When Branding Gets Too Clever, Customers Get Confused
Back in 2006, I ordered my first BMW 5 Series. I waited months for it. And like a lot of people, I told myself, “One day, I’ll get an M.”
Because back then, an M badge meant something. It meant exclusivity. Engineering. Purpose. A very specific identity within the BMW lineup.
Fast forward to today. I recently went to look at BMWs again — not even for me, for my wife — and I noticed something immediately:
It felt like every car on the lot had an M badge.
The exclusivity was gone. The clarity was gone. And honestly, the meaning of “M” was gone.
That’s the problem.
The naming structure has gotten so convoluted that even someone who has followed the brand for years has to stop and ask, “Wait… is an M440i closer to an M4? Is an M4 supposed to be better because it has the single digit? Why does everything have an M on it now?”
This is what happens when marketing gets too much creative freedom and the engineers are left standing there thinking, “That’s not what this was supposed to be.”
Brands do this all the time.
They take something clear, functional, and well-understood… and they start layering on trims, sub-trims, badges, micro-variants, and new naming conventions. Suddenly the thing that once had a simple identity becomes a maze of labels that only a product manager could love.
Here’s the lesson: don’t dilute your product naming.
People don’t want to decode your lineup. They don’t want a puzzle. They don’t want to understand your internal org chart or your marketing strategy. They want to know — immediately — what something is, where it sits in the hierarchy, and why it matters.
BMW didn’t become BMW because of confusion. It became BMW because the names meant something.
And when meaning erodes, value erodes with it.
This is the point for any brand:
If customers can’t tell what makes something special, then nothing is special.
Keep it simple. Keep it clear. And protect the things that actually create identity and value.
Because once you dilute it, you don’t get it back.
