There is a general misconception that companies create their own brands. This simply is not true. A brand is created by the way others perceive your company, its products, and the services it offers. A brand becomes the way they feel and think about you. Even though companies don’t create their brand, they influence it by their actions.
To illustrate, let’s examine two examples, Volkswagen and Kia. Volkswagen launched the brand strategy “working with you” in 2013. Their goal was to establish the idea that they were meeting their customer’s needs. When news hit in 2015 that they had installed a cheat emissions devise in their U.S. vehicles, the once premium car manufacturer quickly lost credibility and confidence in consumers and their customers. Their customers no longer felt like Volkswagen was “working with them.” They perceive the brand as cheaters and dishonest. Not only have they experienced significant job cuts over the last few years, but they have lost revenue as a company. In 2016 sales in the United States dropped 8% in one year.
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