Brand Failures_ The Truth About the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time - Matt Haig [117]
Cream is, or at least should be, a youth brand. As such it needs to be about the here and now, not the past. As one anonymous commentator remarked on the internet, ‘when was the last time you watched other youth brands like Nike or Nintendo celebrate their birthdays.’ Certainly, when your core market is 18–24 year-olds the last thing you want to be telling them is that you are 10 years old. They don’t care about what you were doing when they were, in some cases, only eight years old.
The club’s reputation has also been tarnished by its association with drug use. Merseyside Police expressed concerns in 2000 about the ‘drug culture’ at Cream, saying it could have taken more measures to prevent drug dealing at the venue. In 1999, a 21-year-old woman died after collapsing on the dance floor.
Although James Barton said after the club’s closure that the Cream brand remains at ‘the forefront of youth culture’ there is an increasing amount of evidence to the contrary. Its ‘Cream Collect’ album sold under 2,000 copies in total.
Competitors have also been quick to isolate themselves from the Cream closure, by blaming a lack of brand innovation. ‘Cream closing is a seminal moment in club land history,’ Ministry of Sound managing director Mark Rodol told the Independent newspaper. ‘It’s a lesson to club promoters that you can’t sit still. Ministry of Sound’s music policy changes at least every twelve months and has always done so, with our nights proving there’s still thousands of clubbers looking for a great night out.’
Although it remains to be seen whether the Cream brand will turn sour, or once again be able to rise to the top, there is no denying it needs a radical overhaul if it is to survive. ‘Clubs like Cream no longer empathise with customers,’ says Mixmag‘s Crastke. ‘They’ve lost the trust of the kids. And once you’ve lost the kids, it’s very hard to get them back.’
This club lives on in Liverpool, now called Nation. The focus now seems to be Ibiza.
Lessons from Cream
Don’t contradict your brand values. If you’re a nightclub which is open until six in the morning, your key market tends to be people under 24 years old. It was a mistake then to emphasize the age and longevity of the Cream brand to a market which cares little about such values.
Adapt or die. For youth brands, the only constant is change. The Cream nightclub relied on the same tried and tested formula for too long, using expensive DJs who had passed their sell-by date.
Avoid over-exposure. By 2000, Cream could be found everywhere. At festivals, in clothes shops, in music stores, on TV adverts. As the brand extended its line however, the identity became diluted and consequently the club struggled to attract enough custom to keep it going.
Watch market trends. The fact that 200,000 people went to see Fatboy Slim live on Brighton beach in the same month that Cream closed down proved that there was still a strong market for dance music events. It also proved that the Cream nightclub may have been moving in the wrong direction.
101 Yardley cosmetics
From grannies to handcuffs
How does a once supremely successful brand descend into failure? The answer, in the case of Yardley cosmetics, is by failing to move with the times.
Yardley was founded in London in 1770 by William Yardley, a purveyor of swords, spurs and buckles for the aristocracy. He took over a lavender soap business from his son-in-law William Cleaver who had gambled away his inheritance. Throughout the next 200 years the brand grew from strength to strength with its portfolio of flower-scented soaps, talcum powders and traditional perfumes.
Yardley’s brand identity was quintessentially English, and it supplied soaps and perfumes to the