rebranding

one of the weapons in the marketer’s armoury is rebranding. this is the sneaky practice of taking something familiar and changing the look, the name and the mission statement of the familiar thing and before you know it you have something new.
marathon bar becomes snickers. opal fruits become starbursts. labour becomes new labour. jif becomes cif. and so on.
sometimes it works wonders and other times it fails spectacularly. think of british airways “global” rebranding and how that was quietly withdrawn. the post office’s attempt was as successful. while the conservative’s recent attempt they still remain tories and all that stood for.

now the other day i was reading some reviews of books devoted to the apple computers phenomenon.
the next morning i had an idea for a great new rebrand.
the thing that saved apple was a design ethic that made their products desirable, regardless of the quality of performance. you wanted an apple computer, laptop or ipod because they were things of beauty. the fact that they did what they said they did was almost a bonus.
look at the sleek lines, feel the smooth contours. elegant functionality. pretty performance. the coloured casings of the imac’s became ubiquitous as other manufacturers stole the look. the white computer housing reminded designers that computers didn’t have to be an ugly washed out colour. when you see a mac, whatever the product, you can’t help but “ooh” and “aah”.
there is another product in the world that gets the same response: the humble vibrator. sure there are lots of them out there from the non-doctor (never found out why it was called that) to the popular rabbit.
but i think that there is still room to produce another one. i would look to the boys at apple and steal the quality of their designs – it has to be practical, it has to be easy to use but most of all it has to look like something you could leave on the coffee table and people would congratulate you on your aesthetic tastes. initially there would be a “family” of these new vibrators – they would be different sizes and, of course, different strengths. they would be united by a common, beautiful, sleek organic look. available in two colours white and black, though as the success of the line grew i would be looking to a brand extension where i would add more colours.

all that is need now is the name of this rebrand of the vibrator.
ladies and gentlemen i give you (and i know some of you saw this cumming): the iprod.