Thoughts on extending brands and choosing names
A few months back I almost wrote a post about what a terrible idea Bud Light Lime was. Now it seems to be doing well, but I’m resisting the temptation to pretend I thought it was a great idea all along. Too many of us in branding succumb to this temptation—the desire to claim we could have predicted things after they’ve already happened. Brand fails? Must’ve been a terrible name and package design. Brand takes off? Great logo! Great name!
(By the way, if you have frustrating/funny examples of this behavior in action, I’d love to hear about it.)
Well, right or wrong, I still think Bud Light Lime is a ridiculous naming decision. I think it’s a strange name mainly because no one ever put a lime in their Bud Light (right?). Limes are for Hefeweizen, or Corona, or other Mexican beers. And while AB InBev has every right (if not an imperative) to compete in the lime-friendly beer market, the decision to name their entry “Bud Light Lime” seems like a hasty one aimed at capitalizing on the popularity of Bud Light without recognition of the fact that a new name would probably be more appealing. To me, it feels like Crystal Pepsi all over again.
Assuming the decision has already been made to enter a new market (and this assumption skips an important question—maybe the important question in this case), companies are left to decide whether to create a new brand or extend an existing brand. Often, they’ll take what seems like the safer option: cash in on the good name of the existing brand. But with brand strategy, the safe option is rarely the better one.
Another example is lululemon, which sells a large assortment of men’s workout clothing—mostly yoga gear—under the decidedly not-so-manly name “lululemon.” Then again, one might argue that yoga is not the manliest of workouts. No comment. At least lululemon’s name presents a stark contrast to its overly testosterone-infused competitor in the workout apparel space, Under Armour.
And, now that I mention it, does anyone think it’s odd that Under Armour sells shoes and hats under that name? Eh, maybe I’m taking this all too literally…
comment
4/25/09
>>Certainly a lot of organizations do make the mistake of overextending their brands, but I see plenty of the opposite problem as well. It seems some companies (including some branding firms, ironically) think that “branding” means coming up with a catchy new name and proprietary symbol for everything they do—every product, every service, and every process.<<
7/6/09
>>…companies are left to decide whether to create a new brand or extend an existing brand. Often, they’ll take what seems like the safer option: cash in on the good name of the existing brand. But with brand strategy, the safe option is rarely the better one.<<
Caught in your web of branding wisdoms!
Hahaha…ouch! Nice catch, Paul. I’ll admit I may have overstated the case with “the safe option is rarely the better one.” That’s a bit strong; I may take a later post to explain what I was thinking when I wrote it.
But I don’t think the two statements above are as contradictory as they appear. Deciding whether to create a new brand or extend an existing brand is a challenge (which is one reason brand strategy consultants exist, not to mention entire firms dedicated to consulting on brand extensions alone). Companies can err on either side, sometimes over-extending brands, sometimes creating new brands ad nauseam. Common pitfalls include letting a desire to “leverage existing equity” override common sense in naming and brand architecture (as I’m suggesting Bud Light Lime has done) and, conversely, failing to resist the desire to create shiny new brands when they’re not really necessary (a pitfall I’m claiming UPS has avoided—as debated in an old post on this blog).
It’s debatable which mistake is more common. Awhile back, I exchanged some emails with Al Ries on this very topic. In his words: “Big companies should have multiple brands, but small companies should not. Yet in our consulting assignments, we find the opposite. A big company falls in love with its brand and wants to use it on everything. A small company run by an entrepreneur often has many good ideas and wants to launch multiple brands.” My argument is that this is an oversimplification, and brand extension decisions should be made on a case by case basis. But maybe it’s a decent rule of thumb?
I get the logic of the Ries comment, but it’s very inside-out. Not sure I can package my thinking as tersely as Al did, but it seems the number of different customer psychographics a company goes after should play a role in the brand extension calculus. Maybe an organization needs as many brands as it has semi-colons in its positioning statement.
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I think things are pretty upside down all over. It can be disconcerting to minds that seek integration and sense.
Which makes this article, trying to \”make sense\” out the chaos of marketing, kinda helpful:
http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/News/918248/Alan-Mitchell
When MAD SHEEP RAGE can be introduced as an acronym for gaining sanity in marketing practices, you know the planet’s been tilted.