Greetings From Sub-brand Hell
Microsoft Band, the first device powered by Microsoft Health.
Powerful headline, isn’t it?
Long before this compelling headline was composed, someone decided on this misbegotten brand strategy.
The strategy is to blame here, of course, not the last guy on the promotional assembly line, and it’s the strategy upon which we’ll turn our scornful eye.
Where to begin?
It’s easy to laugh at Microsoft here, but this branding catastrophe is the logical conclusion of sub-branding and focusing on extending the company rather than the brand.
Company after company earnestly launches sub-brands, and those sub-brands tend to promote the company, not the brand. Google is frequently guilty of doing both. Yet Microsoft’s ham-handed approach with Microsoft Band powered by Microsoft Health allows us to see exactly why sub-branding is almost always a bad brand strategy.
Sub-Par Sub-Branding
There are few sub-brands where both brands are powerful enough to be uttered together. Apple is one such brand. Yet even in Apple’s all-powerful case, the most common utterance would be “iPad” or “iMac” rather than “Apple iPad” or “Apple iMac.”
Brands mean one thing in the customer’s mind. Sub-branding attempts to make two brands mean one thing. It’s nearly impossible.
What’s an Apple? What’s an iPad? Different things, obviously.
Together do they have a unified meaning? To the extent Apple is known for amazing technology and an iPad is considered amazing technology they unify. Apple validates that this product is an awesome one. Apple becomes the training wheel brand before a product has its own strong meaning.
But what is a Microsoft? And does Microsoft have a strong enough image to keep two fledgling brands—Band and Health—upright in their youth?
I doubt it.
Company vs Brand
Is Microsoft the company or the brand? My hunch is that Microsoft is not being wielded as a brand here, it’s being used as a company. Microsoft makes the Band. They want you to know this fact.
You know what? Toyota makes Lexus. When was the last time you heard someone call their car a Toyota Lexus? You haven’t. Ever. Because Lexus is the brand. Toyota is the company. And in the customer’s mind, the company is almost always irrelevant.
Customer’s buy brands, not companies.
Acme Product
The trifecta of failure here is that Microsoft took the extra step of choosing generic names for both products, Band and Health.
Again, Microsoft is not alone in the use of generic nouns for brands (Some of Google’s many weak generic brands: Ads, Drive, Earth, Maps, News, Shopping, Flights, etc.) but seeing the two generic sub-brands together magnifies the problem in a way that is almost comedic in its spectacular level of fail.
Customers like to shorten brand names. Coca-Cola became Coke. Pepsi-Cola became Pepsi. Apple iPad became iPad. Looking into our crystal ball: Will Microsoft Band ever become Band? Will Microsoft Health become Health?
No, they won’t.
You will never hear someone say “Is that a Band on your wrist?” because a Band is a generic noun that will never mean an amazing wearable fitness tracker made by Microsoft and no one will ever care that it was the first, the absolute first, device compatable with Health, a generic noun that will never mean an amazing personal health data app made by Microsoft.
