Company, Brand Managers

The beauty of something so simple is that in the case of JetBlue, it doesn’t seem contrived, because of the history of the brand personality. The company’s strong financial performance causes its name to be trumpeted in the first paragraphs of many business articles written about the airline industry-and now the world of branding. But all of the attention does bring the danger of overexposure. “JetBlue continuously walks the fine line of how much exposure it wants for the JetBlue story because they don’t want it to become a trite brand image,” explains Johnson.

A real challenge for brand managers is to understand how to keep telling a story to get into new markets, without becoming so ubiquitous that people tune out a brand’s nuances. This is one reason that most bands don’t tour every year-they wouldn’t be new or novel enough and often are too expensive to attract fans that often. The challenge also becomes how to replicate both the functional and emotional aspects of the brand in new and different markets. Spreading corporate culture, which is an important part of the most successful company brands-especially Wal Mart-is a task that can trip up even stellar firms. Sam Walton was the most important ingredient in spreading the Wal Mart culture within his company because he lived, breathed, and embodied the brand.

After his death, the company focused on ways to keep his vision and passion throughout the organization and instill it in new hires who had never met him. Videos of him and old fashioned traditions became paramount in keeping as much of the original WalMart culture alive as possible.