Reading through Cornelissen’s many examples of corporate
communication strategies, the overriding theme that develops is one of
expanding visions. Most companies want to be defined in the widest way. Is
there any company these days that doesn’t
want to be associated with “innovation”? I’m more interested in cases where a
company decided it needed to narrow its focus. It’s easy to communicate that
you want to be bigger. How do you tell stakeholders it’s time to think small?
Cornelissen does bring up a case that I’d argue is a
possible example. His brief discussion of Research in Motion’s rebranding as
BlackBerry focuses mostly on the type and content of the company’s messaging.
He doesn’t delve deeply into the company’s problems, but to say that it was
“struggling” against Samsung, Google, and Apple is an understatement.
Rebranding the company with its signature product was not a just narrowing of
communication focus, it was a Hail
Mary pass.
I think an even more illustrative example of
desperately-needed narrowing of vision is that of Yahoo! This is a company
whose communication strategy has needed tinkering for many years. I mean, it’s
got an exclamation point in its name. An exclamation point I will omit from the
rest of this post. Once synonymous with search, Yahoo was the front page of Web
1.0. Today, it is better identified with bloat. It’s a search engine, a news
source, a photo-sharing site, and a video-streaming site, and it keeps
broadening its reach.
In 2013, Yahoo began a rebranding campaign that included
introducing a new logo. The campaign included releasing 30 different logos in
30 days. I’m torn on whether this is symbolic association or emotional message
style. It is literally symbolic, in the sense that it’s a symbol. However,
Yahoo’s justification for the campaign was the emotional
responses they received from people shown various new logos. Both message
types could work with the strategic intent of the campaign, which I think is to
improve stakeholder awareness of a brand with an image that’s hard to
distinguish. Put another way, if Yahoo is such a sprawling enterprise, they
have to find a way to make it stand out that is above and apart from its
muddled identity.
The reigning search champion recently had its own logo change.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Google recently restructured to become
just one division in a new conglomerate with a different name. This news may
have confused some stakeholders (which, in the case of Google, is a
significant chunk of humanity). Here was a moment to definitively stake out a
new identity for a (slightly) changed company. What’s interesting is that both
Yahoo’s and Google’s logo changes coincided with questions about their
identities. But while Yahoo’s clearly came from a feeling of insecurity over
its size and breadth, Google’s came from a feeling of strength in splitting up
a sprawling company. Both companies clearly felt that the most effective
message to communicate their new visions were new logos.
Cornelissen, J. (2014). Corporate Communication: A
Guide to Theory & Practice (4th ed.). London: SAGE.
Before reading your post, I hadn't really wondered about companies narrowing their scope. I agree that a company like Yahoo that focuses more on widening its reach than on improving its product is bound to fall by the wayside. Google, on the other hand, broadened its scope only after creating innovative, marketable ways to do so, allowing it to achieve the iconic status it has today. Once that status is reached, vision changes are more likely to be viewed as innovation rather than desperation.
ReplyDeleteOne mistake I can think of in terms of an iconic company trying to reinvent itself is Coke. Perceiving that they were losing too many customers to Pepsi, leaders of Coke started a campaign to change their recipe, thus changing their image. Stakeholders familiar with Coke's signature taste expressed such strong negative reactions to the change that Coke actually backpedaled their campaign and changed the recipe back! Now, it is branded Coke Classic - a more successful image change which resulted from a nearly disastrous one.
As someone that still has a Yahoo email account and gets a decent amount of guff for it, your focus on Yahoo is interesting to me. I remember the days of using Yahoo for all sorts of things (They were the best at some online games like pool and dominoes!), but that hasn't been the way I've used Yahoo in a long, long time. In turn, as a Yahoo consumer, they have shrunken, but as I analyze that, I suppose that's less by their intention than my needs/uses. It leaves me to wonder, like a chicken/egg question, whether my needs were driven by their focus or my perception of their focus was driven by my needs.
ReplyDeleteWhen the web first came out, I used Yahoo all the time for research. Of course, there wasn't much on the web in those days. Now I use Google like everyone else. I had a Yahoo email account and probably still do, but remember using it for a short time because I receive an email account from my school. Now when I see a yahoo email, I wonder who still uses it. Glad to see that Aarron is a loyal customer. I'm also a Coke Classic person. And I can always tell the difference between Pepsi and Coke. :)
ReplyDelete