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What do you call it when you take a reputable brand and swap out the quality product it is based on and substitute an inferior product, taking the temporary profits before people catch on? It’s not harvesting the brand. More like shorting brand equity via an insider trade.
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Most extreme examples are like that cult that bought Newsweek etc. But lots of subtler cases. And yeah, often a PE playbook move. It feels like the NYT has been doing it without even admitting it to itself.
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Much sharper and consciously deceptive quality-downs, not merely cost-downs or moving a brand downmarket, which tend to be more openly telegraphed.
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Uncomfortable question. Does this describe “Brand America”? Party of Lincoln —> Party of Trump. It’s still called the “Grand Old Party” and “Republican” though it is is the Petty New Party and openly monarchist. “Democrats” following fairly close behind.
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Trumpification oddly enough is not a good term for it. It’s an adjacent phenomenon. He likes to slap his low-value brand on higher-value things he buys with bad debt. The textbook play is to keep the higher-value brand as long as you can, and be discreet about your own role.
Replying to
Tunneling might be the closest concept to what I'm trying to nail here. There's definitely an element of at least fraud-in-spirit if not in-letter.
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Replying to @vgr
It’s related to the concept of tunneling en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling
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