On Sun, Jul 16, 2017 at 01:17:25PM -0400, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
These sorts of deep brand issues are why most companies start new
brands which might look like they are competing with their primary
one. It can showcase some new identity and get people to see it as
useful or better than what they have already. It can also show where
things aren't going to work at all because people just aren't
interested in something. The Soap industry is a classic study in
brands where most people buy things because of something they tie to
the brand be it a logo, a smell, a look or even just the container it
comes in. Whenever the company changes those things, it causes
significant drop in sales and they are usually going back to what they
had. So instead a soap company will just start a new line with
whatever is different they want to see. No tie in with the original
soap. Sometimes that soap takes over and other times it just sits
there and goes away after 8 months.
We could look at starting a new brand. But, I don't think your
Harley-Davidson analogy applies, because we're not using this to break
into a new market. We're using this to make sure that we remain
relevant as the market we are in changes. Let's take the current shift
to electric cars as a branding analogy — GM *could* have gone with a
whole new name, but instead we have the Chevrolet Volt. (And Nissan
Leaf. And Ford is even reusing the "Focus" name.)
I think this matches our current and upcoming challenge more closely.
--
Matthew Miller
<mattdm(a)fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader