功能飲料Monster生產商改名的學問

????眼下，功能飲料正火。全球范圍內這一市場方興未艾。相關品牌標識紛紛出現在運動場和極限運動裝備之上。雖然紅牛（Red Bull）依然主導全球市場，但占據美國功能飲料1/3市場的Monster Beverages正在迎頭趕上。

????公眾對Monster應該有點印象，因為這家公司正在面臨一場官司。去年12月，一位14歲女孩在喝下幾罐Monster飲料后死亡，她的母親指控這款飲料部分導致了女孩的死亡。Monster否認存在任何過錯。

????追本溯源，Monster能走到今天這一步也有些不可思議：規模龐大，利潤豐厚，以及出售一款頗有爭議的富含咖啡因產品。今年1月之前，Monster Beverage還是Hansen's Natural的子品牌。大多數擁有多個品牌的大公司都竭力讓公司名稱遠離公眾關注的焦點，然而Monster Beverage卻反其道而行之，用熱門子品牌換掉了公司名稱。

????杜克大學（DukeUniversity）營銷和心理學教授加萬?菲茨西蒙斯稱，過去20年來，很多大品牌開始整合并持有眾多形象相互沖突的子品牌 “有時這招很有效，有時效果不太好?！?/p>

????寶潔公司（Procter & Gamble）就是一個例子。他說，寶潔在管理子品牌的時候就淡化了寶潔品牌的宣傳。寶潔的一大堆子品牌包括丹碧絲（Tampax）、吉列（Gillette）和Swiffer等等。寶潔選擇讓每個子品牌獨立推廣，不大肆宣傳它們之間的關聯，因為如果一家公司的形象與Swiffer清潔用品或丹碧絲衛生棉條密切相關，要讓男性購買該公司出產的刮胡刀可能會讓他們感到有些難以接受。

????那些品牌整合失敗的案例部分原因就在于子品牌看起來與母公司不協調。比方說，莎莉（Sara Lee）在上世紀90年代積累了大量品牌，包括Jimmy Dean、 Haynes和Wonderbra。當時的想法是這些產品雖然不同，但可以到達同樣的客戶。但菲茨西蒙斯表示，消費者最終還是覺得難以將胸罩制造與香腸生產聯系在一起，所以這一策略最終失敗了。今年夏季，莎莉剝離了咖啡和茶品牌D.E. Master Blenders，并將公司更名為Hillshire Brands。Hillshire Brands依然出售Sara Lee甜品、Jimmy Dean香腸和BallPark熱狗等其他大包裝肉類品牌產品。

????任何品牌轉變都可能讓消費者感到困惑。就Monster更名而言，Hansen's品牌客戶是少數，因為更名前Monster對整個公司的營收貢獻就超過了90%。

????Hansen's Natural作為一個品牌與Monster的極限運動和比基尼戰衣女郎形象相差甚遠。休伯特?漢森和他的三個兒子在上世紀30年代創立了這家公司——他們在南加州銷售鮮榨果汁。上世紀70年代，漢森的一個兒子推出了天然蘇打水產品，這種飲料裝在有水果圖片裝飾的漂亮易拉罐中。公司適度盈利，1992年現任首席執行官羅德尼?塞克斯以1,450萬美元收購了這家公司。

????Energy drinks are hot right now. The market is global, growing, and young. Brands plaster their logos on arenas and extreme sports gear. And while Red Bull dominates the world market, Monster Beverages is catching up, account for a third of the energy drink market in the United States.

????The public also has Monster (MNST) on the brain because the company is being sued. The mother of a 14 year-old girl who died in December after having consumed a couple of Monster drinks is claiming that the Beverage played a part in her death. Monster denies any wrongdoing.

????Monster has unlikely roots for what it is today -- giant, massively profitable, and peddling a controversial, caffeine-heavy product. Before this January, Monster Beverage was known as Hansen's Natural. And while most big companies with several different brands under their umbrella are distancing their main name from the limelight, Monster Beverage is claiming its sub-brand as the company identity.

????Over the past 20 years, big brands have started to consolidate and contain many sub-brands with conflicting identities, says Gavan Fitzsimons, a professor of marketing and psychology at DukeUniversity. "Sometimes it works great, sometimes not so great," he adds.

????Procter & Gamble (PG), for example, has tried to manage its sub-brands by playing down the P&G name, Fitzsimons says. P&G peddles a bevy of brands including Tampax, Gillette and Swiffer. It chooses to let each stand on its own instead of trumpeting the connection between them – men might have a problem, for example, buying a razor from a company identified too heavily with Swiffer or Tampax.

????Those brand consolidations that fail do so, in part, because of the cognitive dissonance customers feel when a sub-brand doesn't seem to line up with the parent. Sara Lee, for example, accumulated a wealth of brands in the 1990s, including Jimmy Dean, Haynes, and Wonderbra. The idea was that the products, though different, could reach the same consumer. But customers ultimately had trouble reconciling their bra-maker with their sausage links, Fitzsimons says, and the strategy crumbled. This summer, it spun off its coffee and tea business, D.E. Master Blenders, and renamed the company formerly known as Sara Lee as Hillshire Brands (HSH). Hillshire Brands still sells Sara Lee desserts, Jimmy Dean links, and other big packaged meat brands such as BallPark hot dogs.

????Any branding shift could confuse customers. In Monster's case, the Hansen's customers are in the minority, since Monster drove over 90% of the company's revenue before it changed names.

????Still, Hansen's Natural's was about as far from Monster's extreme games and girls in bikinis rager image as a brand could be. Hubert Hansen and his three sons started the company in the 1930s -- they sold fresh fruit juices in southern California. In the 1970s, one of Hansen's sons introduced natural soda to the business, and the drinks had pretty cans with pictures of fruit on them. Business was profitable but modest by 1992, when its current CEO Rodney Sacks bought the company for $14.5 million.