Brand Dilution

Avoid Diluting Your Brand Name

One of my favorite pastimes is to assess the various marketing tactics of companies. I see and pick to pieces the workings of the campaign. Needless to say, I come across some interesting tactics that disregard common sense. For example, on one occasion I was exploring an aisle of a sporting goods shop when right there in the kayaking section I saw something that caused me to quake in my boots�

It was� a Bic� kayak. Standing out as noticeably as possible was the Bic� logo� you know the one, the little ball-headed guy holding a pen� proudly placed on top of the boat (or is that "yak." Are kayaks really boats?).

As it turns out, Bic� Sport was established around 1979 to sell less costly surf boards. By 1997 they had created 1,000,000 surf boards. I don't know about you, but I didn't know there was that high of a demand for surf boards.

Bic� Sport has a trendy website that is devoted purely to water sport equipment. Evidently the brand itself means "economic quality." Raise your hand if you thought Bic� meant "cheap pens."

A good number of studies of big businesses (on the subject of branding) show that a brand is most successful if it only represents an individual meaning. I tend to believe this statement and have demonstrated the principle within my own companies. Nevertheless we ought to be aware of a few fundamental myths on the subject of branding.

Myth number one. Your brand can only represent one product. No, your brand meaning ought to be laser focused in its meaning, yet big enough to be placed on several products. Imagine if Tide� meant, "It removes dirt when nothing else can." You could then have Tide� vacuums and cleaning equipment and chemicals. Tide� is based in solid fundamentals and is an incredibly successful brand of laundry detergent. They have allowed their brand to remain pure and focused on getting dirt out of clothes. Businesses similar to Proctor and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson send out a number of single product brands, which is a tactic I prefer.

Myth number two. Everybody around the globe understands what your brand means. Actually, the markets of the world are greatly fragmented. Every niche is a community by itself with personalized publications, opinion leaders, and trade associations. Seeing that our lives are so high paced and demands on our time have become so intense, men and women are highly selective as to what they give their attention to. Most of the time, one community knows very little about another community. Think about the farming community versus the soccer player community. The end result� a single brand could have many different meanings in different communities.

I would not advocate distorting the meaning of your brand. I promote really focusing the meaning of your brand name so that it can encompass a wide range of products. Think Martha Stewart. Then think about branding your individual products under your larger brand name. Think General Mills� and Coco Puffs�.

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