Those of you who are Star Trek fans would have felt right at home with me the other day.   I went to check out the new Microsoft store which just opened at Fashion Valley mall here in San Diego because I wanted to do a compare/contrast to the Apple store in the same mall.   My fellow fans would have felt at home in the Microsoft store not because it was a cool look at the future of culture and technology, but rather because it seemed to be the Mirror Universe.

For those of you who don’t get the TV show reference, the Mirror Universe is a parallel universe in Star Trek episodes – it’s the “what could have been” if the “what actually happened” hadn’t.  In the Mirror Universe, most of the same characters are there but they’re slightly different, whether in looks or personality.  The settings look familiar enough to cause some confusion at times, but the story lines are different enough as there’s usually more violent conflict than in the “normal” Star Trek universe.  Things are just a little off.

And that’s exactly what it felt like to be in the Microsoft store.  It was if I was in the Apple store –  but not really.  From the use of the Windows logo above the store entrance (no “Microsoft” logotype), to the big open space, to the young employees in colorful t-shirts, to the cool products displayed on tabletops, to the Answer Desk… — everything seemed oddly familiar.  I felt as if I was having a déjà vu, but then I realized that it wasn’t there at the Microsoft store that I had been before – I had been at the Apple store before.

microsoft store exterior

apple store exterior

I rushed over to the Apple store to make sure I wasn’t imagining things – and I did indeed find a similar store layout, similar display and visual tactics, similar employees in similar garb.  But there was one big difference – the Apple store was packed. Now that’s not to say the Microsoft store was empty – on the contrary, there were a lot of people and they seemed to be having fun browsing around and tinkering with the products.  In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the feeling I got there (remember, it felt like the Apple store to me!)

But in comparison, the Apple store was on fire.  I would guess there were 3 times the number of people in that store – and there was an energy, perhaps spurred by the noise volume generated from everyone talking, that made it feel like an exciting place to be.

microsoft store interior

apple store interior

I walked away from my field trip confused and disappointed.  You see, I am a Microsoft customer and someone who actually likes Power Point!  Although I admire the Apple brand for many reasons, I really want Microsoft to be successful.  It has some great products and its brand could be so much better than it is. 

The Microsoft store could have been special – but it wasn’t.  It was simply an imitation of Apple.

Microsoft missed an opportunity to do something different, to interact with customers in ways only Microsoft can, to present a unique vision of its brand:

• Instead of putting all of its videogame products and displays in the back, why not put one of the company’s greatest strengths, XBOX, front and center?! It could have created a lot of excitement by creating an interactive gaming experience complete with real-time challenges between customers who other customers could cheer on and vote for, different pods to demonstrate the breadth of games available, special sound and lighting to add dramatic effect, etc.
• Furthermore the company’s KINECT launch on 11.04.10 is just around the corner, so why not promote it by giving a sneak preview?!  The highly-anticipated breakthrough XBOX platform will include 15 new titles and interfaces unlike anything we’ve ever seen, including voice control and Mission-Impossible-style hand gesturing. The store should be a place where the company builds anticipation for the pending launch – and perhaps select customers might be given exclusive access to experience a taste of the interface.
• Knowing that many of its customers are businesspeople, why not show complete home office set-ups equipped with multiple productivity tools already connected and synched?!  Or promote its enterprise solutions by using displays to tell compelling success stories?
• To show off its software, why not have ongoing demonstrations like the ones you see at shows and conventions?! The store was clearly pushing the new Office 10 product – watching someone in a booth with a mic and an enlarged screen walking through the new software’s features and capabilities would have made me consider purchasing it more than boxes of software piled high did.
• Why not show off Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, with a special interactive and/or live display which compares Bing results vs. Google ones?

The list of possibilities goes on.

The point is that Microsoft could have done some really special things with its store – things to leverage the unique capabilities of retail combined with the company’s unique offerings.  It could have boldly gone where no one has gone before – but instead, it chose to do the equivalent of Star Trek: Voyager.

Voyager was the last and least remarkable of television series based on the original Star Trek.  Although mildly entertaining, the show lacked imagination and failed to advance the overall Star Trek storyline in any meaningful way. And so it won’t be remembered or regarded nearly as well as its predecessor — just like the Microsoft store.

related posts:

• seinfeld isn’t going to rescue vista
• microsoft’s ad misses the mark again

The following is a guest post by dear friend and consumer expert Brad Bennett.  Brad is an ethnographer living the Chicago area.  By stepping into consumers’ worlds, he uncovers stories that bring fresh perspective and new opportunities for clients and their brands.  Contact Brad at Info AT BBennettCo DOT com.

Starbucks is launching instant coffee.  What?!  Yes, that’s right.  They’ve been testing VIA instant coffee in Chicago, Seattle and London and are now rolling it out in Starbucks stores and other venues across the U.S. and Canada.  When it showed up in our Starbucks stores in Chicago this summer, I couldn’t believe it.  It is one more example of how they’ve lost their way.

Starbucks’ brand is anything but instant.

Starbucks is all about the experience of coffee – the smell of the store, the barista, a perfectly personalized drink, FRESH roasted and brewed coffee.

So what are they thinking?  The only thing I come up with is that they must be trying to mainstream the brand even more.  This is sad to see.

About a year ago they finally lost me.  Every day for nearly a decade I sat in their store and sipped the bold brew.  For years I withstood their strategic wanderings as they became increasingly mainstream.  But when they moved from brewing bolder coffee throughout the day to the milder Pike Place blend, that was it.  I bolted for the door.  Their move to pick up more mainstream consumers who didn’t like the intensity of their bold coffee alienated me and I assume other loyal die-hards as well.

As an ethnographer, I pay particular attention to the effect brands have on the senses – how consumers see, feel, smell, taste and hear the brand.  The senses create powerful ties to the brand.  I see it when consumers open a package and look inside to see the brand’s unique color or texture.  I observe them smell the brand as they cook a product in their home.  I see how they respond to noise and music in stores when I shop with them.  I even see it in my own home when my daughter pulls her Abercombie & Fitch top from the bag and the rest of the family smells it and says, “I know where you got that!”  AF sprays all of their clothes with AF scents.

My Starbucks experience used to be powerful and produced years of loyalty.  I didn’t want to leave them.  But they pulled the sensorial lynchpin – bold taste – and drained my cup.

They’ve lost ground.  And I’m afraid the launch of VIA means even more lost ground.  Instant coffee is not experiential and is another example of how they’ve watered down the brand.

I’ve not tasted VIA, and I probably won’t.  Yuck.  It might taste great.  I still say yuck.

Thanks, Brad, for “pouring your heart into” this post.  To everyone else, running a guest post like this is a little experiment of mine.  Please give me feedback — and if you have a brand topic that you’d like to submit a guest post on, let me know.

related posts:

• a tale of two re-brands:  syfy and starbucks
• don’t go changin’ to try to please ‘em

Why do brands that have a strong point of differentiation not position themselves on it??  Quizno’s serves a case in point.

The sub sandwich chain has just launched a new campaign to promote its new line of Toasty Torpedos.

In the ads a raspy-voiced toaster asks the employee to “put it in me” (the sandwich, that is.)  The double entendre comes off as goofy, but the stupid joke is only a small part of why the campaign is completely off-target.

The bigger issue is that the ad doesn’t say what should be said about the brand — that is, toasting makes its subs taste better than Subway‘s.  I fully admit to being biased because I do indeed believe Quizno’s products are better than Subway’s, but don’t take my word for it.

Brand Tags, Noah Brier‘s nifty web site which catalogs the top-of-mind responses of people who have been  shown a brand’s logo, confirms that Quizno’s has a better and distinct positioning relative to its 3,000  lb. gorilla competitor.  The top 10 word associations with Quizno’s are:

• toasted
  toasty
  sandwich
  sub
  food
  sandwiches
  tasty
  yummy
  subs
  hot

Compare the list to Subway’s top 10 brand associations:

• delicious
  good
  yummy
  sandwich
  yuck
  diet
  bland
  shit
  tuna
  hungry

I’m baffled by Quizno’s decision not to leverage its strongest differentiator — “toasted.”  Many brands long for a clear, easy-to-understand reason-to-believe why their product or service is different/better than competitors’.  Especially in the commoditized price-oriented QSR industry, companies struggle against the pull of deals and promotions to develop a brand position that’s grounded in a sustainable competitive advantage.  Quizno’s has a powerful point of differentiation in “toasted” (Subway may offer toasting, but they’re not known for it — it doesn’t inform the brand’s position) — and yet, their brand communications don’t leverage it.

Sure the ad features a talking toaster and the new product line’s moniker includes the word “Toasted,” but that’s not enough — the core idea of the campaign should focus on it and its benefit (better taste, that is.)  Furthermore, it seems the chain has dropped its subline “mmm…TOASTY.”

This isn’t the first time the brand has gotten off track — remember the sponge monkeys campaign?  or the ads about the man raised by wolves?  Understandably the company’s ads must be bold enough to compensate for its huge share of voice deficit vs. Subway — TNS Media Intelligence estimates Subway’s 2008 ad spending at $369MM, while Quizno’s logged in at about a fourth of that at $90MM.

But it seems in its effort to breakthrough and be memorable, Quizno’s has allowed gimmicks and the pursuit of creativity to overshadow the key brand message.  Burger King has fallen into this trap from time to time.  That chain enjoys two strong brand differentiators, Have It Your Way and flamebroiling — both of which make their products taste better.  In the past when BK took its eye off the ball and moved away from promoting their differentiation, the chain’s performance suffered.  Today the brand enjoys enough brand equity to sustain their position even when their communications meander (for now).

Unfortunately Quizno’s is not in a position to wander.  The company is in the midst of a turnaround — after struggling with franchisee profitability and closing 300 restaurants last year, founder Rick Schaden has returned to the helm and is helping get the business back on track.  I hope the organization’s turnaround efforts will include a re-assessment of their brand position and advertising strategy.

With such great differentiation, I hope they don’t leave their brand half-baked — or half-toasted, as the case may be.

This post concludes the series on brands that have wasted their potential.  In the past few weeks, we covered:

• GNC — “It’s such a shame because the company has the history, focus, and distribution to be a great brand.“
• Facebook — “There are no obvious or meaningful brand attributes that differentiate it.“
  
• Dairy Queen — “Recent rebranding efforts have squeezed out much of the endearing old-school essence of the brand.”
  
• Vonage — “It’s the classic “boy meets brand, brand over-promises, brand under-delivers, boy tells everyone he knows to avoid brand” cautionary tale.“, and
• Saturn — “In 1994 people bought Saturn for what it stood for. Today it is just another make to be judged on quality and price alone.”

Thanks to my guest contributors who provided provocative insights about how brands that could have been really good ended up failing to live up to their potential.  Their analyses contain great lessons for all brands who may be squandering strong equity or missing opportunities.

And hope for these brands, and others, is not lost — in fact, the following concluding remarks describe how all brands can maximize their potential.  These comments are from Scott Goodson — founder and CEO of StrawberryFrog (the agency behind iconic campaigns such as Coke, Old Navy, Heineken, and the current effort for True North).  The success of his agency speaks to what a talented guy Scott is (and I’m not just saying that because he has been so great to me for so long.)

Scott says, “I would say that any brands that are simply broadcasting to the consumer are not taking advantage of their full potential.  The new battleground is the profusion of media and how to tame and control it, and use it to your advantage to ensure your amazing content actually gets seen by the consumer.  Cultural Movement + Tools = Full Potential.

“I know this is new thinking in the new marketing world that has totally transformed everything, difficult to believe even, but the way things have worked in the past is not way how they can or will work in the future.  The 60 years of advertising that have gone before are not the systems of the future, marketing is today transformed.

“Brands that are taking advantage of their full potential are brands that spark cultural movements, not brands caught in the past.  Today brands can identify an idea on the rise in culture, they can crystallize, lead, curate and sponsor a movement.  Once you have a movement you can do anything in a fragmenting media world.“

Thanks for the inspiration, Scott.  I hope this has been an interesting series for everyone and you have learned as much as I have.

Saturn joins the ranks of formerly esteemed brands like Vonage and Dairy Queen in this series on brands that have failed to live up to their potential.  While practically every domestic automotive brand seems to have fallen short of consumer and/or investor expectations lately, I picked Saturn because the brand clearly had (has?) so much potential and so the stakes seem higher.

Remember back in 1985 when Saturn first launched?  The company was positioned as not just a different kind of car — but “a different kind of car company.”  Company officials explained their singular focus on the people who buy and drive cars.  They instituted a “no haggle” policy at their dealerships; their advertisements expressed the uniqueness of their brand platform.  The company even entered into a groundbreaking agreement with their union workers.

The Saturn cars themselves won all sorts of awards and, more importantly, fanatically loyal customers.  In 1992 Saturn achieved the top rank of new car sales, the first time a domestic brand topped the list.  In 1995 Saturn was ranked #1 in J.D. Powers’ Sales Satisfaction Index Study, a position it would hold for 4 consecutive years.  As testimony to the equity the brand enjoyed, Saturn “homecomings” became legend.

Then Saturn’s parent, General Motors, started to falter.  They cut investment in Saturn,  creating a downward spiral of limited new models and limited marketing spending — so much so that the division was integrated back into GM, despite the leaders’ original promise to operate it separately in an attempt to nurture the brand and shield its operations from the rest of the company.  (Read more of Saturn’s history here.)

After a series of failed new model launches and incongruous brand positionings, G.M. announced last December that it was “exploring alternatives” for Saturn — basically they are looking to sell it or relegate it to a much smaller role in G.M.’s lineup.

Recently an interesting possibility developed:  Saturn dealers are making a move to spin off as an independent distribution arm of the company so that they can sell other automotive brands.  While this may give the impression the dealers have given up on Saturn, it actually might save the brand.  As Martin Bishop, Landor‘s brand strategist and author of a great blog, explains, “It’s the dealership experience that has always been the true differentiator for Saturn…So to create a new business that focuses on the dealerships and allows them to source cars from different manufacturers makes a lot of sense. It plays to the real strength of the brand’s equity.”

Who knows what the future holds for Saturn.  As someone who believes in the power of brands, I certainly hope the company can turnaround the current situation and reclaim its leadership position.  But in the words of a fellow blogger Nigel Hollis (Chief Global Analyst with Millward Brown, the market research company), “In 1994 people bought Saturn for what it stood for. Today it is just another make to be judged on quality and price alone.”

That’s why Saturn is this week’s brand disappointment.

So far we’ve covered GNC, Facebook, and Dairy Queen in our chronicles of brands which have failed to live up to their potential — today Tom Fishburne calls out a brand disappointment based on his own personal nightmare with Vonage, the VOIP provider.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of following Tom, let me introduce you to this astute marketer with an uncanny sense of humor — he’s the guy behind the Brand Camp cartoons, which he writes/draws in addition to his “real job” as managing director of method products.  (Last fall I posted about Tom’s new book.)  In response to his post, perhaps we’ll hear from others about the ways Vonage has failed to live up to its potential.

This close to Valentine’s day, I feel compelled to share a brand love story gone awry.  It’s the classic “boy meets brand, brand over-promises, brand under-delivers, boy tells everyone he knows to avoid brand” cautionary tale.  In short, it’s the story of a “one night brand”.  Far too often, brands put all of their investment and focus on the up-front advertising and forget that the relationship doesn’t end at the point of purchase.

When I first heard about Vonage, the VoIP Internet phone service, it was love at first site.   The proposition was brilliant.  For a flat monthly fee, I could make international calls over an internet line.  Not only that, I could plug in my Vonage box anywhere in the world, and instantly make and receive calls.  I was in the process of moving from California to England, and I found this incredible.  Friends and family could call my Bay Area number, and my phone would ring in my London flat.  Sure, I’d have to put up with telemarketer calls at three in the morning, but this was a small price to pay for such an amazing service.

I was ready to become a Vonage groupie and tell the world.  I willingly plunked down my credit card number and signed up.  For me, the brand relationship was just beginning.  For Vonage, I quickly discovered, the deed was consummated and I was soon left out in the cold.

The proverbial morning after, I discovered just how cold.  The trouble started when the box simply didn’t work once we arrived in England.  No dial tone whatsoever.  We had to borrow a pay-as-you-go mobile phone to ring customer support.  A half an hour on hold (paying 50p a minute) resulted in a conversation with an apathetic agent armed only with a script that basically advised us to turn off the box and turn it back on.  The following month twisted and turned like a Kafka novel.  Call center agents progressively blamed our phone, hung up on us, claimed they couldn’t find our account, refused to connect us with anyone technical, blamed the cord, and blamed our internet connection.

Finally, a knowledgeable technical engineer agreed that it sounded like a technical error with the Vonage box.  But, he was only allowed to send a replacement to America.  So, we had a friend back home receive the box, ship it overseas to us, only to discover that the new box wasn’t the right voltage (after we plugged it in and it started smoking).

The next call center agent suggested that I sign up for a British account, cancel my American account, and then they could send me a new Vonage box.  In desperation, I agreed.  The next day, I called to check on the status and learned that I was being charged a hefty cancellation fee.  “But I’m only doing this to finally make my Vonage service actually work.”  The call center manager coldly replied, “but, you’re cancelling your service.  We don’t care why.”

I started searching online and discovered dozens of blog posts from jilted consumers like me.  The Better Business Bureau recorded 3,687 official complaints in one year.  We’ve all been there.  We’ve all been “Vonaged”.  We’ve all fallen in love with brands that flubbed the relationship the morning after.

A week later, I received a letter in the post from Vonage.  Hoping it was an apology from somebody important, I opened it.  It was a direct mail marketing brochure.  Like a lot of brands, Vonage placed its investment in outbound marketing.  I’m sure that it factors into detailed financial calculations on its “customer acquisition cost”.  But, it mystifies me that brands frequent over-invest in outbound marketing and under-invest in simple consumer service.  Consumers that could have been brand advocates become brand detractors instead.

Contrast this whole experience with that of an English smoothie brand called innocent.  In the early days, they had a “banana phone” (literally, a phone shaped like a banana)

in the middle of their office that would ring with consumer calls.  Anyone in the company could answer the phone.  Staff would literally fight over the privilege of answering the phone when it rang to talk to a consumer.  How refreshing would it be if every brand had a “banana phone” that was actually answered by someone who cared or truly worked with the brand?  How more likely would you be to spread positive stories about the brand if they did?

Here’s another post on brand disappointments — this is a series in which I’ve asked brand experts to discuss brands that could have been really good, but have failed to live up to their potential. This week’s post is from John Moore, of Brand Autopsy fame.  John’s speaking and writing is always filled with provocative insights about brands, marketing, and management — I hope you enjoy his take on a brand disappointment.

A regular feature on the Brand Autopsy blog is the “Would You Miss” series. This is where a business is put on the examining table and readers respond if they would miss the brand if it were to go out of business.

The question is simple; however, the implications are anything but simple.

Businesses that would be missed if they ceased to exist have obviously formed an emotional connection with customers. Such emotional connections with businesses help fuel sales when the economy is good and conversely, help sustain the vitality of a business when the economy is bad.

Businesses that would not be missed have failed to make meaningful connections with people and are in danger of becoming irrelevant in the marketplace. (Not a good place to be in any economic climate.)

As marketers, it is our job to assist in forming emotional connections between businesses and customers. Forming those connections is easy in theory, but difficult in reality.

Nearly 20 brands, ranging from UPS to The Cheesecake Factory to Crate & Barrel to Pizza Hut, have been featured in the “Would You Miss” series. The comments have been brutal to these brands with people declaring they wouldn’t be missed at all.

Interestingly, just one brand included in this series has emphatically formed emotional connections with customers and would be dearly missed … DAIRY QUEEN.

The responses from readers were fascinating. Almost every commenter said they would dearly miss Dairy Queen if it were to no longer exist. Many comments touched upon wonderful childhood memories of visiting Dairy Queen for soft serve ice cream, Dilly Bars, and Blizzards. Other comments shared sentiments about the realness and heritage of a classic Dairy Queen experience.

Digging deeper into the comments you realize the untapped potential of the Dairy Queen brand. Readers talked about how they already miss Dairy Queen because recent rebranding efforts have squeezed out much of the endearing old-school essence of the brand.

I’m sure Dairy Queen’s internal customer research findings detail the brand gap between what their customers want and what the company is delivering.

In the comments section of the post, Denise summarizes the brand gap dilemma Dairy Queen faces by writing, “It’s too bad the company seems more interested in modernizing the brand vs. tapping into the rich emotional connection people have with [the] brand they grew up with.”

And Oran writes this, “For me DQ just gets lost in the noise. I see their new ads, but have yet to have a single one make me think twice about stopping in.”

Dairy Queen has passed the “Would You Miss” test. However, by refusing to fully embrace its old-school heritage, Dairy Queen is failing to live up to its full potential as a brand.

Thanks for great entry, John (and I’m not just saying that because you quoted me!)  You’ve made me think of other “old-school” brands that have lost their luster — like Corvette or A&W Rootbeer.

Check in next Monday for the next in the brand disappoinments series — I’ll post other stuff during the week.

This is one in a series of posts about brands have failed to live up to their potential — from Jonathan Salem Baskin, author of Branding Only Works on Cattle, the “dim bulb” blog, and Ad Age/CMO Strategy column.  Jonathan has taught me a lot through his insightful analyses of brands and businesses — and he’s entertained me with his dry wit and occasional rant.  What I appreciate most is that, along with his critique Jonathan provides thought-starters for how to do things better — his post below is no exception.

I’ve asked Jonathan to share his thoughts on a brand disappointment  — he chose Facebook.

From Jonathan:

I know, I know.  You’re already thinking that the Facebook brand is a poster child for the social media movement.  Everybody and their brother (or third-cousin, or that dork from high school who needed to be avoided like the plague) has a page, and probably checks it at least somewhat regularly.  Also, founder Mark Zuckerberg is a famous brand, right?  Like a post-bust market proto-Steve Jobs, or something.

Only I say not really, and so what?

Functionally, Facebook is a glorified address book combined with a chatroom, allowing for incessant updates that create an experience of intrusion that is glowingly labeled ambient awareness.  It’s great, for sure: I post my daily Dim Bulb essays, created a page for my new book, and I occasionally comment on news from a friend (or get a funny little comment on mine).  I was particularly involved right after I first opened my account, trolling my address book and failing memory to reconnect with all of those names from my past that had otherwise slipped from my daily life.  Done.

Now, I’m sort of running out of things to do.

There seems to be a usage curve based on social media functionality, and I’d suggest that it’s the inverse of 1) total participation numbers, and 2) number of functions or add-ons.  It was fun the first or second time I was gifted or poked, but now I just ignore that stuff (and usually de-friend whatever numbnut bothered me).  I’m ambiently aware of the things people I barely know are doing, but for the life of me, I can’t see any reason why I should care.  Awareness is certainly not the same thing as recognition, let alone relevance.

I’m reminded of the fun I once had receiving and then forwarding jokes and funny video links via email.  It was a blast…and then it got old.  For that matter, I remember the thrill of downloading every song I could even think of via Napster.  Finally, I owned that Bay City Rollers song I’d remembered from high school, although I’d lived a productive and fulfilling life without ever hearing it again thereafter.  So I proceeded to continue ignoring it on my hard drive.

I worry the trend with such functionally-based technology tools is to skew heavily to the ambient part, and not so much on the awareness end.  The functional attributes of the Facebook brand could become a part of the background of my day, just ahead of the buzzing I hear from my fridge when I choose to hear it.  What makes the brand unique?  From an functional perspective, not much.

Conceptually, the Facebook brand is even more dicey.

It’s original brand proposition was that it was only open to college students, so it provided some protection from the vast wash of numbnuts who might otherwise want to look at your pictures, or chat with you.  But now it’s available to anyone, or to anything, as corporations can issue pages, run promotions, etc.  Lurkers are still somewhat stimied, but commerce isn’t.  Facebook’s owners are madly trying to figure out how to exploit…er, monetize…its members, just as some members are already working hard to exploit one another.

So is the Facebook brand about being safe, or transparent, or useful, or responsible, or what?  I’d suggest that there are no obvious or meaningful brand attributes that differentiate it, or that preclude it from slipping into the miasmic muddle of purposelessness that embraces MySpace, Second Life, and most other mainstream social networks.  It’s WOW without trolls, or Eve Online without spaceships.

It doesn’t have to be this way, however.

Facebook could adopt and promote specific behaviors that define its brand, and establish a framework for its user participation and future growth.  It’s not a marketing or branding challenge, per se, but rather a business strategy question: how to create, via real commitments and actions, a brand purpose that defied the general trend toward becoming generic (and losing out to the next tool embarking on the same path)?

Here are four starter ideas to illustrate what I mean:

Become a truly user-controlled referral community: Instead of selling commercial conversation to businesses, why not let users own it, a la eBay?  People could recommend things to one another, and receive credibility rankings (or some other accrued value).  Members could opt in or out of such activities.

Provide platforms for multimedia: Go one step past YouTube and merge membership with art, thereby creating user-controlled channels for original music, video, and audio works.  Make Facebook the brand that excludes professional art; make it the tool for everyone else to use.

Give up management authority to the collective: Transform Facebook into one gigantic town hall, and give members the responsibility (not just the opportunity) to vote on activities, allowable tools, functional additions, etc.

Monetize membership, not eyeballs: Figure out ways to make members want to pay (or subscribe) to Facebook, instead of trying to exploit their visits.  Think public television…what would the brand have to deliver/stand for in order for it to be valuable to people?

Fundamentally, though, the business would have to function differently in order to claim and substantiate its branding.  There’s little evidence that such actions are likely.  It’s just too easy to quip about members and time spent on the site, and relegate the issue of finding a sustainable, long-term business proposition to some future inevitability.

But that future is not a guaranteed outcome; in fact, the evidence is that, without real brand behaviors, the Facebook brand proposition has already reached its peak (and perhaps passed it?).

Now is the time for it to put a stake in the virtual firmament, and make the brand stand for something(s) real, different, and meaningful.

Good stuff, Jonathan — thanks for your post.  I’m particularly intrigued by the membership monetization idea – I’ve often thought that the problem with sites like Facebook is that they’re free, thus falling squarely in the category of you get what you pay for.

Jonathan and I would love to hear your feedback — and next Monday:  John Moore offers his thoughts on another brand that has failed to live up to its potential — can’t wait!

What do Lindsay Lohan,

the universal remote,

and the Bush administration

have in common?

They are all examples of things that could have been great but have ended up not living up to their potential.

Many brands have also turned out to be phenomenal disappointments.  The list of brands that fall into the category of wasted potential is longer than the list of Lohan’s missteps — and the reasons behind brand disappointments are as confounding as why someone never developed a universal remote that people could actually use.

But, for this, the inaugural post in a series of brands that have failed to live up to their potential, I’ll offer up a single example — GNC.  Yep, the brand of those 1500-square foot strip mall stores that sell vitamins, supplements, and sport nutrition products.

It’s no secret that demand for products that support a healthy lifestyle has skyrocketed in recent years — global nutrition is now a $228 billion industry.  And GNC Corporation, the company behind the GNC brand, says it’s “dedicated to helping consumers Live Well.”

But, what does GNC stand for?  I mean, I know the letters stand for General Nutrition Center, but what does the brand stand for?  The company has over 4800 retail locations in the U.S. alone, and yet the brand doesn’t seem to offer anything differentiating or compelling.  The shopping experience is unmemorable, the little advertising and promotion they do is generic, and other than a private label product line that offers common products at a discount, their product assortment lacks uniqueness.

It seems drugstores and warehouse clubs have taken over the mainstream vitamin market and Whole Foods has become the outlet of choice for specialty health and wellness products.  Even grocery stores now carry more power bars and protein drink mixes than my local GNC.

This has left GNC without a reason for being.  And it’s such a shame because the company has the history, focus, and distribution to be a great brand.

I’ve invited brand experts to contribute their thoughts on other brands that have failed to live up to their potential.  In the coming weeks, you’ll hear from luminaries like:

Jonathan Salem-Baskin (author of Branding Only Works on Cattle, the “dim bulb” blog, and Ad Age column),

John Moore (former Whole Foods and Starbucks marketer and now of Brand Autopsy fame),

Tom Fishburne (Brand Camp cartoonist and UK Managing Director for method products),

and others.

I’m so looking forward to learning from — and commiserating with — these folks about brands that could be really great.  I’m sure there will be lessons for all of us to learn.  Please check back next Monday for the next in this series on brand disappointments (I’ll still post other stuff during the week.)