Keeping your Brand Intact – Don’t Dilute Your Brand Message

This past weekend the Killer Panda team got to talking about how important it is to keep a consistent brand message and the trouble you can get into when you start to dilute your brand.

What got this conversation rolling was some of the Brand Development Team went down to San Diego for the Dodgers vs. Padres game this past weekend.  While walking around and walking through the official Padres shop we couldn’t help but notice the amazing amount of different logos and even team colors the Padres have gone through in the last few years and this got us talking about diluting a brand message.

We also noticed that so many people were wearing the team’s original colors of brown and gold.  To compound the problem, in the official store they were selling just about every variation of the 10 different logo’s and colors since the founding of the team in 1969.

 Keep Your Brand Message Intact

The brand was all over the place!

Looking into the crowds during the game, we had no idea what team was playing.  People were wearing brown and gold, blue and gold, or blue and white.  At another glance, we noticed that people were wearing a disproportionate amount of the original colors the gold and brown.

This is what got us talking about diluting down a brand message.  Abe Lincoln once said, if you try to be everything to everybody, you’ll end up being nothing to no one.

What I believe happened with the Padres and what every business should consider, is every few years they were changing their logo and color and launching their uniforms and the sports gear.  After several changes people stopped buying into the new brand and just starting buying what colors they liked the best.

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What you end up with is this hodgepodge of colors and logos and people are all over the place.  It’s like the Italian restaurant that wasn’t doing so good and thought they would jump on the sushi craze and add that to the menu.  Then Mexican gets big and they add Mexican to the menu and instead of targeting what they’re good at and what people want, they’re all over the place and don’t do anything right and people stop coming.

Focus your brand on your core goals and mission, don’t get sidetracked or start diluting your brand thinking that this will attract more people.  This is one more amazing reason why EVERY business needs a business plan.  Without this plan or Brand Road Map, you’re just going to take your eyes of your goals and not make anyone happy.

Can you think of any examples of diluting a brand or do you have any questions about brand dilution?  If so, we’d love to hear about it, post your thoughts or questions below.

We’d also love to hear any questions about brands that you may want answered in an upcoming blog or even any brand blog topics.  Thanks for reading!