and neglected, it suffered because General Motors ignored the brand's rich heritage and made a series of poorly-judged changes that rendered the brand almost unrecognisable and left it a pale, bland shadow of its former self.


Bewleys suffered the same fate here in Ireland, whilst Guinness was victim to some appalling advertising in the late '90s that threatened to kill off the brand before it finally regained much of its old strength thanks to a return to brand values.


Like Saab, these brands matter.


To paraphrase John Donne again:


No brand is an island, entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea (or put to death by a hapless manufacturer that deeply misunderstands brands), then we are all the less.


Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for us all.


Farewell old friend, we'll miss you.


Over To You: Are you saddened by the passing of this great brand or do you think mourning a car-marque is just a little over the top?

Not Just Another Saab Story

I'm not really into cars. Unlike many of my friends and colleagues, who can tell you off the top of their heads what such-and-such a person drives, I barely notice. Of course, a particularly smart car might turn my head, but most of what's out there on the road leaves me cold.

For many years, I didn't drive at all. As a student here in Dublin, and later working in Hong Kong, I hardly needed to. And when I did, my early transport was atop a Honda 50 (barely even a motorbike, but, I've just learned from Wikipedia, it is 'the best-selling powered vehicle of all time') and then astride a slightly more impressive model from the same manufacturer with greater engine size but little by way of memorable features (to me at least).

The purchase of my first car was prompted by the arrival of my first-born child and the sudden need to organise a weekly supermarket shop and occasional family outings. It was, I think, a Daihatsu Charade, but I'm open to correction. It was red. Or maybe silver. It definitely had a hatchback (or was that the car of a friend that we borrowed once or twice around that time?). When you consider that my first-born turns fourteen today, you can appreciate that this really wasn't such a long time ago and my grasp of car-detail is more than a little loose.

I do know we drove a Mitsubishi Spacewagon on our return to Ireland, but that choice was made by my father and brother, who put their heads together to decide what model of car suited the returning emigrants best, then drove me to a Japanese Import dealer to make the purchase. What a car that was! Air-conditioning when Irish models required you to crack open a window during our notoriously hot summers, and curtains you could draw to plunge a sleepy child into not-so-brightness. Actually, I did grow rather fond of it.

Then I drove a company car for a couple of years. A Honda Civic, I think it was (although again I half-expect a more eagle-eyed colleague to put me right). No, it was definitely a Honda. Just like the motorbikes. Aah, the power of half-remembered dreams.

My couldn't car-less attitude to what I drove would probably have continued indefinitely if I hadn't set up Islandbridge some five years ago. My wife Christine, who's not exactly a slave to brands herself, told me that I now needed to give some serious thought to the car I would drive. As a brand-maker, she said, people would naturally look to see which brand of car I'd chosen. But people hardly pay that much attention, I thought, until she told me how her former colleagues used to stand near the windows of their office and comment on the cars driven by the various visitors and sales reps arriving for meetings. A thumbs up or down could put the hapless driver on the front or back foot. Whether I liked it or not, she said, my car would be seen as a reflection of my standing in the business world. I briefly pictured myself perched on my Honda 50, and saw her point.

But which car to choose? I knew immediately I didn't want a BMW, Mercedes or the like but struggled to distinguish a car that I could truly warm to. Of course, another Honda wouldn't disgrace me but I was unconvinced. My romantic streak briefly toyed with the idea of importing a car from the US, a Mustang perhaps, something made for the open highway, and born out the American love-affair with the car. But that seemed too complicated. Then someone suggested a Saab, and I felt a tickle of appeal.

Something about the discreet, good manners of the brand appealed to me. Smart and stylish but not too up itself. I vaguely recalled a heritage in building airplanes. For some reason, that made sense. I liked the notion of aircraft engineers readying my engine for takeoff. I went to the garage to see for myself, and found myself quite charmed. I sat looking at the aeronautical instrument panel, ran my hands across the seating and interior fittings that were reminiscent of a flight cabin, heard the sigh of the engine when it shut down, and fell a little in love. Of course, I was also excited by the new-car smell and the sense that, for the first-time, I wouldn't be driving a hand-me-down.

And so I chose a Saab. In the five years since, it seems to me I've made the right choice. Colleagues comment approvingly of my brand, as though I've passed some unofficial test. For them the choice seems quite brand-savvy. Not too flash, not too obvious, not too self-absorbed; no, a suitable choice of someone in the business of brand-building. All the while, I've continued to be amazed at how much attention is paid to the car someone drives.

I've also found myself growing very fond of the Saab, so much so that when the time came to renew I went again and bought one.

And yet, I privately struggled to explain my affection for the brand, particularly as the car itself is broadly indistinguishable from a whole range of others just like it in its class. For example, I often find myself striding confidently towards someone else's car (and brand) in a crowded carpark.

But then, thanks to my colleague Philip O'Riada, I was pointed to the very excellent Why The Saab Inspires Intense Feelings, which goes some way to putting into words the depth of attachment I've formed to the brand. And allows me to retrofit my choice of the brand in the first place.

You need only spend a minute or two with me to know that I know nothing at all about cars. So don't take my word for it; check out why author Sam Knight describes a car that has always "overflowed with feeling".

And read why this is one Saab story with a happy ending.

Over To You: Have you made an accidental match with a brand, then found yourself falling in love?

Hear My Saab Story

I haven't heard the expression 'eaten bread soon forgotten' in quite a while (it was a real favourite of my brother's when I was growing up) but I was reminded of it as I stood on the forecourt of my Saab dealer earlier in the week.

Four years ago, I bought my first new car there and was so thrilled with the experience of driving away in my brand new Saab (Imagine! My very own car, ordered in especially for me!) that I had thoughts of little else. Earlier this year, I bought there again. My experience of the brand had been very good and habit as much as anything else brought me back to the same dealership where I swapped my three-year old for another new one. Again, I only had eyes for my latest purchase and paid little attention to anything else as I sat behind the wheel and soaked up that new-car feeling.

Earlier this month, I received my notification that the car was due its first service and I duly brought it along to the same people who had sold it to me almost twelve months earlier. All went well until I asked the attendant to let me know how much it would cost to repair or replace a door-handle that had been slightly scored in a close encounter with a car-park wall. I was told that I could have an estimate but would have to pay €100, which was deductible against the final cost should I choose to have the repair or replacement made.

I couldn't believe my ears. The same people who had previously sold me two cars worth tens of thousands of euros each were charging me €100 for an estimate on the repair of my more recent purchase. For an estimate? What were they thinking?

It's not often I'm lost for words. At the same time, I'm not confrontational by nature and can be slow to speak up when an unpleasant exchange is in the offing. So I said nothing.

At least until now.

As it turned out, the mechanic who prepares the estimate was unavailable so the dealer was unable to give an estimate. I drove away in my newly-serviced car feeling newly-fleeced. No-one stood on the forecourt to wave me off but they should have done for they're unlikely to see me again.

What are Saab doing, allowing a local dealer to dent the brand in this way?

Car-makers and car-dealers who sat back and took orders in the boom times are going to have to do a little more than learn how to upsell or cross-sell (or whatever they're calling this estimate-charge) now that customers are no longer queuing up to buy.

It's a buyer's market out there and this buyer is taking his business elsewhere.