Influx

In recent weeks, brands have been entering interesting categories that they’ve never really belonged to.

Specifically; HP launched an iPod, so did Damon Dash and both Sears and Best Buy launched private label ranges of consumer electronics.

Gizmodo article

Interestingly, all these developments have occurred in the consumer electronics sector which has very quickly become mass commodity. There are numerous suppliers in Asia making stuff onto which anyone can put their own label.

But can just anyone do it?

The brands putting their mark on these products each have only one major point of leverage: a captive market. Best Buy and Sears have 1000s of retail outlets, HP has PC users and Damon Dash brings the urban consumer.

With categories becoming increasingly commodity-like, any brand that can bring an audience or has a large enough channel of distribution will be able to launch products outside their traditional sphere of expertise. This is a development that goes against the traditional rules of brand stretching. It even goes against the post-modern idea of branding as exemplified by the UK’s Virgin and Easy Group, where brand philosophies are all about having a core idea at the center of the corporation.

“Opportunist Branding” just needs an over-suppllied, undifferentiated category where brands count for very little. Wireless services are one; 7-Eleven is already there and look for Disney and ESPN to follow shortly.

If Sony, once one of the strongest brands in the world, can have its brand equity and expertise stripped away and eroded by fundamental discontinuities in their category, then no brand is safe from opportunists and celebrities.