Sic transit…Samsung

Pic c/o CNN

So last week, I was in and out of airport security in the UK and US and I noticed something odd emerging.

Airlines and border authorities seem to have agreed that Samsung’s Note 7 is basically a no-fly phone.

So they make repeated announcements to that effect. “Samsung Note 7’s are not allowed on flights (c/o whichever authority). Please surrender (sic) them”

The security folk then repeatedly shorten this in one-to-one communication and the folks queueing up and sitting in the lounge repeat the shortening to “Samsungs”.

“Is it a Samsung?” “Have you got a Samsung?”.

They don’t ask “Have you got a Samsung Note 7” or “Note 7”; it’s just “Samsung”.

Which reveals a number of things for Johnny and Joanne Marketer:

1. throw away your fancy sub-branding strategy and your silly brand architecture charts. People will tend to default to the big name and ignore the detail – particularly when speaking to others and in making decisions in restricted or uncertain contexts (security check, anyone?)
2. it’s easy to see how brands become shorthands – heuristics for choice (“the one that sets itself on fire”, maybe? Or, “the one that you can’t take on a plane”, perhaps?)
3. …especially when they associated with something important to people (in this case, “danger” and “fire” as opposed to the bland and banal or irrelevant details most brand strategies are built on)
4. In the end, it doesn’t matter what you think your brand’s about; only what your customers and their chums think and feel but I’m not sure this is what you’d set

Don’t know how long Samsung will be stuck with “the one that sets itself on fire” but it’s done a better job than all the billions of dollars the corporation has spent on branding.

But not in a good way.

If you want to explore a better way of thinking about brands and branding try here or here