With 2015 a year when the Oxford
Dictionaries’ Word Of The Year is a pictograph (the ‘tears of joy’ emoji), it’s
unsurprising that it was also a year when the idea of a brand took some
surprising turns.
Although Amazon continues to be the
only company in the world’s top-ten most valuable brands that doesn’t actually
produce anything, the growing success of businesses such as Uber and Airbnb (who
help manage other people’s inventory), and the ongoing popularity of many of
the leading social media channels, suggests that some of the traditional
definitions of business, and by extension our understanding of a brand and what
it means, are likely to change too.
However, two new brands on the Irish
scene seem to have taken that a step too far. Virgin Media and eir both
appeared in the autumn to considerable fanfare on screens near you, vaguely promising
great new things, but neglecting to contact their new customers (or more
properly the old customers of UPC and eircom who have been sold like chattels
from one relationship to the next without a by-your-leave). A fanfare is one
thing, but what good does it do to blow your own trumpet so vigorously that it
drowns out the voice of your customer? Both blowhards could do worse than take
a leaf out of the Vodafone book, whose courteous and thoughtful “How are you?”
campaign to signal their taking the place of Eircell back in 2002 remains for
me the standard for changeover amongst brands in Ireland.
Meanwhile, Supervalu took a potentially
damaging wrong turn into selling insurance, drawing on their very deep roots as
a fresh food retailer to make a clunky and unconvincing argument for their
credentials as financial broker. Not that they’re the first business to make
the mistake of believing that everything their brand touches turns to gold.
King Midas they’re not, and flogging insurance off the shelves is likely to
prove a risky business for the brand in the long-term and undermine their core
offering.
On our TV screens, the until-now
largely neglected third child of terrestrial television finally stepped out of
the shadows of siblings one and two to offer a credible viewing alternative
through its Rugby World Cup coverage and fast-paced home made soap Red Rock.
Whilst rugby fans were divided about many elements of TV3’s delivery, not least
the seemingly interminable and ill-timed ad breaks, they voted with their eyes
in helping the station post record figures for many of their broadcasts
throughout a very popular tournament. And the IRFU were evidently pleased with
their performance, as they subsequently awarded them the Six Nations from 2018.
Although they compete on some playing
fields, the take-your-turn popularity of Irish soccer, Irish rugby and GAA
brands means that these three and others can happily co-exist in towns and
heartlands across the country. Even the blink-and-you’ll miss it avenging hand of
our new favourite sporting son Conor McGregor suggests that the Irish sporting
fan, much like his craft-beer drinking counterpart, likes to maintain a
portfolio of favourites whilst sporting a jersey bearing many shades of green.
Gaelic football’s strong showing on TV
this year was helped no-doubt by the most iconic rivalry in the game featuring
on All-Ireland Final day, what a witty Kerryman friend of mine terms ‘An Chlassiceach’.
Although the match itself proved a damp squib, that didn’t stop the game being
one of the most-watched of any sport this year. Ireland soccer’s north and
south qualification for UEFA 2015 also proved the enduring strength of the
Irish Football Fan brand (much of it a self-fulfilled promise it must be said)
with newspapers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe hailing the imminent arrival
of our party-going followers with a wholehearted ‘You’ll never beat the Irish (on
the terraces at least)’. The corruption of the global football brand FIFA on
the other hand showed what happens when any organization loses sight of its
true customer, and serves another master than the all-important relationships
with players and fans.
Water, water everywhere in Ireland over
the past year, not helped by the destructive efforts of Storm Desmond (even
forces of nature now come with their own memorable brand-names), who emptied
home and business-threatening volumes onto the south west of the country in
particular during the last month. But it was the raging torrent of dissent
around the supply of our drinking and waste-waters that continued to divide
opinion, with some of our more active opposition politicians pouring something
far more incendiary than oil on troubled Irish Water, whose cack-handed
introduction of charges early in the year left the new utility hopelessly
marooned. In the meantime, the company’s PR advisers belatedly drew on some of
the methods employed by bottled water manufacturers for decades to try to win
hearts and minds, but whether these arguments hold any water with householders
across the country remains to be seen.
But certainly the most astonishing and
uplifting brand story of all this year surrounded the vote that broadened the
meaning of marriage to include that partnership between two people regardless
of gender. In 1,201,606-more than a single stroke, Ireland became the first
country in the world to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote, in turn
signaling to both ourselves and the world that Ireland is becoming a more open
and welcoming place. Brand Ireland is likely to benefit in all sorts of ways,
not least in becoming a more popular destination for returning emigrants and
visitors who previously might have found Ireland an unwelcoming place.
In many ways, that wider transformation
in our society was pre-figured in the reassessment of the Panti Bliss
character, the drag queen persona of Rory O’Neill and a brand in her own right,
who for many years had been cast as a ridiculous figure on the margins of
society. O’Neill’s impassioned plea on behalf of the oppressed, delivered in
his guise as Panti, made the subsequent debate around equality personal, and
introduced a dignity to the pro-equality argument that prompted voters to see
past the labels and recognise in their own families, neighbours and friends the
people who sought equal rights for all marriage relationships, regardless of
gender.
That his plea was made from the stage
of the Abbey Theatre became more poignant than ever when the theatre became
embroiled in another equality debate, branded Waking The Feminist, which was sparked
by the poverty of female representation amongst the playwrights chosen by the
Abbey for its 2016 programme. For the Abbey Theatre, which has staged plays
telling the stories of the oppressed since its foundation in 1904 (ironically
by a male, WB Yeats, and female, Lady Augusta Gregory), the challenge now is
for it to become a brand that represents real equality in every aspect of its
performance.
In the US meanwhile, brand Trump has
raised its ugly bouffant as a serious contender for the Republican ticket in
next year’s Presidential elections. Would-be President Trump appears to be
dealing a losing-card to other Trump operations however with recent reports of
the Trump-owned Turnberry course being dropped from the British Open rota, whilst
the PGA Tour has noted that “Mr. Trump’s comments are inconsistent with our
strong commitment to an inclusive and welcoming environment in the game of
golf”.
However, another brand that attracted
its own share of controversy in 2015, Volkswagon, seems to have accelerated
away from the emission scandal that hit the German car-maker earlier this year,
with news that sales of the brand are up in Ireland and Germany. Perhaps the
deep-seated loyalty that Volkswagon builds into its cars has proved more than
able to absorb the shock of a not-insignificant bump in the road? Time will
tell.
So a year then when brands home and abroad
continued to evolve and the relationships that they offer to us as we make our
choice as customers, as voters, and as fans continued to fascinate. And if
words fail us in our efforts to describe those relationships, we can now call
on a whole range of emojis to help us. It’s official.
