Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Some brands seem bulletproof, like Coca-Cola and Apple. Some, this past year especially, seem snakebit. From CNBC:
Once again, Coca-Cola was ranked the most valuable brand in the world, according to Interbrand, one of the nation’s top global brands experts. Apple, to the surprise of no one, was very close behind. When one considers the consumer electronics company’s growth, it will easily eclipse the longtime No. 1 brand by next year.
While some of the biggest brands — including Amazon.com, Samsung and Oracle have grown their value by more than 20 percent since last year’s report, others have fallen precipitously. Goldman Sachs, still one of the world’s most valuable financial brands, lost 16 percent of its brand’s worth. Blackberry lost nearly 40 percent of its brand’s value. Based on the Interbrand report, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed Goldman, BlackBerry and eight other brands that lost the most value compared to last year.
I'm a huge Amazon fan -- I love that the Amazon brand is surging, and I honestly think that Jeff Bezos is the next rockstar Steve Jobs-ian CEO: from customer service to bold moves in the marketplace, Amazon is one of my favorite companies.
At least three of the losers this year -- Nokia, BlackBerry, and Yahoo -- aren't surprises. Nokia and BlackBerry never quite met the competition head-on, and Yahoo has been a rudderless zombie for years.
Moet et Chandon is sort of understandable, I guess, given the world economy:
Interbrand’s Josh Feldmeth told 24/7 Wall St. that, “It’s not that the Moët & Chandon brand is any weaker, it’s that rituals are changing” as economic growth comes from parts of the world that do not yet associate champagne with celebration. The brand also remained the best-selling champagne in the United States last year, with sales volume rising 1.3 percent to reach 410,000 cases according to Shanken News Daily, a wine, spirits and beer industry news service.
The surprise to me is Goldman. Sure, they're rapacious and unscrupulous investment bankers. But for decades they were unscrupulous and rapacious investment bankers beneath the radar. Now, they're a brand. Like Coke or FedEx. But unlike those two, they're despised:
Sachs' brand has taken a major hit since the financial crisis because of its involvement in the sale of complex collateralized debt obligations and in the Greek debt crisis. The company’s practices returned to the spotlight this March when an executive director in the firm’s London office resigned in a scathing op-ed piece published in The New York Times. Greg Smith wrote, “The interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money,” and he noted that managing directors would often refer to clients over email as “muppets.” Revenue in the first half of 2012 was at its lowest level since 2005 due primarily to weak trading volume. The company responded by cutting pay by 14 percent during the first six months compared to the previous year and reducing its head count.
When super rich folks like Goldman bankers realize how loathed they are, they take action. And when the super rich "take action," it almost always involves spending money. So look for a stately increase in the number of Goldman-sponsored cultural doo-dads, Goldman-sponsored educational thing-a-ma-jigs, and Goldman sponsored kids-playing-outside initiatives. You won't have to look hard, probably -- Goldman will make sure to buy enough ad space so that you won't have to.
Looking at that list, though, it almost makes me wish I was in corporate PR. There's gold in those hills, for sure.
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Mar '11
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Yahoo. I am pretty sure I read an article like this in about 2001 that was lamenting Yahoo in this same fashion. They have got to be second from bottom only to AOL in brand value. I haven't purposely looked at a yahoo page in years. I really wish they'd die already.
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
I haven't understood that company for a long while either, but it's worth noting that Yahoo! Sports does some pretty strong reporting and is still somewhat respected in that slice of the media. That's obviously not enough to keep the company going, but that's one area where they're not an unmitigated failure.
Mar '11
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
I'm going to bet that Moet will be a pretty big seller on the first Tuesday in November.
Jul '12
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Apparently, Yahoo Finance is pretty good too, from what I hear.
Google even hired their head to try to have Google Finance overtake them, but failed.
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-finance-yahoo-finance-2012-8
http://gigaom.com/2006/03/21/google-finance-needs-some-muscle/
May '10
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
I have a personal stake, albeit a small one, in seeing RIM's share price improve, so I encourage everyone to buy a new Blackberry now, and when the 10 series phones finally come to market.
I'd also like to see public sector wages cut a la Goldman Sachs. In my part of the world (Alberta, Canada) we seem to have endless scandals of over-compensated health bureaucrats. It seems to me that a 14% across the board cut would instill some accountability, if only from the bottom up, in the huge public health-care system.
Jun '11
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Others in the Top 10 losers in the Interbrands 2012 study upon which the CNBC article was based: Citi, MTV, Honda, Thomson Reuters, and Dell. Honda wouldn't have sprung to mind but they were ranked as the 8th biggest loser in brand value for 2012. Honda is still the 21st most valuable brand in the world however.
The Top 10 most valuable brands in the world (according to the Interbrand study) are, from 1 to 10:
Coca-Cola, Apple, IBM, Google, Microsoft, GE, McDonalds, Intel, Samsung, Toyota.
Jun '11
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
captainpower: Apparently, Yahoo Finance is pretty good too, from what I hear.
Google even hired their head to try to have Google Finance overtake them, but failed.
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-finance-yahoo-finance-2012-8
http://gigaom.com/2006/03/21/google-finance-needs-some-muscle/ · 8 minutes ago
Yes, and Yahoo hired Google's Marissa Mayer as their new CEO.
Yahoo is the 4th largest site on the Internet. There's a great deal of underutilized value at a company that attracts millions of visitors daily.
Jun '10
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Rob Long:
When super rich folks like Goldman bankers realize how loathed they are, they take action. And when the super rich "take action," it almost always involves spending money. So look for a stately increase in the number of Goldman-sponsored cultural doo-dads, Goldman-sponsored educational thing-a-ma-jigs, and Goldman sponsored kids-playing-outside initiatives.
Rob, you're right about the spending money part, but wrong about what they are spending it on. From the WSJ:
These folks are smart enough to identify the true source of all that loathing, and plan to do something about it.
Jun '10
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Rob: I agree with you about Amazon. Its website is my favorite commercial site, and they've carefully expanded beyond books. I don't know if they created or purchased Audible, but it's a perfect fit.
The customer service is excellent.
Jul '12
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
I have a Kindle Fire (the old one) and I really like it a lot. It even fits in some of my back pockets. Amazon has great music and book content. The Kindle Prime option is great. For $80 a year, you get free shipping and free video streaming (not brand new movies and TV but a good selection). The Cloud Drive is great. 7 GB free that allow streaming to 10 different devices. I'm not surprised the brand is doing so well
Apr '11
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
All this is about Apple is overlooking the fact that they went from a very popular brand to an almost bankrupt company back to the most valuable company in the world. All because of one man who is no longer with us. 10 years from now we just might be saying "Whatever happened to Apple" I was joking about buying Apple in 1997 as a young high school investor but I thought that $5 a share was overpriced.....oh well!
Jun '12
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
An interesting exercise is to look at the "top" companies of any given era and observe how few make it into the next era. Not just the scandals (Enron, Worldcom) but smart, savvy companies that simply failed to evolve. And its not for lack of trying. Atari, Zenith, MCI, RCA, etc were all lauded as "geniuses" in one form or another, and a forests of trees were killed to create the new conventional wisdom. These days, you just kind of wonder what happened to them. It probably has a useful application in politics- what worked before cannot necessarily be applied to today.
Sep '10
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
What about the USA brand? I would think with our debt, combined with our financial and moral decline has made our nation's name far less valuable.
However, the Ricochet brand seems to be on the rebound.
(Sorry, that was bad)
Oct '10
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Goldman have been hæmorrhaging customers ever since Greg Smith's op-ed in the New York Times disclosed that senior management there often referred to customers as “muppets”, upon whom the mistakes of the proprietary trading desk should be unloaded.
Here is my own exit interview with Goldman's senior Swiss management team. Would anybody in their right mind entrust anything to these folks?
Apr '11
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Whenever I hear the brand Moet et Chandon I can't help but think of the classic Queen song Killer Queen:
She keeps Moet et Chandon
In her pretty cabinet
'Let them eat cake' she says
Just like Marie Antoinette
Ahhh, great song.
Jun '12
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
tabula rasa: Rob: I agree with you about Amazon. Its website is my favorite commercial site, and they've carefully expanded beyond books. I don't know if they created or purchased Audible, but it's a perfect fit.
The customer service is excellent. · 1 hour ago
I believe they purchased them.
I'm an Audible user from way back, and if memory serves -- and it may not -- it used to be an independent company.
You're right, though, it's a perfect fit, and Amazon's customer service is second to none.
Now, if President Romney can hire Jeff Bezos to revamp government customer service... ;)
Jul '12
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Rebranding is the key. Silverman-Baggs. Or more likely Sachmo. Or GoldSax.
Aug '10
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Rob Long:
I'm a huge Amazon fan -- I love that the Amazon brand is surging, and I honestly think that Jeff Bezos is the next rockstar Steve Jobs-ian CEO: from customer service to bold moves in the marketplace, Amazon is one of my favorite companies.
That's more true than you know. Jobs merely re-vitalized the consumer electronics segment. Amazon has transformed the entire marketplace for everything, to an extent only barely recognized by the public at large. Judging from the anecdotes coming out of Amazon's offices, Bezos is as directly responsible for the corporate culture and success as Jobs was at Apple.
The Next Big Thing after smartphones will come along eventually, and Jobs will be remembered as a point-in-time genius and product revolutionary. Hipsters will be erecting (virtual) statues in his honor for years to come. But the way we buy things will never be the same again, and Amazon will have influenced that trend in so many ways, only a dusty market study or business case will be able to explain them all.
Jun '12
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
BlueAnt
That's more true than you know. Jobs merely re-vitalized the consumer electronics segment. Amazon has transformed the entire marketplace for everything, to an extent only barely recognized by the public at large. Judging from the anecdotes coming out of Amazon's offices, Bezos is as directly responsible for the corporate culture and success as Jobs was at Apple. · 1 hour ago
In at least one instance, Apple followed Amazon's lead.
The iPad came out after the first generation Kindle (in fact, after the second generation, I believe). Amazon decided an e-reader would sell, and tried it. Apple took the idea and designed the iPad, which Amazon countered with the Kindle Fire. Of course, by that time, enough people (including me) had Kindle libraries that Amazon had a ready market for the Fire.
100 years from now, when everyone is using e-readers, and print books are only in museums, it will be because of Jeff Bezos, not Steve Jobs.
Oct '10
Re: Faltering Brands: BlackBerry, Goldman Sachs, Nokia, Moet et Chandon, and Yahoo
Interbrand has done a fabulous job over the last couple of decades of, first, creating the idea of 'brand value' out of whole cloth, and then consistently creating PR for themselves by releasing these rankings. Not to mention the vast fees they get for creating and re-imagining brands for corporate managers who want to see their companies 'rise'.
So here's an idea: an annual Ricochet 'Conservative [Political] Brand' ranking. Rob and Peter can just make it up, but get Groseclose, Schaeffer and Wilson on board so you can make up some stuff about proprietary methodologies, if necessary. Then every year you can ask people to propose names of politicians, consultants, media folks, groups, think tanks, whatever for the list. Imagine the conversations around whether Rick Perry is a stronger conservative brand than Clint Eastwood in 2012... And then unveil the list to rapturous media (and social media) coverage.