[Foundation-l] Rethinking brands

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On 5/9/07, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>

<snippage>

>
> It seems to me WMF just needs to work on its branding within the
> Wikimedia communities. :) How did you (WMF) let communities develop
> and devolve away from your - our - core beliefs and values? What are
> you doing to prevent to reduce that disconnect?
>

<snippage>

>
> Well if you propose to rename everything "Wikimedia _", I would
> probably agree with that. Strengthening the Wikimedia brand == good.
> Replacing it with the Wikipedia brand, er...
>

I think this is a vastly more useful suggestion. There is even no need
to _officially_ rename everything. We *are* Wikimedia, and this merely
needs a change in behaviour in referring to our projects, no need to
confuse the issue by renaming.

What ought to be done, is to make it a point to call (whichever
project we are referring to) our projects in the style of
<projectname> of Wikimedia or "The Wikimedia <projectname>" or some
more euphoniously structured combined form of the overarching
Wikimedia community and the specific project under its aegis.

I remember vividly how presenters of the CNBC business channel never
tired of repeating they were a subsidiary of GE. It got so repetitive
that it was nearly comical, but it made the point, and I doubt nobody
forgot they were run by that organization whether they were discussing
GE stock or not. This is what we need to do, repeat we are run by
Wikimedia, so many times, so repetitively that people begin to tire of
us repeating it over and over and over and over again.

This is the only thing really needed. Repetition, repetition,
redundant superfluous repetition ad nauseam to an extent that makes
people reporting on us bored to tears of our excessive repetition of
Wikimedia, Wikimedia, Wikimedia, nothing but Wikimedia.

--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]