External Influences on the value of a brand

Some confusion in a story that I first heard on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning. A report suggested that the firm selling Harris tweed, woven in the Hebridean islands, to the US market was trying to reduce the ‘scottish-ness’ of its image in the wake of the dismay in the US over the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. Mark Hogarth, Harris Tweed Hebrides’ creative director, had been quoted in newspapers as saying that “We have been getting a lot of feedback and we have had to de-Scottishify the image of the brand. If he had not been released we would not have altered anything” – and I was planning to use this as a good, current example of the range of external influences that can have an impact on marketing strategy. However, Chief executive Ian Mackenzie has since said Mr Hogarth had been misreported, that Harris Tweed was a “Scottish icon” and that there was no question of them altering the image at all. So perhaps this is more of a case of businesses needing to take great care over their public relations to ensure that the corporate message is clear, that the value of brand image is protected and that the links with objectives and strategy are equally clear to everyone.