When a Brand Changes Its Spots
Strong brands are hard to change. Take Starbucks. Howard Schultz has retaken control of the company and is trying to return the Starbucks store experience to his original vision: a place where people can enjoy the sensation of slowing down and contemplating life’s simple rewards. He wants you to be able to “smell the coffee.” The problem is that since he bought and built Starbucks in the mid ‘80s, the company has grown from a tiny regional brand to a $10 billion, global colossus, dependent for its revenues on many extensions, including express drive-thrus, where the only thing a consumer smells is another car’s exhaust.
So while it may be difficult for Schultz to replicate the original impulse that drew people to his brand, it’s not impossible. Likewise for people. If, like me, you are a fan of Danielle Sacks pieces in Fast Company you may have read her profile of former Wal-Mart marketer Julie Roehm and how she is gradually overcoming her image as “The Scarlet Woman in Bentonville.” http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/137/the-scarlet-woman-of-bentonville.html
In 2006 Wal-Mart fired Roehm as its chief marketing officer for, among other things, receiving gifts—including a sushi dinner and some vodka—from DraftFCB, the agency to which she ultimately awarded the company’s $580 million advertising account. Lawsuits were exchanged.
As the article points out, when Roehm arrived in Bentonville, she was already a celebrated marketing strategist—having won “Automotive Marketer of the Year” accolades from Brandweek and been named to Ad Age’s “Advertising Hall of Achievement.” In fact, she had carved out quite a reputation in Detroit, where she led the successful U.S. launch of the Ford Focus and later, as director of global marketing communications for DaimlerChrysler, oversaw $1.6 billion in advertising for Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge.
In other words, Roehm made her marketing bones as a gear-head. But what could she do moving denim and salt lamps? She probably never should have tried the switch to retailing—especially when the job required embracing the generally humorless, rigid middle-American values represented by Wal-Mart. In the last three years, the lawsuits have been dropped and Roehm has formed her own consulting firm, Backslash Media, and worked on projects for Credit Suisse and interactive marketer Acxiom.
But ironically, due to the vagaries of the housing market in Bentonville. she and her husband have not been able to sell their $1 million mansion and, therefore, been forced to stay on in a company town where she has been unofficially been branded a “scarlet woman” –- enduring the kind of vilification once suffered by Sarah Good and Mary Eastley in the witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Roehm, of course, hasn’t been put to the stake—but she and her family have been exorcised from the local social scene. A serious hiccup for Roehm’s career?
Maybe not. Most people in business have second acts and recover from setbacks. Nationally, most executives would be inclined to overlook Roehm’s missteps at Wal-Mart in order to enlist her significant marketing skills. Wolfgang Bernhard, Chrysler’s former chief operating officer recalls how she rejuvenated the Dodge brand with the in-your-face campaign, “Grab life by the horns.” “Normally from marketing people, you never get a message so powerful,” Bernhard says. “She did it.”
Lessons learned: Besides paying attention to salary or titles, high-fliers need to get over past epiphanies and take a cold, hard look at the challenges a new job in a new town for a new company requires. And companies need to do a better job explaining culture and goals to new executives and prospects. That aside, you could say the culture of marketing in America is itself kind of limiting and cloistered. Just about everyone at the Association of National Advertisers annual meetings knows one another. They follow each other’s careers and have opinions about peers strengths and weaknesses. That’s what getting a reputation at the top of American business is all about. Times change. Someone branded a rebel in one era, might be regarded as a bold, innovative thinker in another. I doubt that we’ve heard the last of Julie Roehm. Hopefully her next berth will be a better fit and her tenure a little bit longer.
So while it may be difficult for Schultz to replicate the original impulse that drew people to his brand, it’s not impossible. Likewise for people. If, like me, you are a fan of Danielle Sacks pieces in Fast Company you may have read her profile of former Wal-Mart marketer Julie Roehm and how she is gradually overcoming her image as “The Scarlet Woman in Bentonville.” http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/137/the-scarlet-woman-of-bentonville.html
In 2006 Wal-Mart fired Roehm as its chief marketing officer for, among other things, receiving gifts—including a sushi dinner and some vodka—from DraftFCB, the agency to which she ultimately awarded the company’s $580 million advertising account. Lawsuits were exchanged.
As the article points out, when Roehm arrived in Bentonville, she was already a celebrated marketing strategist—having won “Automotive Marketer of the Year” accolades from Brandweek and been named to Ad Age’s “Advertising Hall of Achievement.” In fact, she had carved out quite a reputation in Detroit, where she led the successful U.S. launch of the Ford Focus and later, as director of global marketing communications for DaimlerChrysler, oversaw $1.6 billion in advertising for Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge.
In other words, Roehm made her marketing bones as a gear-head. But what could she do moving denim and salt lamps? She probably never should have tried the switch to retailing—especially when the job required embracing the generally humorless, rigid middle-American values represented by Wal-Mart. In the last three years, the lawsuits have been dropped and Roehm has formed her own consulting firm, Backslash Media, and worked on projects for Credit Suisse and interactive marketer Acxiom.
But ironically, due to the vagaries of the housing market in Bentonville. she and her husband have not been able to sell their $1 million mansion and, therefore, been forced to stay on in a company town where she has been unofficially been branded a “scarlet woman” –- enduring the kind of vilification once suffered by Sarah Good and Mary Eastley in the witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. Roehm, of course, hasn’t been put to the stake—but she and her family have been exorcised from the local social scene. A serious hiccup for Roehm’s career?
Maybe not. Most people in business have second acts and recover from setbacks. Nationally, most executives would be inclined to overlook Roehm’s missteps at Wal-Mart in order to enlist her significant marketing skills. Wolfgang Bernhard, Chrysler’s former chief operating officer recalls how she rejuvenated the Dodge brand with the in-your-face campaign, “Grab life by the horns.” “Normally from marketing people, you never get a message so powerful,” Bernhard says. “She did it.”
Lessons learned: Besides paying attention to salary or titles, high-fliers need to get over past epiphanies and take a cold, hard look at the challenges a new job in a new town for a new company requires. And companies need to do a better job explaining culture and goals to new executives and prospects. That aside, you could say the culture of marketing in America is itself kind of limiting and cloistered. Just about everyone at the Association of National Advertisers annual meetings knows one another. They follow each other’s careers and have opinions about peers strengths and weaknesses. That’s what getting a reputation at the top of American business is all about. Times change. Someone branded a rebel in one era, might be regarded as a bold, innovative thinker in another. I doubt that we’ve heard the last of Julie Roehm. Hopefully her next berth will be a better fit and her tenure a little bit longer.
posted by Andrew at Compass Consulting at 12:54 PM
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