Tim Halloran of Brand Illumination presents his firm's take on the best and worst brands of the year 2008.

 

 

 

Apple continuing to de-position Microsoft (and PCs) as out of date and out of touch, the glitch filled Vista product launch, and the horrendous Jerry Seinfeld ads - it just wasn't a good year for Microsoft. Trying to out-cute Apple, the Microsoft Seinfeld-Gates campaign came off as disjointed, inconsistent, and just plain weird. But don't forget, it is Microsoft - something tells me they will re-emerge stronger in 2009.

 

 

Baseball's crown jewel has quickly become an afterthought mostly due to its own actions. How long has it been since there has been a good World Series? We haven't had a relatively "close" World Series since 2003 when the Marlins beat the Yankees in 6 games and in 2002 when the Angels beat the Giants in 7. Add to that the elimination of all World Series day games, the average ending time of a World Series game happening way past midnight in the east and you have an entire generation of kids (and parents) that completely miss baseball's crowning event every year. Compare what the World Series has become versus the NFL's Superbowl and you will see that the World Series brand is in major trouble.

 

 

Neither satellite radio station ever came close to getting the number of subscribers needed to actually put together a profitable business. So what do they do? Merge two unprofitable companies together in the hopes that together they can do better than one unprofitable company. Let's start with the marketing geniuses who decided that the best way to name this new entity was to combine two immensely disappointing brands and voila, you have Sirius XM. Now that is innovation!

 

 

What happens in a bad economy? Housing prices plummet, companies file bankruptcy, and consumers stop spending $4 on lattes. If Wal-Mart is a beneficiary of bad economic news, then Starbucks is one of many victims. The brand will either have to ride the storm out or find products that their cash strapped consumers can actually afford.

 

 

AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup - most of us knew these "brands" in passing and knew that they did something in the financial arena. But we all know them now as the beneficiaries of billions of dollars as a result of the 2008 financial crisis. Not exactly the type of "brand awareness" a firm desires. And with the auto companies still looking for a handout and rumors of others stepping up for a handout, we hardly have seen the end.

 

 

Ask 74% of the American people, and they will tell you the current President is an absolute disaster. They lost scores of seats in Congress and now are clearly the minority party today. They managed to take the blame for the current economic crisis, when clearly it was equal incompetence from both sides. The Republican brand doesn't know what it stands for and it has numerous splits trying to move it into their preferred direction. It's time for a brand repositioning.