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'Brand failures: The truth about the 100 biggest branding mistakes of all time' by Matt Haig Kogan Page, London; 2003; ISBN 0 7494 3927 1; 256pp; hardback; £18.99
The idea of this book is a good one. It is often more useful to study failure than success. Unfortunately, it is part of human nature that autobiographies concentrate on success rather than failure, so in the reviewer's experience it is pointless to read the autobiographies of living people; better wait for the considered works of their biographers after their death. Everyone has experienced the rush of colleagues to claim responsibility for a branding success, and the equally fast rush to the exit to avoid blame for failure.
The reviewer believes that Bill Gates had the wisdom to hire a couple of vice presidents specifically for their experience of corporate failure, because none of his senior staff had known this, and he felt, rightly in the reviewer's opinion, that he needed to strengthen the management team with such experience.
Matt Haig has selected 100 stories of failure, which he lumps under the title of 'The Truth about the Biggest Branding Mistakes of all Time'. This is, itself, a major over-claim, the kind made by many of his examples. The usual suspects are all here. New Coke, the Ford Edsel, Sony Betamax, with a crisp summary of the reasons for failure. Haig asserts 'branding is no longer simply a way of averting failure. It is everything. Companies live or die on the strength of their brand.' But Coca-Cola quickly corrected its mistake,...