With news today that since it was re-branded from Virgin radio, the growing trend of new brands failing even with established infrastructure continues.
Absolute follow their fellow Virgin-re-branders Zavvi into a situation where the change in brand has seen problems arise. At least Absolute had a go at establishing the brand, even if it was via questionable approaches that seem to have distanced more listeners with its pretentious attitude despite the fact it’s a mainstream commercial station:
Maybe it would have been better to have done it Zavvi’s way, never really advertising the change until your biggest bit of publicity is that you’ve gone into .
It will be interesting to see how Aviva (Norwich Union) do in the forthcoming months and if they manage to buck the trend, they’ve at least started their transition in a much better fashion with ad’s that make their message clear:
Could it be that establishing a new brand, even with the infrastructure already in place, is doomed during a recession?
Mars managed to buck the trend during the 1990 recession, when it re-branded it’s Marathon bars in the UK & Ireland to come in line with it’s international brand, Snickers. The change in name saw the bar move from Britains 9th most popular to it’s 3rd. However, the change in name was preceded by 18 months of both brand names being on the bars wrapper, giving consumers time to adjust to the change, as well as a well implemented ad campaign that again was broadcast over a year before the full transition to the Snickers name occurred.
[...] recently read a post on the challenges faced by brands when the time comes to change the brand name. The post pointed to [...]