Consumers 'own Starship name'

By SIMON HENDERY

Brand strategist Howard Russell is quick to pinpoint where Wayne Brown and the Auckland District Health Board went wrong over the Starship children's hospital naming fiasco.

They failed to realise that successful brands are owned not by the companies or organisations who create them, but by consumers.

"Starship's done a wonderful job of being one of the first 'wellness' medical brands," says Russell, of Strategic Insight.

"And it's for children, which digs deep in our hearts - sorry folks, we're not going to allow you to change it."

The board's attempt to ditch the Starship name because, as chairman Brown put it: "This is not a product we are encouraging anybody to use more of" drew an avalanche of complaints and an eventual backdown.

Russell says while it is easy in hindsight to condemn the name change attempt as ill-founded, "they [the board] probably, being pragmatic and probably process-driven [people], just didn't understand the emotional power of a brand.

"All of the research shows we're pretty reluctant to change strong views about a brand, and this is an example of where it was the wrong solution."

Jack Yan, a business writer and founder of international communications company Jack Yan & Associates, said Brown's comment that a public hospital should not have a brand was "symptomatic of ignorant management with no knowledge in branding".

"Brands help identify organisations, but more than that, the best ones create community and generate happiness," he said.

"Starship was the perfect example of this in New Zealand. There are organisations that would have to spend millions to get the same goodwill and support."

Other opponents of the name change focused on the connection between the hospital and the Starship Foundation fundraising group.

Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey, the marketing man who thought up the Starship name, said the foundation would be "demolished" as a result.

Russell says a classic mistake corporates make is believing that by changing a company name or logo they are changing the brand when in fact the brand is about "the whole experience delivery".

He says if Brown wanted to discourage overuse of Starship's services, he needed to find another way, because people's perceptions are that the hospital is good at what it does.

"The name itself wouldn't have had the resonance it does if some of the great stories hadn't been told about it. The brand is the totality of those myths, legends, true stories, feelings we have.

"Changing the name without changing the whole [Starship] experience doesn't really make much sense. You're not going to stop people coming there if it's still a good experience.

"[Starship] is one of the first expressions of being in the wellness business rather than the sickness business. Most medical brands are about unwellness and sickness. This has much greater resonance around wellness. It's more optimistic, it's more encouraging."

Great brand change failures of history include Coca-Cola's attempt in the 1980s to change the flavour of Coke.

As Russell puts it: "America said, 'Forget it. Everything's changing in our life, this is one thing we don't want to change. Put it back and don't touch it again.

"[Coca-Cola] didn't understand the power of connection of ownership by people. Auckland, without realising it, felt a strong degree of ownership of [the Starship] brand. It's actually not Wayne Brown's brand to fiddle with. Aucklanders said in essence it's not yours to fiddle with."

The "brand-icide" attempt failed because Brown and his predecessors had done too good a job in building up the Starship brand. Aucklanders perceived it as real, non-medical, user friendly, and customer focused.

He cites two other examples of local brands which have worked their way into our national psyche:

* Air New Zealand: "We want it to work because it's part of our national fabric. [Chief executive] Ralph Norris has done a terrific job in starting to build our collective confidence in one of our national brands."

* Tourism New Zealand's "100% Pure New Zealand" catchline: "The world thought of New Zealand as clean and green. They just put some energy and edge around it."

Branding theory

* Create an identity that stands for a set of values.

* Emblazon your product(s) or service(s) with it.

* Communicate it consistently.

* Grow and change with the marketplace and the consumer.

* Become a way of life for a loyal franchise of customers and consumers.

* Attract new users and grow unendingly.

Source: KLM Inc.