Just a Thought: Customers are the Brand

While living in London for the past year, now, I have only had three instances where a car almost hits me while running. Oddly, the three vehicles to almost hit me were all BMWs, and since two of these 3 occurrences happened this past weekend, it had me think, "BMW doesn't like me very much, and frankly, if they keep trying to hit me, I'm not going to like them at all."

This internal dialogue inevitably turned to a thought about branding, and how a brand's customers end up representing and communicating the brand's positioning via their actions. After all, it wasn't the BMW that was almost running me over, it was the drivers, but still I thought of it as the vehicle.

I guess Abercrombie & Fitch recently began to notice who wears their clothes ends up reflecting the type of brand it is, hence they've asked Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino, from Jersey Shore, to stop wearing its products. 


Looking at the kind of people who associate themselves with your brand (i.e. wear, drive, use, etc.) defines the kind of brand you are. So maybe it becomes a question of targeting. If A&F didn't have half naked teenage models standing out front of its stores, with blaring clubbing music at all hours of the day and oozing of an offensive amount of cologne, maybe it wouldn't appeal to a half naked all-hours partier like "The Situation".

A&F's stores are designed to appeal to people like "The Situation" drawing them in, and then they act surprised when he's actually wearing their products? If they genuinely want to stop attracting people like "The Situation", the brand experience must change to reflect they type of people they wish to attract and feel are better suited to the brand they are or want to be.

So maybe BMW should have a test for prospect customers to see if they make the cut for being BMW drivers, which I hope includes those who don't want to accelerate when they see runners. Who knows maybe the quiz to be selected as a BMW drivers will make the brand more exclusive and stimulate greater demand... just a thought.