Branding 101
July 9th, 2009Please avoid specific industry terms, like ‘Ben Young Property’. What if after 5 years you want to sell up? Or you find property isn’t your market.
By being too specific you box yourself into a corner.
You are far better off using something like bwagy, Nike or Starbucks that way over time you can evolve the brand to mean more than what you originally intended.
Create your own term then associate meaning to it, that way as your business evolves so can your brand. Literal terms tend to halt this as they have literal meaning. And there is nothing worse than putting a limit on your business from the get go.
What if Nike had been called ‘Fast Shoes’, could they have evolved into Basketball? Swimming? Fitnesss? I doubt it.
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Tags: 101, brand lifetime, branding, evolution, marketing
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 5:46 pm. 
July 13th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
I hate to burst your bubble, but many corporate brand and sub brand sections of their businesses to specific areas for all sorts of reasons, strategic, graphic, eliminate brand confusion, company structures, departments etc.
PS: Nike have about 30+ brands, including Nike Shoes, Nike Skateboarding, etc.
Starbucks have Starbucks Entertainment, Starbucks Coffee, Starbucks Icecream etc.
I think this post was positioned wrong and needed to define the difference between brand, holding company, branches, sub brands, product names, legal entities, consumer brands and international trademarks.
You can’t think that the issue is as simplistic as made out in the post – that’s just idealistic thinking.
Every bank in NZ have numerous registered brands to differentiate their services.
Basically, this post would have been accurate if you had renamed it to “Parent/Holding Company Names 101” but ‘Brands’ are a whole different issue.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
@Julian Is Starbucks positioned as Starbucks Entertainment in the consumers mind? You get my drift….
July 13th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
In the UK and US, “Starbucks Entertainment” is a really common know name and brand
.
July 13th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I’d never buy Nike shoes.
But Nike SB… *drools*
July 14th, 2009 at 1:03 am
@Julian The post is called Branding 101 it doesn’t claim to be the complete authority on branding 🙂