C.F. Martin sells it’s soul for cheap!
So the title is a play on the previous post about Volvo selling out the “safe” attribute of it’s brand, but shortly after that post, I came across this posting on the Un-branding of CF Martin guitars.
What does this mean for your brand? It means that cutting corners and trading your brand’s value for a “quick-fix” mentality is sucide. Martin will never again be able to claim that they only make great instruments. They don’t. How about you? Is your brand great? Will you always be able to say that, or are you willing to make something cheap, to “expand your brand” at the expense of your reputation.
I don’t claim to know anything about guitars, but the similaritys between this post and the last are striking, two companies that are willing to destroy the element that defines their brand.
As Brad points out, GM is a perfect example of what can happen to a brand if you discard it’s meaning, or worse assume that it’s indestructible. Can you name one GM brand, that means anything? Oldsmobile became so worthless that GM decided to simply do away with the entire line. With increasingly smaller Hummer’s, do you think that brand will fare any better in the long term?
If you want your brand to be worth something, it ought to be remarkable. If it’s remarkable in it’s safety, that should be your brand, if it’s remarkable in it’s quality that should be your brand.