Branded for life

Building a brand is a long and hard exercise that requires a lot of planning and work. But damaging the same brand is rather easy and requires no planning at all. I’ve sworn myself of two major brands by now, namely Microsoft computers, and Nokia phones. As little as 1 year ago both were the ultimate in their field in my world. I laughed at anyone wanting a fruit juice computer, and only looked at Nokia when picking a new phone. And then, after using both these brands for over a decade, they brought out products that got me so angry and frustrated, that I have been forced by them to change my mind.

The Nokia N series was plagued with problems, but of course the advertising forgot to mention it. And even after a software upgrade on my N73, it’s still a Ferrari with a Beatle engine. I hate it and have to live with it for another year. Everybody I know who has this phone thinks its crap, and its not a cheap phone at all. It seems like they had the ideal phone planned, but the technology at that time wasn’t quite ready for it yet. One guy I know actually threw his against the wall, smashing it. Tempting, I must admit. So, since my first 5150 when I was 18, I’ve always only had Nokia, I was a loyal customer and very verbal about my support… till my N73, of course. A phone that echoes when I talk and freezes constantly. Every basic command on that phone is an algebra equation!

Since I first played solitaire on the very first computer, Windows was computing. Never mind Forrest Gump making his millions on the computer fruit juice company, Microsoft Windows was synonymous with Computing. The years I’ve been growing up it’s always felt like Windows has matured with me, since its 3.1 stages we both found our legs and grew up in this hectic world. Becoming a young adult, XP set the standards and was a reliable operating system (modest, but it works!). Only, when I reached adulthood, I didn’t see the need to throw it all out the window. Windows Vista is an insult to every living person on this earth. A horrible operating system that nonetheless was made the only one available in store. People paying to downgrade their computer back to XP just to find that the new computers have problems running XP now! I can’t fathom why in the world they brought out that product! Someone needs to kick Bill Gates where it hurts. So my recycle bin looks all sleek and funky, but when my computer does a virus check I need to take a 2 hour coffee break, because no work is gonna get done in that time! It’s stupendously slow and so frustrating it makes your head hurt. How you could do that to a brand I have no idea! To destroy years and years of hard work makes my heart weep!

It’s good to aim your brand at the moon, but when you miss - you miss… you don’t land among the stars! In both these cases it seems that the companies wanted to achieve too much too fast and weren’t really up to the challenge yet, thus causing remarkable damage to their amazing brands - and losing clients along the way…

This entry was written by Nicolaas, posted on August 26, 2008 at 12:29 pm, filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.