WHEN BRAND HARMONIZATION IS THE WRONG MOVE
WHEN BRAND HARMONIZATION IS THE WRONG MOVE
Monday, 28 August 2006 00:52
The Sarova brand is a well respected brand. Started in the early seventies by JN Kariuki and his close friends, two brothers called Vohra, the hotels grew in respectability and in the size of the chain, from the Ambassador, a hotel that hosted presidents and in which one African president (of the Comoros) worked as barman, to a veritable chain that bespeak high class, high service standards and quality.
Today, 30 years later, the Sarova Group, which owns 6 prestigious hotels – The Stanley, The Panafric, Whitesands and three lodges in the Mara, Shaba (Mt Kenya region) and Lion Hill (Nakuru), has decided to rebrand and in doing so rename all the hotels such that they acquire the Sarova surname – i.e. The Sarova Stanley, Sarova Whitesands and so on.
The story is that that move would make the brands standardize high quality standards and service values across the chain. Whatever you come to expect of The (Sarova) Stanley you should expect of the Sarova Whitesands and so on.
Could this move be a case of the classic marketing blunder – "if it ain't broke fix it?"
When one looks at hotels like Holiday Inn, Serena and others, one will find that they have achieved this consistency across the board in the entire chain. So it is possible to look, feel and be predictable the exact same way in a chain of hotels.
But.
The Sarova Hotels have something that the others don't really claim to have. An individual history and character across the board. Take The Stanley and The Panafric for example:
The Stanley was a colonial hotel that was set up in 1901 and it was owned by a Mrs. Tate. In the early days, it was a colonial watering hole and stop-over as the colonials traversed the country and it had become part of the civilization of the day. It passed over to the Block Hotels and into the hands of the Sarova in the seventies, all the while being called The "new" Stanley. It remained new until towards the close of the last century when it became simply The Stanley.
The décor of the hotel, the character of its business clientele, the fact that it was in the business district, the fact that it housed the Nairobi Stock Exchange for more than a decade – all of these built in the Stanley the character of a middle aged "Sir" Charles Njonjo, the very British oriented politician and businessman who is always simply eloquent, always elegantly turned out in Saville Row pin stripe suits and a gold waist watch.
The Panafric was the "African place" of the sixties and the seventies. It was the home in Africa of the Pan African movement and it has seen the scheming and plotting of the African political elite across the fifties and sixties, through out the time that African countries were not only going through that push for independence but also trying to find their space in the light of the ideological war that was raging then. Though a bit run down in parts (comparative to The Stanley for example), the Panafric has retained that "Martin Shikukuu/ Fadhili Williams/ Rhumba/ Harry Belafonte" character across the years. It continues to be in the minds of its revelers, the celebration of Pan Africanism and all that went with it.
Can you standardize these brands (in terms of their soul) and still maintain their unique characters and rich histories?
I say no. You can hardly have your cake and eat it. Already the Sarova brand stands for class, quality, and high service standards. I doubt that we needed to be reminded that they own it by adding the name to it. The unique brand characteristics and qualities and personalities of the individual hotels is what was Unique about them – it is what drove two different kinds of Kenyans to the two hotels as opposed to their competition.
After standardization, I fear that they will lose their characters altogether and they will go through what modern life has done to diversity of culture - dilute it to the point of colourlessness – and achieve sameness.
Alas! The milk may have been poured and it will take a brave marketing team to reverse their actions…
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