Don’t change the feelings associated with a famous brand name
I’m a big Japanese anime fan and it all started when I was a little boy. My father’s friend owned a video shop and he lent me a lot of Dragonball videos for free. And it all started from there.
20 years later, the name Dragonball is still very popular in the world of anime and maybe that is why someone came out with an idea – “Why not make a REAL Dragonball movie?!”
Thus, the result is the movie Dragonball :Evolution.
After watching the trailers, my only response – I kept laughing as if this action movie has become a comedy. I can go on and on about why this should not be made into a Dragonball movie….but well, it’s better if you go find it out yourselves. If you’re a Dragonball fan, you’ll either feel disgusted or amused.
Son Goku and Bulma - they do look pretty funny
Anyway, what I intend to say here is that it is never easy to change something which other people have strong feelings on. This movie is one example. There are millions of Dragonball fans worldwide and all of them know what Dragonball is and all the special feelings associated with the franchise – Son Goku is a Japanese! And and Bulma is a Japanese also!! And Master Roshi is supposed to be bald! To change such feelings is never easy and most of the time will backfire.
Another example is KFC. KFC is famous for fried chicken but I recall that few years ago, they tried to be creative and came out with Fish burger. It was a total failure. Same goes for Nandos, the so-called grilled chicken specialist. I’ve tried to grilled fish and my friend tried to grilled beef before……..they sux. Actually, those things are not really THAT bad if they are being sold by other people. The thing here is that, our mindset has been set, and the feelings associated with these businesses have been set – Nandos for SPICY grilled chicken, Kenny Rogers for HEALTHY grilled chicken, Burger King for large burgers, Dragonball for spiky-haired guys that can fly around in the sky and can change hair color at will, etc.
From here, you can see that there are feelings which we associate with certain names….some ever since our childhood days. That is why it’s never easy to change the feelings associated with a famous brand name. It’s pretty risky too because if you can do it very well (like Transformers…which actually didn’t really change THAT much. They’re still robots…not human), then your product/work will be very popular but if you don’t do it well……….it’ll become a laughing stock and expect millions of hardcore fans to boycott you before your product even got launched.
If you are going to change these feelings…..you better be prepared and make sure you have a well-thought plan. 
Western people used to be fearful of Russia and China. Now these places have become tourist destinations. People used to like a brand of bread (can’t mention the name). Then a media expose ruined it with pictures of its factory conditions. Point being, unlike what some brand gurus say, feelings toward a brand can change under certain conditions.
You’re right about the dangers of brand contamination. Sometimes, naive product managers think they can capitalize on a famous brand name simply by stamping it on an unrelated product, like when a famous fried chicken brand claims to offer the best fish burger in town. Not only will they fail to sell their fish burgers. They risk losing their fried chicken dominance in the process.
I see this every day when I pass by a mamak shop that sells chinese chicken rice and western steak side by side with their tandoori. Although it may actually taste good, they end up hardly selling any. Pathetic.
Damien Tan
24 Feb 09 at 9:16 pm
@ Damien
Yeap, they can change esp if it’s from good to bad or bad to worse. Because we have too many options to choose from nowadays, and by making a brand name sounds and looks bad (with proof) such as the recent peanut butter case, people will just give up and move to other options. Simple as that.
But if you were to compete with an existing brand without actually making it looks bad….then it’s not really that simple esp if you are trying to replace the brand with something relatively new. The feelings associated are very hard to be replaced.
Alvin Lim
25 Feb 09 at 8:53 am