A King’s Brand?

Brand building is costly, reflecting the premium society places on and chooses to pay for such creativity. National Express has relatively recently rebranded (in 2003) but it announced this week that it was going through the pain again, rebranding all its services—rail, express, bus—into a single entity. This mirrors the summer business restructure into a unified business. The effort and cost must be worth it, or so NatEx feels.

First off is the former Hotelink airport-hotel transfer business it acquired in April, now under the National Express dot2dot sub-brand. dot2dot operates 12 times per hour between London central and Heathrow, plus Gatwick. The local bus businesses must wait till 2008 for its turn.

NatEx feels that the reliability of its shrunken train business is now sufficiently strong to use the superbrand on the rails. But there’s the rub. There’s so much that’s beyond any operator’s control. Rail is the prime example—the infrastructure’s intensively used, subject to delay and is in someone else’s gift. Some parts of the highway network can better cope than others but roadspace is beyond the bus operator’s control. No doubt NatEx has undertaken a business risk assessment concerning the affects under-performance in one area might have on the whole brand.

While rebranding can bring rewards, it can also spell disaster. At the same time as NatEx express coaches last rebranded in 2003, Abbey National paid £11mil for its makeover. Trouble was, it flopped. Abbey shrank by 20 per cent. It took just 18 months to change the ‘feel’ again. Polytechnic marketing lecturers teaching on disasters now point to Abbey like they once did to the Ford Edsel.

And then there’s the award-winning, family-owned 75-vehicle The Kings Ferry, whose Medway-London commuter services handle 1,300 people a day. That’s estimated by routeONE as 40 per cent of the privately owned London coach commuter market. NatEx also announced this week—in the surprise of the year—it was to pay £8mil for this successful Kentish coach business.

The Kings Ferry’s commuter coaches fit tightly into the NatEx portfolio and there’s no doubt some important efficiencies are to be had and develop opportunities to be gained. Plus The Kings Ferry uses innovative mobile tracking, a useful comfort factor for commuters and tool for drivers that will no doubt be rolled out. Far beyond commuting, The Kings Ferry has a client base as enviable as companies by royal appointment, including 13 football clubs.

And the dilemma facing NatEx’s marketing people in the light of the rebranding must be what to do with The Kings Ferry. The drive for a corporate NatEx feel may destroy the 39 year brand. Or perhaps NatEx should rebrand its Medway and Kent services as The Kings Ferry
but face lack of recognition within its core markets. With The Kings Ferry, one size definitely won’t fit all. Is it prudent to pay £8mil for England’s biggest and possibly most successful private coach operator and change its face?

And problems associated elsewhere with the brand may affect The Kings Ferry most.

I have a suggestion. If NatEx does nothing else, it should insert an apostrophe within the title The King’s Ferry. At least that would suite hardened pedants, who find it difficult to type the three words without one.