out with a bang, in part because it put most of its mar- keting eggs in the Martha Stewart basket. Unlike Aerosmith, how- ever, Kmart failed to fix the problems in its operations, stores, and personnel as the band did when its members entered rehab and rededicated themselves to personal and artistic discipline as well as physical fitness. Wanting to be better is not enough; a firm has to fix its operations if it expects to reinvent a once-great but currently downtrodden brand. Successful brand reinvention is uncommon, business history reveals, but there is one case in particular that reads almost like a modern-day application of Aerosmiths principles. Like most rock- and-roll bands, few brands recover. One that did was Volkswagen.       Drive This Way   Admit it. When you see one, you smile. It calls to you, with its bulging eyes and defiant little grin, making the kid in all of us want to run up and hug it. If you drive one down the street, people smile at you and occasionally wave. It attracts attention with an approachable tone, soliciting Aww!s and Oh!s that until its introduction were reserved only for puppies and cooing babies. Ah yes, the VW Bug-the icon of teens and young adults of the 1960s and 1970s. The flower-power generation adopted the Volks- wagen Beetle (also known as the Bug) as part of its culture, inviting the car into its garages, families, and lifestyles and plastering its image on notebooks, lunch boxes, and T-shirts. Beetle fan clubs formed around the country, giving owners a chance to meet, exchange maintenance advice, and create a special kinship through a soiree of Bug lovefests. The Beetle filled a specific transportation need in the U.S. car mar- ket that the typical large American car didnt meet in the late 1950s and 1960s. In addition to being countercultural in its appeal and, to some, simply adorable, the car was known for its low price, reliability,     unique design, and good gas mileage. Volkswagen intentionally kept the car design the same for many years, changing the car only under the skin so that parts remained readily available and fix-ups were easy.5 The car appealed to independent-minded people, often cen- tered in university-oriented locales, who frequently found themselves explaining why they bought a VW. But devotees rather enjoyed talk- ing about their cars-as fans usually do-taking pride in their ability to pay less without sacrificing quality. The U.S. car market changed in the 1970s, when Japanese auto- makers entered the market during the energy crunch with several low-priced, efficient, compact cars. Volkswagen was left going head- to-head against a new array of formidable competitors who seemed to steal the spotlight from the familiar Bug. Although VW kept upgrading the car, it was the collective foot- steps of its new competitors and its parent company that would eventually squash the Bug. Volkswagen decided to phase out the Bee- tle and replaced it with the Rabbit in 1975. The Rabbit was Beet- lesque in its quirky looks, fun colors, and great gas mileage, but the similarities basically stopped there. The Rabbit had many quality issues-from