Don’t make your brand swim upstream

Sometimes branding is just being the master of the obvious.

http://www.zdnet.com/blackberry-10-launches-rim-unifies-brand-with-name-change-7000010380/

Yesterday a company called Research in Motion changed its name to what it should have been all along:  BlackBerry.   No longer will we have to listen to “Marketplace from American Public Media” refer to the company that makes BlackBerry as  “Research in Motion, the company that makes BlackBerry.”

Now the company that makes BlackBerry just is what it is.  Research in Motion’s CEO Thorsten Heins announced that “Research in Motion” would become “one consistent brand that is recognized around the world.”

Well it’s about time, y’ think?

RIM/BlackBerry is not the first company to rebrand itself with a more intuitive name.  Twelve years ago Dayton Hudson Corporation took on the name Target Corporation, as Target stores had become the biggest horse in the Dayton Hudson stable.

If your company is built behind a single, successful brand, go with it as your company name.  Keep it simple with a unified corporate brand name that people don’t have to unravel.

Which brings us to Comcast.  In 2010 the cable/internet/phone provider that adopted “Xfinity” as the umbrella name of all its digital products.  Virtually everything from Comcast is Xfinity.  So, what’s from Comcast that’s NOT Xfinity?  The stuff in the hinterlands that’s not digital yet.  Seems like they’re splitting hairs.

“Mr. Roark, we’re alone here. Why don’t you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us.”
“But I don’t think of you.”

— The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Consumers don’t need a puzzle to solve – they need a brand that’s easy to understand, a simple story that resonates.  Marketing managers who spend all day thinking about their product and brand need to remember that the rest of the world doesn’t.