Ad Bro$
The Ad Bro$ Podcast is a thought-provoking series exploring the intersection of advertising, culture, and contemporary events. Known for its dynamic discussions and cultural insights, the podcast appeals to professionals in marketing, creatives, and anyone intrigued by the evolving impact of advertising in society.
Key Features:
- Diverse Topics: Ad Bro$ covers a wide array of subjects, from the historical significance of events like the Million Man March to the cultural and economic shifts brought on by global challenges
- Cultural Insights: The show delves into pivotal moments in Black history, the intersection of sports and media, and New York City offering unique perspectives on advertising's role in shaping culture.
- Engaging Discussions: Hosts and guests explore timely issues, including political campaigns, major sporting events, and industry trends.
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Ad Bro$
Ad Bros Episode 66 // Brand Failures + Wins
When a brand decides to reinvent itself, the stakes couldn't be higher. From costly logo redesigns to complete identity overhauls, the Ad Bros unpack why some rebranding efforts crash and burn while others brilliantly revitalize companies.
Blockbuster's cautionary tale stands as perhaps the most devastating example of rebranding failure. The video rental giant had the opportunity to acquire Netflix but couldn't envision streaming as the future of entertainment. This shortsightedness ultimately sealed their fate, demonstrating how refusing to adapt can lead to extinction in today's rapidly evolving marketplace.
The guys dive deep into Tropicana's infamous 2009 minimalist packaging redesign that caused sales to plummet 20% - translating to roughly $140 million in losses. Similarly, Gap's 2010 logo change prompted such immediate backlash that they reverted to their original design within a week. These examples highlight a crucial rebranding principle: consumers develop deep emotional connections to familiar brand elements, and changing them without careful consideration can alienate your most loyal customers.
But it's not all cautionary tales. The conversation shifts to remarkable success stories like Apple's "Think Different" campaign that brilliantly positioned the company for future innovation without showcasing a single product. Dunkin' dropping "Donuts" from their name to broaden their appeal represents another masterclass in seamless rebranding. Even individual transformations like Gucci Mane's evolution from lean-drinking rapper to health-conscious artist demonstrate how effective rebranding principles apply across contexts.
The episode wraps with thought-provoking discussions about what happens when brand spokespersons become toxic and the significant investment required to successfully shift consumer perceptions. As the hosts succinctly put it: "Brands are people, people are brands" – underscoring that at its core, branding is about authentic human connection.
Subscribe to hear more marketing insights from the Ad Bros, where there's "no soft talk when it comes to telling the truth" about the advertising world.
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Theme Music by Yirayah Garcia
And I think the last segment of Rebrand is actually cool because it's really two points to talk, in that it's this idea of I don't know, we ain't got to talk about 2 Chainz, but we can really just talk about brand failures, and that can be one point.
Speaker 2:All right, We'll go right into the third. Don't worry about the time man. Just put the points on the board, Numbers on the board. That's right. We'll go right into the third. Don't worry about the time man.
Speaker 3:Just put the points on the board, numbers on the board. That's right. You feel me, that's right, true, true, true.
Speaker 1:Look at you, coach.
Speaker 3:I'm just saying Condition and shit Player coach. You heard, like Tom Brady, I know you want to be a coach one day. Or like LeJames to be a coach one day. Or like let la james lebron the coach. That's too bill russell. That's bill russell, that's a good one. You know lebron be coaching. By all means.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, uh I don't want to introduce myself, all right, no I'm saying I don't want to go first okay, no, you go first so what's good?
Speaker 4:um, it's good folks. Another edition of abros. Your boy, easy Rose Brownsville, finest. You already know I'm having it my way and feels good to be back with my bros again and you know we really chopping up some game and we talking. You know we talking some realness as it relates to the culture and everything, so feels good to be back what's good people?
Speaker 1:this your boy, ad, all the way from ATL, by way of Grady, by way of Decatur. Shout out to my folks on the east side, the west side and the south side Love you guys. What's up, what's?
Speaker 3:up Tony Stallion here. I just remembered I forgot in the last two episodes. Shout out to Queens, queens representative, you know, new York here with the Ad Bros to wrap up this trilogy in this series about branding. And here we are here to talk about some rebranding failures. I have some successes too that I'll put at the end, but I kind of mentioned in episode two. But just to kind of reiterate here a company or a person will rebrand themselves to maybe get a new audience, maybe to expand who they're marketing to.
Speaker 3:Just on an everyday, like I can say to myself, like I remember I rebranded myself multiple times from, like, when I was in high school I maybe acted and dressed a certain way and I went to college I wanted to feel a certain way, more business casual you talk about that on another way, more business casual you talk about that on another pod business casual life in New York. And then, yeah, and then, as I got older, into my 30s, I was like, hey, how do I want to feel and represent myself? But we could jump into what. What are some you know brand failures or rebranding failures that come to mind for you guys?
Speaker 4:I have one straight off the dome, but I'll let you guys go first I'll go with a brand branding failure um, I would say blockbuster I mean, I feel like. I feel like, because they weren't able to adapt like they had an opportunity to actually acquire netflix.
Speaker 4:From what I remember, um, and you know it, it didn't, they didn't want to pivot, they didn't want to pivot Right, and Netflix was actually the idea of streaming movies, of content with the future, and I guess Netflix excuse me, blockbuster just couldn't see that far. So as a result, you know, I don't know what they're doing. There's one left.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go very nostalgic here. I used to work for this company yellow pages, and the time is you know there's multiple yellow pages because they're from the, the bell system of the network of bell labs or systems or companies throughout the country. They all had their form of a yellow page and I worked for bell soft advertising and publishing, or babco, which is yellow pages for the southeast, and we told those guys back in like 98, 99, that it's this thing called Google that you may want to like, emulate, because what they're doing they're indexing the Internet and they allow people to go on and search for businesses and homes and cool things and around advertising. And you know what they told us yeah, that's a fad that's not going to last long. Our product and service is this big yellow book that nobody liked.
Speaker 3:That's never going to work.
Speaker 1:That people use to put their kids on to eat food and all kinds of weird shit. And we told them hey, all right, cool. Well, good luck, and sure enough Yellow.
Speaker 3:Pages is not around anymore.
Speaker 1:You know people use, but what killed them actually was wasn't really the yellow, wasn't google, it was craigslist. Yeah, craigslist was really killed, the yellow pages, but but google did put a dent in them big time. So that was a brand failure.
Speaker 4:Right there, you know, I think about the yellow pages. I think about the episode in the wire when omar went to jail and they knew he knew like he had opposition in jail. Yeah, so he had yellow pages that he wrapped around himself.
Speaker 1:It was like a bulletproof.
Speaker 4:Right, and they were stabbing him.
Speaker 1:I mean it put on like 30, 40 pounds, but it kept him protected. Can it be used for defense?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know in the ghetto they do that too. Stop a bullet, huh, no, yes, nice so.
Speaker 3:I actually have three I'm gonna jump into. So the first one I have tropicana. In 2009, I looked at this in 2009. Yeah, they replace its iconic orange with a with a straw to a like a minimalist design. Their sales dropped 20. That's huge and at the time their revenue had reached 7 million a year. So you could do the math 20 of 7 million, 700. Sorry, their revenue had reached 700 million a year, so you could do the math on that 20.
Speaker 1:I ain't doing the math but yeah yeah, that's a lot, that's great. I do remember that too, because a lot of designers kind of talked about like, while they appreciate the uh, the, the minimalistic kind of design, it lacked a certain sense of like, humanity and, yeah, of a kind of warmth to it. Mine is just orange juice, but that does plays into but. But I think I think you know one of the things with rebranding.
Speaker 3:You got to realize that your, your audience is usually invested in, in the, in the company, so you could lose your audience. I'll go through two more real quick. Just because you mentioned design Gap, they tried to do a minimalist logo 2010. And they had such a poor response from the audience that they literally went back within a week. That rebranding I don't know that rebranding um caught. I don't know. I think it cost them. I don't know if it cost them in sales or if they spent this money, but it cost them 100 million I'm gonna go on a limb here.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes when brands do rebrands, it's a great way to draw attention. I'm not saying that this is conspiracy theory here. All thing I'm saying is brands know the inherent value of their brand and why people like that. They have the data, they have all of those different metrics and and like just information as to why something is working. I think sometimes brands I've seen this done with coca-cola they will actually change the product or sunset something just to draw attention, and then it gets you thinking about the brand a little bit more, this top of mind thing that rosé is talking about. And now they're getting all this free press about people having outrage for something being changed.
Speaker 1:The jaguar, uh, redid their logo recently and it was kind of like weird looking and it's like this, you know, futuristic looking fun. But a lot of times these brands do these rebranding literally for like clicks in media. I'm not saying that's true or not true, but I've seen the pattern happen time and time and time again. Yeah, Great.
Speaker 3:No, I was just going to say I don't think brands. We work at a lot of these companies. No disrespect, I don't think a lot of these people are that smart, I think sometimes. Well, Coca-Cola did that, OK, well, shout out to.
Speaker 1:Coca-Cola literally changed their formula and sunset a classic Coca-Cola. No one and I was a troll move to get people outraged about the product. Well that's, they brought it back.
Speaker 3:That's a little bit different from what I was going to say, but I think I think a lot of times it's a, it's a new, a new, a new. Well, let me just say this point. I'll get back to that a lot of times it's just a new person in marketing who wants to, like, leave his stamp, and then they say like, hey, we're gonna rebrand. And then it fails, and then you know, nah, but well I was gonna say.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say it's different because I think a lot of well, just because I've been in some rebrands, I think a lot of times I think saying like, hey, we're gonna, we're gonna come up with classic coca-cola, we're gonna have a new formula and then reese and then sell you cat. Classic is um more. It feels like it's more of a hey, this is a product we're gonna sell. We're gonna make money from this, from from from this situation, and we're gonna be able to lose audience but bring them back. What I'm talking about is is different, is like brands, like changing their tagline and logos, everything about their, their identity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally oh yeah, I'm not saying everybody did that. I'm saying there are brands that intentionally troll, but there are brands who do change things and it don't work. So it's, two truths can be the same, right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, rose, go ahead no, I was just gonna say um, even from an entertainment perspective, just like this change in brands and going back to what you AD, just as it relates to see how people react, the show Power. When they had the intro, it was featured Joe singing on the intro and then they changed it to Trey Songz and then people hated it and then they went on social media and expressed that and then they brought it back to Joe. I think that's another part that's like interesting, um, as it relates to just brands, just making changes, and you know they're feeling like, for whatever reason, maybe they can pay joe, maybe 50 cent and joe had a spat, I don't know, but I think another rebranding too.
Speaker 3:I got two sometimes people just want to change it. Yeah, they just want to. There's no reason. They just like I mean, even I have bros, we even had a different intro before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 4:And then we just changed it to shout out to my boy, yg. We changed it. But another rebrand that I thought about is Gucci Mane. Gucci Mane's rebrand. He went to jail. Everybody knows drinking lean Gucci Mane, belly Right and then he came back out. He was fit, tone, fit. People appreciated it. He was on Men's Health Magazine. I never thought I would ever see that album so you know that's another rebrand. It's been really successful for him.
Speaker 1:He went to my old high school oh yeah, so you from Zone 6? You know they call it Zone 6. I didn't grow up calling you from the 6?
Speaker 2:I, I didn't grow up calling you from the sixes, bro?
Speaker 1:I didn't grow up, we didn't grow up calling our East Atlanta East Atlanta, but we didn't call that shit growing up, I mean Zone 6.
Speaker 4:These young boys did that. That's how I knew it. I just always heard Gucci say that.
Speaker 1:Although Cop City is right around the corner from my high school. But yeah, whatever with that.
Speaker 4:And my last one rebrandeded is my boy one of my favorites, Project Pat, Like he's rebranded himself from being just kind of like gorilla in your face, very direct. And we're not even going to get into Project Pat's content, Don't he got a jazz album.
Speaker 1:Why don't dudes got a jazz album? No, his brother, juicy J. Juicy J, that's his brother.
Speaker 4:But his rebranding, I mean we can kind of talk about that too. Juicy J Juicy J, that's his brother. But his rebranding, I mean we can kind of talk about that too, but his rebranding now he's a pastor, he's a minister now Project Pat.
Speaker 1:So you know, they say pimps go easily become pastors.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know it's funny, you could go rebranding. You can kind of start with companies, but yeah, you can always go into celebs and individuals because, like, yeah, I think it, you, there's plenty of people out there you can look at and if you trace it back, the reason why they're probably making a pivot is probably because you know they probably have some data where they're like, hey, you're, you're losing market share. You're losing market share because of whatever reason. We need to rebrand you. You need to, you know, get into the health space. You need to get into this space. So you know that that's also a thing you know. If you dive into the individual reason, um, but two more brand failures and then I have some successes. Uh, just because you mentioned design in 2006, mastercard new logo it has some uh, it included gradients, shadows and third translucent circle.
Speaker 1:Uh, customers hated it I mean anything with a gradient, in my opinion, is a failure. Yeah, as a designer and it's funny.
Speaker 3:I think both you guys alluded to it, but I think the easiest way to tell if a rebrand is successful is how the audience reacts to it, the audience reacts mostly positive, then you probably you have a success. Um, if they're negative, then you already know what it is. Uh, oh, and my last brand brand failure to me. Don't cancel us. But uh, twitter to x elon, I mean, I think, I think that was a huge brand failure. Why does he?
Speaker 1:use x on everything who knows? I mean, it's supposedly some. Well, if you think, well if you think about his branding.
Speaker 3:It's probably better for him because it's easier for people to identify his you know personal brand but in terms of like, just the brand equity that you bought, you lost so much by changing like I know people I don't know any well, I'm not gonna say I don't know anybody. I know a lot of people who still call it twitter most people don't even call it x.
Speaker 1:It's weird. Yeah, I still call it twitter, even though I'm not don't even use it and isn't he getting to like the emails um, I think he's gonna have like an x email I can see that.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's another. He's still gonna be using old protocols for emails. I'm sure he's gonna want to try to figure out how to break that too. But yeah, you've got the ex-AI called Gronk. I don't know, that's his thing, but I think the brand we talked about brand failures. There are some brand success stories right, like one that comes to mind is the Apple campaign, when Steve kind of came back to the company.
Speaker 3:And it was kind of this weird place. Apple has multiple. I think they've had multiple rebranding.
Speaker 1:But that one in particular, that think different. It is kind of argue about who actually came up with this idea of think different. I don't know if it was TBWA or was it somewhere in Apple, but nonetheless that campaign showed no products because Apple didn't have any great products at the time, but it showed this idea of the rebels, right? These different outcasts people. Right, you know everybody, from like pablo picasso to um, I guess, the lady who was really cool with the primates, to these dancers, to like a miles davis, to like you know these, these outcasts of culture. But that was a really cool rebrand of a company to go from being the old scrappy apple that was kind of lost to something a little bit different. It set it up for the future, right? Yeah, you know, without that campaign you probably wouldn't have a ipod or the new max or definitely wouldn't have an iphone, right? So this idea of thinking different, or, if you did.
Speaker 3:It might not match what that previous brand identity was it'd be like.
Speaker 1:Here's an, an iPhone that came out of a Newton that nobody cares.
Speaker 3:You'd be like what the fuck is this?
Speaker 1:So that's actually important. So I think that was a good rebrand. I can't think of another good one. I have one that's simple. I didn't realize until I looked it up. But Dunkin', dunkin' is good. Oh, my bad it. I didn't realize it either. America Runs on Dunkin'.
Speaker 3:that is really good it used for years Dunkin', Donuts, yeah, and then I think maybe it was three Super Bowls ago, but I remember seeing Dunkin' but it was so subtle that I don't even think most people realize they changed the brand, you know.
Speaker 4:when I noticed it, a young person told me Like a teenager.
Speaker 2:It's colorful too for them, right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it kind of told me like a teenager it's colorful too for them, right? Yeah, it attracts them. They was like oh yeah, I'm going to duncan. I'm like duncan donuts and like no duncan, I'm like duncan donuts and then they made me realize it, because you know the colors and everything. The fonts are the same.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah so to me that's like a, that's like a huge successful one. To me, another one I would say old spice like I think oh yeah, I think yeah, I guess you could kind of well. I guess technically what they're doing now is within the rebrand, but like they when they started with those terry cruz, as they were like super wild and crazy. And yeah, uh, is it mustafa?
Speaker 3:mustafa, yeah, that's him um, and then he and yeah, it's always like these super outrageous ads and then you start it's like you know they're a deodorant body wash brand, but then they kind of evolve yeah, they kind of evolve.
Speaker 3:I want to say, old space was originally like um aftershave and then it kind of evolved to deodorant, then evolved to body wash and like now they're doing those, yeah, those funny ads with um dionne cole I think, and um yeah, it's like they just kind of evolved into a funny, light-hearted brand that's like easily relatable and just now you're right, because old spice used to be the old man's shaving stuff my dad, my dad would wear that stuff my grandfather, I feel like had a bottle and the deodorant did not work.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna just say, yeah, it faded oh, I mean, I'm talking about the brand, not the product no, I'm just yeah, i'm'm just saying that leaves a bad.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, federal.
Speaker 1:Express. That's another one. I remember when it used to be Federal Express and it's shortening now to FedEx and even the E and the X has an arrow inside of it that points towards a directional way of this idea of delivery and logistics right.
Speaker 4:I got one. The one I thought about was State Farm, just switching Jake's like Jake's from State Farms at first yeah, at first I ain't gonna lie I didn't think that it was gonna work.
Speaker 3:I didn't think it was gonna work at first but they.
Speaker 4:But I mean it's been pretty successful yeah, but a lot of that is of course, associated with the media and putting in your face as well as integrating like athletes. I know chris paul's had his, his run. Yeah, the decorated loser that he is has had his run with. You know I'm gonna always get a chris.
Speaker 1:Paul, what happens when brands associate themselves with a person?
Speaker 4:that becomes synonymous with the brand and that person becomes toxic, like Jerry, yeah, you cut him, cut him loose, or you just make a cartoon character or something like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, that's a semblance, I think, if you I mean obviously cut him, yeah, but what does that do to the brand?
Speaker 1:I mean, I think Jerry was kind of like the spokesperson for not just Subway, but that's a very extreme example. Jerry was like a representation of hey, if I'm part of this brand, that means I live in a healthy lifestyle. I'm losing all this weight. It became synonymous with a lot of stuff that didn't really have nothing to do with Subway, but Subway used that Right. All right, do you want me to be honest? That's what the AdWords is about. Do you know the tagline?
Speaker 3:I think Do you know?
Speaker 1:what brands do.
Speaker 3:No, soft talk, right? No, it's good, that's gonna sound fucked, okay, I think. What brands do? I think, all right, I'm gonna just say what I think subway probably did. I think what some brands probably do first is they try to sweep it under the rug, depending on how the seriousness of the actions of the spokesperson, I think they'll try to sweep it on the rug, pay people off, but once it's grown bigger than it, then then them, then I think they, I think they they move into like all right, we got the outside of cutting this person off. How do you disassociate yourself with that Spokesman? I think they get into. They get into two, two bags. They get into the PR bag and they get into like just changing things, risk management. So yeah, risk management, but you get into like, all right, what can we do that will change that? Will not people not have people associate us with this person? I think Subway for a while, a couple of years, was kind of just trying to figure out who they were.
Speaker 1:Had they been the same since.
Speaker 4:No, I think they've been featuring just like product.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think they're just doing product. I don't think they've been the same since, but I don't want to equate that to the Jared spokesperson debacle. I equate that to, I think, people, other brands becoming more healthy in terms of what foods they serve. So I think other people jumped in. I think, when they started to fall, other people jumped into their market and started to grab some of their market share and they haven't been able to get it.
Speaker 4:And I think real quick. I think that they've kind of pivoted their brand values Right Because, like with Jared, it was the whole thing losing weight, and now Subway, they don't even promote that anymore. It's not about it Now, it's just about getting a sandwich at a decent price.
Speaker 3:Well, I was going getting a sandwich at a decent price. Well, I was gonna say, I was gonna say that I was like I feel like with jared. It was, jared was eating healthy and then after in the interim, it was kind of like you can get five dollar footlongs but now, because of how much shit costs, you can't even get. You can't even get like a footlong sandwich for a cheap price at subway.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so yeah, I think I think it's a number of just factors that kind of led to that I didn't want to say footlong.
Speaker 4:Okay, you said it twice.
Speaker 3:That's the only reason oh, one last successful one, just because I just saw it on my. Uh, I think kia was pretty successful too, oh yeah yeah, they had a really when they changed their logo I didn't like the logo but no one, I don't too much care for the new one I don't like it, but I but. I respect, I understand why I think they're getting more, more sales, more market share. Like I respect the, the modernizing, of the modernization of it, yeah, yeah but yeah, rebranding could really like.
Speaker 3:I remember all right. One last story. I remember when I was working on a bank brand and and, and this is why it's so branding is so huge. We wanted to change the, the logo, a little bit and change the tagline, and the and the company was like they kept kind of stringing along but they were basically saying no in a nice way. But they for them to change this tagline, they would have to change all of the um awnings in the in the company.
Speaker 2:You have to change all the pens you got to reprint all of that.
Speaker 3:You have to reprint cards is so much you. You have to go I'm trying not to say what the brand is. You have to go to the brick and mortar place and change all these things across the country and canada. I'll tell you how big the brand is. So it's like it's a big deal and if and if and and and. It's a lot to, it's a lot to walk away from. It's a commitment, it's it's a lot of brand equity you're walking away from if people feel you're synonymous with this thing yeah, I mean and listen, just to wrap it.
Speaker 1:Um, rebranding, at the end of the day it costs money because you gotta now get everybody to like, believe in that brand again and that that's that's huge Right. To kind of spend money to have people to reengage and just understand a new brand tone of voice or messaging like that costs a lot and it could fail.
Speaker 3:You know what I just thought of? Another, another kind of subway situation. Papa John's no, but when, when papa john was on the phone call he was, I know, someone that worked on that brand and he, he, he liked to throw the n-word around and a lot of the clippers, yeah, but when?
Speaker 4:but? But?
Speaker 3:some, but in similarities to Subway they kind of pivoted to just product until kind of Shaq came on board and then now Shaq is kind of their spokesperson.
Speaker 2:But it's interesting.
Speaker 3:I guess that's just pointing out I guess that's what a lot of brands do. They'll pivot to just product until they can figure out what that new brand will be. So maybe we got something there. Yeah, well, you know.
Speaker 1:Brands are people, people are brands, and sometimes you gotta not use a human. Protect your brand. That's what I'm gonna add there. Protect your brand or use an AI buy.
Speaker 4:We close it with that. Yeah, we're gonna close it with that. Another legendary episode of.
Speaker 2:Ad.
Speaker 4:Bros. And, as y'all know, no soft talk when it comes to telling the truth. Yes, sir, Peace guys.
Speaker 2:Peace. Thanks for tuning in to the Ad Bros podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to like, subscribe and share with your crew. Catch us next time for more insights and creativity, only on the Ad Bros podcast, powered by Caffeine Media Network.