Brand retirement

Most companies think about dipping their toe into sustainability by launching an eco brand. The logic is pretty straight forward I suppose i.e. ‘if theres money in this green trend then a new product launch would be the best way to attract it.' But might it be a more powerful marketing tool to do the opposite. To resign to retirement a product or brand that you think is sat on a business model that can't adapt well enough to compete in future more enlightened market places. Companies are not generally very good at counter intuitive thinking because it means backing the less simple, harder to argue option. When 100 people or more need to buy in that’s not easy to pull that off.  

It seems that GM have decided to off load the Hummer which has become short hand in recent years for environmental recklessness and ignorance. 500million is the price quoted. I am not sure if that’s a lot of money or not in the scheme of things but imagine the message it would send if they simply decided to hold their hands up and say they have decided to send the hummer brand into retirement. How much fun would it be to work on the marketing brief for that.  It would be a bit like when George Bush stood down.  We didn’t agree with what he stood for and it was a bit late in coming but we can wave him off with relief and just a little fragment of sentiment.  

I think a good example of dead wood would be airmiles as rewards for frequent flyers. Give regular flyers special treatment and try and make the pain of business travel a little more bearable but don’t give them tokens to fly even more; a well meaning idea that has had its day. On a personal level I have a small build up of air miles from Air Berlin and British airways. Consider them now publicly retired from service. Maybe there is a business idea in that. A retirement home for airmiles that would collect them off conscientious executives and give them to charities for some of the handful of others services that they can be used for such as visits to British tourist attractions that the average executive would not themselves use.