Today the essence of the brand is unlocked by its name – the more you invest in it the more complex and irreplaceable becomes that key. Throw it away at your peril
I, so and so hereby change my name to such and such...” A notice neatly tucked away in the newspapers; an sms or e-mail sent to friends and associates, and hey presto you have a new name! If only changing a brand name was that easy. In the complex world of branding, things are not quite so easy.
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| Rupin Jayal |
In this cacophony, it is difficult to preserve that unique space in a person’s mind. The brand name is the magic key that unlocks the gate into that precious space. It is like a hot button that unleashes all those hidden memories, associations, impressions, images, etc, that is the unique ecosystem of that brand. Now imagine changing the key. Maybe the new one might just fit, but then it might not and then re-entering that special space becomes close to impossible.
Why would anyone need to change a brand if it has been well established and has a strong base of customers? This is especially so in our increasingly attention-deficit world where brands are often valued more than the factors of production that make them or the assets upon which their parent company rests. As John Stuart, former CEO of Quaker, said “If this company were split up, I would give you the property, plant and equipment and I would take the brands and trademarks and I would fare better. Or, if Coca–Cola were to lose all of its production related assets in a disaster the company would survive. By contrast, if all consumers were to have a sudden lapse of memory and forget Coca Cola the company would go out of business.” (Barwise et al., 2000, p. 75)
A number of reasons could lead to a brand name change. The first case is the most obvious– change of ownership. A company might want to sell off a part of its business for myriad reasons. If the company uses a “company brand” based architecture then it would naturally want to retain its brand for the part of the business that it continues to own. This might necessitate a brand name change. The most visible example of this is when IBM sold off its hardware business to Lenovo.
The second reason might be to refurbish a damaged brand. In this case another, established brand (with better standing) might replace the outgoing brand and this would not really be a brand name change in the sense being addressed here. However, it may simply be to put the past behind it and move on. Thus, LG was able to enter India as a virtually new brand after failing to gain success previously (when it was better known as Lucky Goldstar).
Signifying a change in category or business could be another reason for a name change. Here, however, it is akin to launching a new company and many of the challenges are similar. However, if the previous brand was a strong and healthy one and the channels of distribution are similar than referring back to that parentage could be useful.
Sometimes a name becomes generic to a category and needs differentiating. Examples abound such as Surf, Nescafe and Dalda in India and Xerox worldwide. In this case, a need is felt to refurbish the brand since as far is its buyers are concerned it merely represents the category and is not seen to be uniquely better in its own right. This might be evidenced by the fact that it cannot charge a premium over its lower cost competitors or that it is easily replaced by its customers if not available.
In all the cases mentioned above, a brand name change may become imperative. In this case it has to be handled with extreme care. There have been times when companies have tried to “transfer” the equity of the previous brand on to a new one. That rarely works because the original “name” represents the brand and is its code key for entry. Absent that and it just becomes a product. Most people do not have the time to observe and appreciate the strategically painstaking process by which the so called assets are being transferred and often just treat it as a new brand and move on to the next most popular brand on their list. It also allows aggressive competitors to rush in and make attractive offers to the erstwhile consumer base while the company in question is engaged with this often illusionary process of brand-asset transfer.
However, there is a temptation to change a brand name when competition gets too hot or when the brand goes through a down phase. It is then that it is critical to hold the brand-fortress and protect the key to it during such times because often the brand can be refurbished. Thus Bajaj even though being synonymous with scooters for much of its life did not change its name when it became a predominantly motorcycle company.
There are many ways in which brands can effect change in a way that allows them to retain the values of the core brand yet signify dramatic change. An example of this is the way Bajaj changed its identity to reflect the dramatic change in its core product portfolio. Wipro, as it became better known for IT than consumer products changed its identity. The appearance of the magic key changed but the code, its name, remained the same.
Another way is to retain the identity of the previous brand while changing the name. The current Hutch to Vodafone transition is a case in point where Super-Pug continues to play a critical role and the tone and style also seems to continue. Also while this is happening it still needs the extremely high visibility and investment in all mediums as all too apparent in Vodafone’s case.
To retain a popular sub-brand is also another way in which a transition can be effected. Thus, Lenovo continues to use the Thinkpad sub-brand that used to adorn IBM branded machines, even while it has launched a parallel Lenovo line of notebooks. It can be argued that the line between a successful sub-brand and a brand is thin and that would be true, but perhaps one way of defining it would be how customers used the sub-brand while purchasing. In IBM’s case, it is likely that they bought into brand IBM and Thinkpad played the role of a classic sub-brand.
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