[Sigia-l] Brand Creation

[Listera]

Livia Labate:

> Branding IS the means to realize a business goal, but "branding" means
> creating something (a product, a service, an experience, whatever)
> which delivers the brand promise. The "brand promise" is what the
> business is set out to do, it's what's defined by the business mission.

Every day, companies pay millions of dollars to buy a brand, *detached from
a product*. Often there's not even a product to be had.

To cite an example: Bertelsmann paid $8 million to Napster's creditors
(*after* Napster was out of commission) to acquire the company's brand.
Bertelsmann knew full well that they couldn't revive Napster in its original
form, as that would have been illegal. They had misguided notions of riding
Napster the brand, and not Napster the product, into another type of legal
music distribution scheme. Today, Napster the product (under yet another
owner) is certainly not the same as the first P2P icon we came to love,
where I could reach out explore the goodies in your hard disk.

The old Napster had over 50 million users, the new Napster is on the brink
of going under. Brand transference didn't occur because they had different
business goals and models, even though they're supposed to share the same
brand.

So the product is not the brand, the brand is the brand. And it should
precede the product. iPod and PowerBook are two very different products, but
even a Martian can tell they share the same brand, which preceded them well
over a decade.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba