K-Fed Ex and Jared from Subway Shack Up in Brand Brotherhood

The Fed Ex nickname is great, kudos to whomever came up with it deserves a bonus. K Fed sucked because it actually lent him some level of credibility, of which he deserved none. Fed Ex is spot on. This couple never made sense to me so it figures that only after it's over does anything make sense.

So what does Federal Express think about Fed Ex? There has to be a few people that have searched Fed Ex and have Federal Express come across the radar. Maybe a few even went to the web site, and I am certain that people have actually used FedEx over UPS simply because it was funny. Not sure if I see any negatives in this for Federal Express, seeing as you can't buy this kind of borderline buzz, especially in the fourth quarter.

This reminds me of when Jared tried Subway on for size and his 6 grams of fat diet that counteracted umpteen years of Big Macs. Did the jeweler Jared receive any benefit or detriment for simply existing with the same name? Did the Jared name in general get more or less popular and take Jared the Jeweler with it? Did Jared the Jeweler raise the Subway Jared's popularity?

Brand names can cross market borders. It seems that the well of brand names dries up more and more every day. Consider the rate that domains are being gobbled up. So what are marketers to do when the right name is in use in another market? The examples above are more for entertainment than practical market challenges. In both cases, the presence of the second instance of the brand is in an unrelated market. The Fed Ex nickname works better because FedEx exists outside of the celebrity market, although some would argue that FedEx is a celebrity business. The Subway Jared has enough range because even though Jared the Jeweler is a consumer focused brand, sandwiches and diamonds are not typically associated in the same sentence or paragraph. As markets expand, this will become more commonplace, and when it does, you'll see it markets that might be in the same town, but not the same neighborhood.