How The Recession Stole Brand
Every marketer in America liked Branding a lot.
But the Recession, who loomed over them this year, did NOT!
The Recession hated Branding and thought it was manure.
Please, don’t ask me why, cause I’m not really sure.
It could be the school where he earned his degree.
It could be, perhaps, his longstanding obsession with pedigree.
But, I think that the mostly likely reason of all,
may have been that his ego was the size of a mall.
Whatever the reason, his school or his folks,
He stood there on Thanksgiving, certain that Branding’s a joke.
Staring down with contempt and a Recessionary frown
at a well lit Apple store aglow across town…
For he knew modern hipsters with Crackberries in tow,
would be looking on Flickr for ways to spend dough.
“And they’ll be drinking Peppermint Mochas!” He snarled with a sneer…
“Tomorrow is Black Friday! It’s practically here!”
Then He growled, with his Recession knees nervously jerking,
“I MUST find a way to keep Branding from working!”
For tomorrow He knew, they would start on Brand-worship.
The thing He detested as much as old clam dip.
And THEN they’d do something The Recession liked least of all!
Every Brand in the land, from Levi’s to Wii,
would stand close together and command premium fees.
They’d stand hand-in-hand, all a-glow with their meaning,
while avoiding commoditization, which is really demeaning.
And the Brands would start selling! They’d sell! And they’d sell!
AND they’d SELL! SELL! SELL! SELL!
And the more The Recession thought of the Brand-Selling-Ring,
the more The Recession thought, “I must stop this Brand thing!”
“Why since the Great Depression, I’ve put up with it now!
I MUST stop Brand building from working! …But HOW?”
Then He got a toehold! An awful toehold!
THE RECESSION GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL TOEHOLD!
“I know just what to do!” The Recession laughed in his throat.
And He made a quick MBA program for the advertising dolts.
And He chuckled, and clucked, “What a great Recessiony perk!
With this program, Brand-marketing will go totally beserk!”
“All I need is a scape goat…” The Recession looked around.
But since scape goats are scarce, there was none to be found.
Did that stop the old Recession…? No! The Recession simply said,
“If I can’t find a scapegoat, I’ll be one instead!”
So he called his dog Greed. Then he took some red thread,
and He tied a big Harvard logo to the top of his head.
“I will call the National Bureau of Economic Research!”
And happily remind them, “Economists view you like The Church!”
Then I’ll then bring up Yours Truly again (’cause they don’t seem to remember),
that I was their BIG idea way back, last December.
Across America the housing market tanked,
while inside the homes, interest-only loans were yanked.
Despite the fact that we all felt the shortage,
we didn’t believe the bank could double our mortgage.
He giggled and danced with Recessiony glee,
“Why, unemployment hasn’t been this bad since… 1993!”
He chuckled and clucked and grinned as He snorted,
“At least that’s what Bloomberg.com has reported.”
Mid-market retailers from Kohl’s to Penney
have been marking down private-label-failures-a-plenty.
To fill up the void left by Mervyn’s and Linens,
their stores were awash in red tags before Thanksgivin’.
Then retailers like Kmart, Sears and Tar-J,
began to proclaim, “Short-term survival is the rule of the day.”
While all of their margins were just pissed away.
The Recession enjoyed their bobbin’ and weavin’,
for their behavior left them nothing but HIM to believe in.
Then He slunked to FOX News, blubbering through fake tears,
“Despite the promotional ads coming out of our ears,
U.S. retail sales are the worst we’ve seen in the last forty years.”
He threw out Brand-planning! He crushed same store sales!
Then He cleaned out their hope with some promo emails.
All their mission and vision was gone in a flash,
and analysts resounded, “Nobody is willing to part with their cash.”
Then He stuffed all their brand equity out the window with glee.
“And NOW!” grinned The Recession, “I will stuff out their identity!”
The Recession grabbed their identity, and He started to shove…
And then, something happened He never dreamed of…
The people, en mass, came seeking great deals,
had sat there all night, stuck cooling their heels.
And then, in their frenzy for cheap stuff galore,
the people (jacked up on Red Bull) broke down the front door.
Doorbuster deals made them push without discretion
until they trampled a man without remorse or expression.
The crowd, busy lusting for all the cheap gifts,
killed that employee on his first holiday shift.
Despite the employee’s unfortunate death,
the mob, inside Walmart, would not stop for breath.
The mob, now freed from their greed induced cue,
could shop for TVs as McDonald’s coffee did brew.
The Recession got hold of the retailer’s good judgment.
You may ask, “Was the store closed in mourning?”
No, sadly, it wasn’t.
Instead, people cried, “Oh, the deals! Oh, the deals!
DEALS! DEALS! DEALS!” That’s one thing that mattered.
Not the poor employee nor the doors they had battered.
It was quarter past December when He packed up his sled…
packed it up with their only-ness, positioning and word-of-mouth-cred!
With their hang-tags and logos and packaging all-ablaze
He headed three thousand feet up the side of Mount Ad-Age.
Where tip-top ad gurus advised and appraised,
“Brand equity is dead, you had better go BOGO.”
(The worst kind of lousy, I hate myself, promo)
“Pooh-pooh to the Brands!” He was Recession-ish-ly humming.
“They’re finding out now that their Brand is worth nothing!”
All bright and lathered up in neurotic obsession,
He stared down on Brand-ville fighting off his depression!
Every Brand down in Brand-ville, who stayed true to the plan,
sold all they needed (without taking it in the can).
He HADN’T stopped Branding from working!
IT WORKED! Somehow or other, it worked just the same!
And He puzzled three hours, `till his puzzler was sore.
Then The Recession thought of something He hadn’t before!
“Maybe Brand,” He thought, “doesn’t come from promotion.”
“Maybe Brand…perhaps…is attached to emotion!”
And what happened then…? Well…in Brand-ville they say
that The Recession’s big ego shrunk three sizes that day!
And the minute his head didn’t feel quite so huge,
He sat back, relaxed, and enjoyed the movie Scrooged.