Just Rebrand That Pig!

I am sure you all are familiar with the following expressions; “you can put lipstick on a pig but it is still a pig”, “you can’t polish a turd” and “you can put a suit on a goat, but it is still a goat”.  Why do I bring this up?  Well, recently our Commander in Chief, you know, the orange guy with all the ideas that will make us great again, said that the aircraft company with the bad airplane should just “re-brand it”.  Now, I have many years of public and biz comm experience and have worked on many rebranding efforts and have some ideas about it.

Rebranding is the effort to give a new name and identity to a product or service (usually one that has problems, failed or has just not met expectations) with the intent of creating a new image.  Over the years I have seen CEO’s and public officials sit at boardroom tables smashing their fist into the wooden top and demanding that you just rebrand a failing product or service because of the money that has already been sunk into them.  Because of the incredible cost of redesigning a failed project to make it more marketable, large corporations usually choose to do a makeover on the brand’s image instead.

In the case of the disastrous aircraft, the manufacturer is faced with a problem that could kill the program, costing billions of dollars to the company, its shareholders and of course its executives.  Their intent is to make a bad aircraft design fly with the help of corrective software, a considerably cheaper fix than scrapping the current design and starting again.  So, instead of killing the project and designing a new aircraft, they are choosing to potentially kill more people.   As we all know, in this capitalist system that we have in the US, the only measurement that counts is dollars.

This whole event involving the poorly designed aircraft is absolute proof that corporatocracy now rules our country.  The manufacturer bullied the federal agency that approves airworthiness of any aircraft built or allowed to fly in US airspace.  Corners were cut without so much as a whimper from the feds.  Reports of potential flight problems written by engineers were suppressed by the manufacturer while the fed agency turned a blind eye. Corporations rule our world!

Meanwhile, our POTUS, who has made a career out of rebranding bad properties, casinos, business ventures, and even his own image, is suggesting that the same thing be done with an aircraft.  Since he has spent a lifetime avoiding responsibility for his own actions, he believes the same can be done here.  The big difference is that there are customer lives hanging in the balance this time.  The projected number of these aircraft to be sold are over 5,000.   Without a realistic fix to the problems with this aircraft, the statistical reality of more customers dying is great.

So, if you can fix the pig by putting lipstick on it, then simply put some lipstick on the front of this aircraft and say happy trails!

Talk to Ya Later

The Grumpy Old Fart Customer