I aren't a "brand manager" or a "branding consultant" but I am interested in brands. I've always been a brand designer, in a sense. I like logos and colour schemes. Every band and musical project I've been in has been subjected to my own flavour of branding; one single often black and white logo to be used on all promotional material. Whether or not this approach was suitable was highly questionable but gigs were often well attended.
I admit I am a brand fascist in many ways; I love uniformity within an organisation and I know how it can make a difference not only to the "bottom line" of a business but also to the morale and happiness of their employees and their customers.
I will get to Brawn GP in a minute.
Throughout my teenage years I would have described myself as a fairly extreme leftist (as most teenagers who become politically aware usually are). Interesting then how my secret love of branding sat side-by-side with my unmitigated hatred of the corporation! I just dug out an old sketchbook this morning from my school days the subject of which is simply "icons". Flicking through the pages of slurring the likes of Coca Cola and Nike I realise now how I hated what these corporations did but I loved how they looked. Even now when I see a cold can of Coca Cola, alluring red all covered in condensation I feel the urge to buy in to that experience, but I don't even like Coke!
What makes these brands attractive is of course the design behind them.
Usually a successful brand is composed of something like a good product or service coupled with good behaviour, good communication, good customer service, and explaining how to improve a brand to people can sometimes be easy and sometimes very difficult indeed. The best brands are often successful because they have spent huge amounts of time, effort, money (all synonymous) on getting there.
Then along came Brawn GP. If you don't know who they are then you definitely won't be interested in what I have to say.
Last year Honda were perhaps the most dismal team in F1. The car was simply not quick enough. After an atrocious season, Honda decided to pull out and it looked as though Jenson Button would be sat on his sofa watching this year's season unfold.
Fortunately Ross Brawn acted quickly enough and arranged a management buy-out of the old Honda team and brought forward the Honda car that had been in development. It turned out to be by far the best car at Melbourne and Sepang and looks fairly dominant in practice at Shanghai as I write.
What is fascinating about the Brawn GP story is that the brand is almost non-existant, and yet it is so powerful. They started the season without any major sponsors on the car, it was plain white with black and flourescent yellow stripes. Ditto on the driver's suits and all other racing paraphernalia.
The popularity of Brawn GP (apart from what I call the "Man Utd phenomenon" whereby people simply ally themselves with the most successful team) is based around the story of their conception, which has already become a modern legend. A last minute take-over saves the team from complete destruction, and gives a great British driver the opportunity to make up for the nightmare of Honda. No bullshit, no posturing or manipulation, no dogma, just likeable and exemplary people doing a bloody good job.
