Whatever you’re political or religious persuasions are, it is interesting to view Osama Bin Laden in his capacity as a ‘Brand’ – because he was.

With clever strategic moves (deadly and otherwise), he positioned himself and his followers in the classic ‘underdog brand position’ fighting the big, bad democratic ‘West’, who frankly were wrong-footed more than once, because they were not expecting to be challenged and worse, were not expecting to be challenged on home soil. Classic behaviour of a brand that has enjoyed a premium position and market share and perhaps has settled into complacency.

Some people have called the mind-set of the West both arrogant and foolish – how ridiculous to think one is invincible! What’s more important however is the knee-jerk scrambling around in the aftermath by the West after various atrocities – it is these reactions that built ‘Brand Bin-Laden’ who probably couldn’t believe how easy it was to become so powerful, to get nearly total ‘mind share’ in such a short time, with comparatively little budget.

As an underdog brand, one prays for ‘breaks’ like these. One or two promises broken by the market share leader and the underdog has his day.

It’s often true that marketing people deal in ‘perception’ not reality. Marketers need to manage the perception of their offer and promise to their customers. Sometimes, they need to manipulate that perception and very often they have to put a plan into action to damage limit the perception that has gone awry.

In ‘Brand Bin Laden’s’ case, the rabid fear of the people in the West, (valid or not, we don’t want to get political here, we’re merely discussing the interesting concept of Bin Laden as a Brand), unknowingly built a reputation for Osama Bin Laden that looked unconquerable.  They gifted Brand Bin Laden with what amounts to premium product placement and relegated hope and harmony to a very distant second place. The Bin Laden Brand reputation grew exponentially and became, in short order, synonymous with bad, evil and terror. As the imagination of people in the West continued to grow, the underdog Brand Bin Laden enjoyed the benefits.

What now that Bin Laden has been killed? What happens to the Brand?

Having held some responsibility for ‘killing off’ a widely and much maligned UK Government Brand, I can tell you that it isn’t alive one day and dead the next. Changing the perceptions of millions of people takes time, and it will take time for people to decide if the Brand Bin Laden promise will live on to see another day or if those behind the Bin Laden Brand too, will scramble around in the aftermath and at the same time, unknowingly, re-build the brand of hope and harmony.

(marketingmoves is a specialist IT Marketing recruitment company that recruits Only the best marketers.Only for IT and Telecoms.)

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