Last night, we had the misfortune of attending a talk with Mr JP Kuehlwein at Orange Peel, Central (http://www.orangepeelhk.com/) who coined the term “Uber” brands which is supposed to mean effectively very strong brands.
He spent 90% of the talk telling us how high-end luxury brands like Rolls Royce, Chanel, Hermes, Berluti, etc. create the illusion of exclusivity that make these brands “Uber”. Like how bouncers at a club would deliberately stop some people from going into club even if they are rock stars but lets in some retard; so as to keep people guessing…. and how Berluti invites people to polish their shoes with Champagne…
He then back-pedals and says that a brand doesn’t need to be a luxury brand to be an “Uber” brand and cites “Muji” as an example of an “Uber” brand but stopped short of saying why.
Our comments are:-
– The term “Uber” brand is mis-leading as Uber is a taxi hailing app that has become very successful and to coin the term “Uber” Brand just misleads users because most of the people who attended the talk thought that he started Uber and was going to talk about it
– Mr JP Kuehlwein has worked most of his life for Proctor and Gamble and purports to know a lot about Branding but has never actually launched a brand in his entire life
– Mr JP Kuehlwein thinks that buying a US$ 30,000 car is for the masses
Here is a person who encapsulates what is wrong with this world; by writing a book that no one will read people naturally think that he has something to say and is an authority. He is talking about branding as an expert when he has never created a successful brand in his whole life. He coins the term “Uber Brand” which confuses everyone because we all know Uber is a taxi hailing app.
Our review of the talk is don’t waste your time listening to a wind bag talk absolute gibberish for an hour or so who has never taken a position in life to create something other than a book that nobody wants to read.