hutch and vodafone..

This is somethig thats really been troubling me. Having spent so many years in the advertising business this incident is really been a eye opener. Like a true blue adman, "brand" to me, is sacrosanct. But funny things happen! I've kind of thrown out all the manuals and flushed the brand gibberrish bouncing around in my head. Hutch and Vodafone! Hutch, as we all know, was one of the premier cell service brands in the country. The brand had carefully been nurtured over the years. Surprisingly, Hutch did not rely to much on any bollywood or a cricket personality. One of it smost endearing campaigns was a magnificent tune and an even more compelling ambassador - a pug! Beautifully done and exceedingly well executed the campaign was a classic and was the topic of conversation in most urban tete-a-tete's. Positioning, minds space ownership, brand retention and value had all been achieved - text book style! All this of course with the help of really fat cheques to the creative and the media buying agency.

Then look what happens! A much talked about take over, thousands of reams of paper and tons of pixels on TV later, and of course a few billion dollars exchanging hands, Hutch becomes Voddafone! Pug included!! And what happens to the Hutch brand... it makes one of the smoothest change overs to the Vodafone banner! So? What does that tell us about branding. If LG bought Onida, would they use the Devil? If Nirma and Surf got merged, would the new management revive Lataji? Is any space anywhere in branding sacrosant anymore? Dont look like it from where i am!