Dismantling a brand in seven days (or less)

Marketing textbooks bulge with case studies of the steps companies take to build, protect and advance their brands. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a tome that dedicated the same academic discipline to showcasing a brand that went from revered to reviled in the space of under a week.

That might all change with the fascinating case of former University of Kansas men’s basketball coach Roy Williams. In less than a week, Williams went from nearly reaching the crowning achievement of his career – a national championship – to being vilified for returning to Tobacco Road and the “tradition” of University of North Carolina hoops.

Whether you’re glad or mad to see Roy out of the Big XII conference, the events of that fateful week between Williams’ weeping press conference in New Orleans and the “don’t hate me, KU” opening to his news conference in Chapel Hill, NC offer some interesting insights into branding.

In his 15 years of coaching in Lawrence, Williams created for himself a brand image of success, hard work, honesty, approachability and, most importantly, loyalty. It was such a strongly embedded image that even opponents who couldn’t stand the school had a great deal of respect for the coach and how he ran the program.

The air quickly came out of that balloon as Williams stumbled his way through the transition process. In the days which followed that bizarre news conference in Chapel Hill, he continued to ding his brand image – most notably commenting on national television that he didn’t think the players he recruited to Kansas should be “stuck out there” without the coach they thought they’d be playing for. In a week, Home Sweet Home for 15 years had become “out there.”

The response in Lawrence and among KU faithful nationwide was so swift and so angry, that Williams lamented to the Kansas City media, “I don’t know why people are so upset. I just took another job.”

True. Roy Williams, the basketball coach, took another job. And in the process, Roy Williams, the brand, crumbled. The lesson here is really three-fold:

• Brands are assigned by the audience. Assuming, for a minute, Roy Williams’ brand wasn’t a master marketing scheme, consider the lesson: His target audience had assigned him his brand based on everything it knew about him. The same thing goes for you, your company, and its products or services. Your target audience(s) will decide whether the brand you want to advance is believable, based on the behavior you demonstrate.
• Brands carry expectations. Everything you say and do either nurtures your brand, or whittles away at it. In the case of Roy Williams, people assumed that if he ever did leave, he would do so in a graceful, professional, respectful way. When that didn’t happen, it violated their faith in his brand.
• Brand collapse can come quickly. When brands disappoint, the response can be swift and stinging. In a short time, Roy Williams went from likely having his name on a building at KU to being just another opposing coach. The sad part? Had he handled his departure in a style befitting his brand, that name-on-the-building idea might not seem so far-fetched down the road.

The message? Even well-built brands are only as strong as the most recent words and deeds of their owners. So...what have you said and done to strengthen your brand today?