So, Mr Sink says that there are "so many products under the Eee name that soon the brand will be meaningless." He had one reason, but he didn't bother telling us why that may be true.
His only reason was this : there are so many offerings of Eee, the product version or model is unclear and non-specific. As a result, he claims, the brand will become meaningless and die. It is true that "I have an Eee" is as vague as "I have a game console" or, closer to home: "I have a laptop". But meaningless and dying? Historical evidence suggests otherwise.
The phrase "I have a DS" doesn't tell you if I have an ugly grey brick-shaped plastic or a beautiful, smooth and colourful piece of art; but it tells you I have a gaming console, speficially, one not made by Sony.
The iPod comes in nearly as many different offerings: iPod Classic, iPod Touch, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, multiplied by many different version numbers. But I think we can all agree that iPod as a brand is not going to go anywhere, and is certainly not meaningless in the marketing world.
Perhaps Asus isn't trying to make Eee stand out as a single product, but rather an entire product series, or perhaps even an entire category all on its own. It is not a "Laptop model number Eee 701 made by company x", but "an Eee". This is the true power of branding, when your brand is so successful that the average person refers to your product not by what it is, but by its very name.
If I tell you I drive a Porche, I am not being specific about what kind of car I'm driving, but to some people, what I have suggested matters more than if it's red or an SUV or brand new.
But an iPod or Porsche are used for very specific things (listening to music and going fast, respectively). His point was that the original Eee was useful in a way normal laptops or PCs are not. To apply the same name to more conventional devices dilutes the brand power of the original Eee, much like if Porsche made a pickup truck.
Thanks Eru. Exactly. They also make really really ugly SUVs.
To other repliers to my original comment,
I picked Porsche and iPod because both brands make one (1) type of thing in many (*) different styles and flavours. The Eee is a portable computer (laptop), albeit in many different flavours, just like how all Porsches are automobiles and all iPods are MP3 players.
Some are bigger in capacity, some are faster, some are more heavy duty, some are more compact and beautiful in form. All of the brands aim to be an indicator for stylish lifestyle. I am arguing that having a wide range of options under one brand umbrella has worked fabulously in the past for other brands. Also that it does not necessarily dilute the definition of the product, but rather by giving the brand a range of options, completes it and let it become a category all on its own.
Porsche has made little except high-performance sports cars for more than fifty years (certainly that's where they've focused their branding). Apple gained huge market share before making an iPod that did anything other than play music.
Asus waited about four months before sticking the "Eee" brand on every product in sight. There's a difference.
Also, iPod stands for the same thing across its product range -- an MP3 like any other company might make, but more stylish, more trendy, and easier to use. In fact that's what the Apple brand stands for as a whole.
What does Eee stand for across its entire product line. Is it stylishness? compactness? low power consumption? You can't send mixed messages about a brand name -- if you look at iPod ads, they all focus on creating the "image" of iPod and they let product-specific ads tackle the feature sets.
What does Eee stand for across its entire product line?
The Eee stands for the same thing across its product range -- a laptop like any other company might make, but more stylish, more trendy, and easier to use, [and more portable than non-Eee laptops]. Is that an acceptable answer? I don't work for Asus Marketing, obviously.
Agreed completely. I found the original Eee (and I don't even know the numeric model to go with it) to be a great idea. Nowadays I don't even have a clear mental image for what it is, a low-end cheap laptop? A desktop? What?
"After all, they're basically a manufacturing company, not a marketing company, right? The fact that they created a great brand was probably an accident anyway.
But as a marketer, that's what makes this even more infuriating. Creating a great brand usually requires hard work, lots of creativity, and tremendous discipline. When someone pursues the goal in that manner and succeeds, I admire them. But when someone accidentally succeeds, and then destroys their own work, I just want to bang my head against the desk."
Asus created a great brand by building consistently great products - not by marketing or gimmicks. To this day, I refuse to buy any montherboard other than an Asus. I've had Soyos, MSIs, and many other spontaneously fail on me, but never an Asus.
The Eee brand meant something else, and could have become the label for an entire product category. As "iPod" replaced "MP3 player", "Eee" had the potential to replace "real computer small enough to take anywhere without thinking about it too much."
Aren't sales a better metric for determining marketing effectiveness? (vs. Eric Sink's personal opinion)
The EEE is targeted mainly to consumers in Taiwan and the rest of Asia, where it has consistently sold out since it was introduced. It even sells out at the Taiwanese computer store in SF where I buy my ethernet cables.
In France they give the thing away with mobile phone subscriptions. What they do is build dazzling displays for it in mobile phone stores, positioning it as the lastest in cool gadgetry. And I must admit it really looks slick, in a "I didn't know there was a new iPod that's kind of like a notebook computer" kind of way, which I guess is exactly what they're aiming for.
and they heavily advertise it on radio, tv and billboards.
It almost evokes the word "toaster" a la bank promotions from the 50s (or at least old tv shows). If what you're trying to do is sell, not a computer, but an "internet appliance" to a mass audience, it seems pretty smart.
In the bigger picture, ASUS need to fill in all the gaps between the low-end eee and a laptop proper, so they don't open an opportunity for a competitor.
Their brand "eee" is their best way to signal to consumers that they have a smaller-than-laptop available and why don't you have look, let's see I bet this one is just right for you, ok? a bit bigger? a bit smaller?
Incidentally, they already have dropped the "eee" brand from the high-end "eee" style machines.
My opinion comes down 180 degrees from the article Author.
The full name of the brand is "Eee PC", not just "Eee" - a mistake the article author makes. It's clumsy and inelegant, too long, nobody says the whole thing, and if you say it aloud it sounds the same as "EPC" which isn't good for literal word of mouth -- no google result for EPC sends you the right way.
Asus is fighting an uphill battle here. Not only does nobody know what an Eee PC is, they don't know what an Asus is. I have been geeking since I was a toddler and I know Asus makes motherboards, but even I don't know if they're any good. They sound too much like Acer, a company that does make PCs, but not the one you care about in this case. In fact, in my free association exercise I think Asus -> Acer -> monitor for my friend's Packard Bell 486 a long time ago. Uphill battle indeed.
In fact, I didn't even know Asus made ready to buy computers, until I visited their site and recognized one that a coworker owns and is quite proud of.
Furthermore, if you search for Asus on google, the first hit is for "ASUS International" and the second hit is for "ASUSTek Computer Inc.". Even they don't know what their brand is.
These are great gadgets but their branding is screwed, stem to stern. They've pretty much rendered themselves ineligible to be a premium / high margin provider in this field. The consolation prize is they know how to play the cut-throat margins game, so they can at least work that angle.
If I was running the show I'd rename Eee to something that prounounced easily and spelled like it sounded, and then anchor that as the brand name. Move the current products under that name, so the "Asus Eee PC Surf" would become a "WhateverBrand Surf". After building that brand up move the entire Asus prebuilt laptop line under a sub-brand of the new company name. As now, position as a company that makes easy to use computers, differentiate by using customized and streamlined Linux. Sell the main product with a clear slogan (think "Just big enough" without the obvious phallic misinterpretation), and maybe they'd have a consumer brand that they could build from.
His only reason was this : there are so many offerings of Eee, the product version or model is unclear and non-specific. As a result, he claims, the brand will become meaningless and die. It is true that "I have an Eee" is as vague as "I have a game console" or, closer to home: "I have a laptop". But meaningless and dying? Historical evidence suggests otherwise.
The phrase "I have a DS" doesn't tell you if I have an ugly grey brick-shaped plastic or a beautiful, smooth and colourful piece of art; but it tells you I have a gaming console, speficially, one not made by Sony.
The iPod comes in nearly as many different offerings: iPod Classic, iPod Touch, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, multiplied by many different version numbers. But I think we can all agree that iPod as a brand is not going to go anywhere, and is certainly not meaningless in the marketing world.
Perhaps Asus isn't trying to make Eee stand out as a single product, but rather an entire product series, or perhaps even an entire category all on its own. It is not a "Laptop model number Eee 701 made by company x", but "an Eee". This is the true power of branding, when your brand is so successful that the average person refers to your product not by what it is, but by its very name.
If I tell you I drive a Porche, I am not being specific about what kind of car I'm driving, but to some people, what I have suggested matters more than if it's red or an SUV or brand new.