Russel Brand: Brand Failures Build Brand’s Brand
I saw Russell Brand perform last night. Talented, intelligent, controversial, cute and likeable – all belie his real talents. That is to build his own brand through a series of failures.
The 90 minute gig largely consisted BBC radio show after a controversy involving him Brand having sex with a young lady and then leaving messages on her famous grandfathers phone informing him of the act
b) His balls up attempt at hosting the MTV VMA’s.of his two biggest failures:
a) Having to leave his top rating He didn’t read the American audience and, well insulted them.
He has taken his two biggest mistakes and turned them on their head and is using them for a sell out world tour (hyperbole allowed). What I like about this approach is that is is both clever marketing, and extremely empathic. He is saying that Brand, as a brand and person, is fallible and will make mistakes. He is not a perfect entertainer (very far from it). By embracing his mistakes and sharing them he was further endearing himself to the audience.
This is the opposite of how many brands still insist on presenting themselves today. Overly glossy, and never prepared to show flaws or admit mistakes when they happen. People respond well to humility and being a little fragile – why then do many brands still insist on maintaining a shiny, glossy, pompous image of themselves to the world?
Interestingly, the most well known brand mistake of all time, the launch of New Coke by then CEO Roberto Goizueta had an amazingly positive impact on sales when Coke realised its mistake and began to reproduce coke (calling it classic). I read somewhere recently, that suggests Goizueta was a marketing genius and did the whole thing on purpose to increase loyalty – regardless of whether it was intentional or not – it worked.
Brands can learn from Brand. Stop taking yourselves so seriously, acknowledge your mistakes, and don’t be afraid to make them. Not sure if people agree or not – but a little frailty, and the ability to let others in may create stronger brand relationships.
Fritz Bachen is a Consumer Psychologist and Founding Partner at Naked Communications. Fritz can be seen, read or heard at; The Gruen Transfer, ABC Radio (Sunday nights), Adnews columnist, as well as The Australian, Cleo, Mumbrella, Shop Till You Drop and so on. He speaks at numerous conferences on marketing, ideas, contemporary culture, and consumer behaviour. Fritz has degress in clinical psychology and commerce (marketing). A registered psychologist and has worked in private practice, forensic settings, advertising (Saatchi & Saatchi) and marketing consultancy (Added Value). He was also state under 12 chess champion on WA, and has a board game called The Analyst selling well in the Benelux countries.
Comments
Kate Richardson
Mar 21st, 2009Human failure and tragedy are the basis for most good comedy.
Judith Lucy uses this trick extremely well – we’ve all lived through her failed relationships, alcoholic binges, her strange parents, her adoption, and her oublic failure on breakfast radio. All delivered with characteristic dry humour.
Mother did a good job recently of admitting they’d got it wrong (and the product tasted like crap) and that they’d been forced to produce a new energy drink that tasted decent. And sales proved it an excellent strategy.
I think it would be nice if more brands also made us laugh.
Anonymous
Mar 21st, 2009People relate to failure more than success I think!! Exposing human vulnerability is endearing. In Russell’s case it seems no publicity is bad publicity!!!!
Matt Moore
Mar 21st, 2009Kate – Agreed. Failure is inherently funny. But why is it funny?
One reason (and there are probably many)is that it is incongruous. We spend most of adult lives presenting ourselves as successes. Walking into a room of thrusting young professionals and saying: "Hi, I'm a failure" makes you stand out. Walking into a room of recovering alcholics (maybe the same group in 20 years?) saying the same thing will just get you a nod and a pat on the back.
It also good for empathy because it invites trust – because it's honest. Russell Brand is like Lenny Bruce & Richard Pryor in that he's melodramatically, pathologically honest*.
Many of us expect brands & companies to avoid honesty so therefore Honesty has high "salience"(to use an ad term I learned the other day) – as well as opening the door to trust, etc.
In the light of this post, there is an interesting discussion to be had around honesty vs authenticity – which (like a lot of human behaviour) probably ends up somewhere a bit paradoxical & ambiguous.
*I'd now like Russell to admit to liking a cup of tea with the Archers' omnibus edition more than heroin because the other option is that he has to die whilst spit-roasting an underage goat with Bin Laden on crack at the Oscars to get more laughs.
Daniel Oyston
Mar 22nd, 2009@Fritz, I agree but something always nagged me about “why’ companies don’t take this approach.
Maybe this is it … lets say a company takes a large sum of money to do some work for a client but then stuffs up. The result would then be a) possible compensation for the affected client and b) potential clients being wary of risking their money.
That’s a long way removed from a $2-3 investment in “new coke” or a ticket to a comedian. Very little risk
As Kate pointed out, there are companies who admit to failures … but what choice did Mother actually have and what did they have to lose by admitting a mistake? They were already screwed …
I think in today’s environment it is almost impossible to stand your ground in light of a mistake because people have a voice and the information (sales figures etc) flows easily.
Matt Moore
Mar 23rd, 2009Interesting the New Coke and Mother sits have been mentioned. Coke isn’t always so good at admitting to failure.
Andy
Mar 23rd, 2009I agree with Matt that honesty about mishaps is unexpected from companies and helps establish a sense of humanity and trust. But honesty is rare because it has a real price.
Correcting mistakes is expensive in the short term. Whether it’s abandoning New Coke or comping a customer for an spoiled dinner, it’s often difficult for managers to take the long view and correct a mistake.
What’s even more challenging are not clear-cut failures, but something that just falls short of perfection. I’m thinking of flaws of design rather than mistakes of execution or an outright bad idea. If you can’t easily replace or fix a product design, you don’t want to admit your product has flaws and therefore give competitors a PR edge. In my experience, these situations usually lead to managers refusing to admit shortcomings in their products and sticking to the script about how the product is a great success, even if it’s not the best thing for the brand over the long term.
Fritz Bachen
Mar 24th, 2009Thanks all for contributing. Daniel yoú’re points on admitting mistakes from an industry perspective are equally interesting.
Mother did do a brilliant job of admitting a mistake at the same time as giving the consumer what they wanted (more drink in a larger can – an extremely effective way of ‘apologising’.
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