What's in a name?-Brands and badges and the history of a nation

In 1885 at the Congress of Berlin King Leopold II of Belgium acquired ownership of the lands of the Congo, making it his private property and naming the newly acquired territory, the Congo Free State.

And he proceeded to economically exploit the natural wealth of the country for his own personal enrichment.

And the name became synonymous with imperial exploitation, tyranny and violence.

It is estimated that in the two decades it was owned by the King, as his own personal fiefdom, the population of the territory halved.

In 1908 the land was formally annexed by Belgium and the Congo Free State became the Belgium Congo.

But the people running the country remained unchanged and opening up and exploiting the natural resources of the country for personal gain remained their main aim.

No political activity was allowed and little attempt was made to develop institutions of democracy, education and welfare.

Not much had really changed.

In 1960 it achieved independence. And guess what, it changed name yet again and became the Republic of the Congo.

But it rapidly became highly unstable, hugely violent and its wealth remained concentrated in the hands of the few. The country was seen as one of the most despotic and corrupt in Africa.

In 1971 the ruling elite was overthrown by a new dictator and a new ruling elite and the country became Zaire as it bid to remove all colonial influences and to overthrow the past.








And although all foreign owned economic assets were nationalised, Zaire went on as before.

The new regime was characterised by widespread cronyism, corruption and economic mismanagement. Violence, instability and brutal despotism remained at its heart.

Not much had changed in a century despite the name changes.

In 1997 Zaire became the Democratic Republic of Congo.

And although attempts were made to instil democracy the country remained unstable, violent and despotic.

Today it is still called the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But it remains a country which although extremely rich in natural resources, remains held back by political instability, the lack of infrastructure and a culture of corruption.

Democracy remains weak. Health care woeful. Education standards low.

And the poverty of its people, despite its riches, endemic.

Which just goes to prove that name change on its own changes nothing.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

For unless a deep and meaningful programme of culture change is developed and applied to the DNA of a brand’s culture, as exemplified by the behaviours of its leadership and its people, nothing much will change.

And the brand, the business, the nation will continue as it has always done.

It takes more than a name change to change the underlying DNA of a brand.

And that is the essential difference between a re-branding programme and a re-badging programme.

Prisoner 46664

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of visiting the ‘Birmingham Made Me Design EXPO’,  a celebration of Birmingham’s great design heritage and of Birmingham as the home of some of this country’s great brands-Jaguar, Triumph, Land Rover, Aga, JCB and even Marmite. It’s well worth a visit. You would be amazed to learn just how much good stuff has come out of Birmingham.

In my job I spend a lot of my time trying to design and develop brands. I don’t do the creative work on brands but instead it is my job to come up with the underlying definition of the brand. I try to define what it is going to stand for; the promise it is going to make and to try to keep, to its customers; and how it should present itself to its market. Someday it is my hope that the brands I am working on will feature in an exhibition of great brands.

And when we are sitting around with the brand owner trying to come up with the right sense of words to describe the brand, you can bet that no matter the brand, company, category, product, or service, the most common list of attributes everyone wants to be associated with goes something like this: honesty, accessibility, innovation, invention, forward thinking, collaborative, friendly, and easy to work with, trustworthy, leader, fun. Recognise the exercise?  Now who wouldn't want to be all those things? Anyone want to be the opposite?

But when every other brand has the same words on their list this is not conducive to the development of a distinctive brand.

Let us look at it another way.

If I was to ask you to describe someone like Nelson Mandela I am pretty sure I would get words like courageous, altruistic, heroic, peaceful, wise, thoughtful, giving, caring, loving, fearless and so and so on.

Great words and accurate in their description of Nelson Mandela but the same set of words could be accurately applied to many other people, including me on a good day.

But if I was to ask what Mandela stood for, your answer might be something like ‘freedom’. And that applies to very few people and most certainly not me.

That is the difference between a true brand stance and an easy list of attributes.

I like to think that great brands, like the ones on display in The Mailbox, realty understand their stance in the world and their reason to exist and pursue that mission with all their might consistently over time and across every customer touchpoint.

These brands recognise that they are not just a collection of attributes that could describe anyone but have a purpose, a stance, a value and pure mission in the world. Just like Nelson Mandela.

Great brands are never remembered for their attributes but for what gets done with these attributes. Don’t chase and measure yourself against a long list of attributes, many of which are just the price of entry for everyone else in your marketplace.

 But instead always work hard to stay on mission and always execute against your stance and not against attributes. Measure the market's understanding of your reason to be — who you are and why you do what you do.

It therefore follows that it is not so much what you make and what you sell but why you do that matters and how you do it.

Just like all the brands on display at Birmingham’s DesignEXPO. Just like Nelson Mandela.