Last week I wrote a post about how Paramount Pictures is starting a new division to distribute indie films called Paramount Vantage. A reader named Jon from Strategic Name Development emailed me saying that his company's blog has an entry about this as well. Not only does it comment on the Paramount change but it also discusses the arms of other major studios that deal in indie/arty fair. Check out "Product Naming: Paramount Gets Arty".
Obviously Jon and his fellow workers at SND know a helluva lot more about brand-name development & recognition than I do but I agree with this comment at the blog wholeheartedly:
This seems like a tortured name architecture to me. Or a typical "split the baby" corporate name decision.
I highly doubt that the majority of the movie-going public bases their decisions about what films to see based on distributor. Even I, a guy who took many film classes in college and is a bit of a film snob, don't look at distributor that much in making my choices. (However, if I see, say, Channel Four or National Film Board of Canada listed as one of the production companies, this will catch my attention and make my ears perk up.) I will admit, though, that Sony Pictures Classics gives me the warm fuzzies because they tend to be responsible for re-releasing, um, classics back into the theaters that I go see - the most recent being The Passenger. So I guess it's fair to say that Sony has all the name-brand recognition I have to offer to a major film distributor.
Going back to Paramount, I'd opine that changing a name won't do much alone for business - they've also got to choose films differently and/or market them more effectively. But this is my view from without the film industry and I'm sure that Paramount has a desire to foster name recognition with those within the industry and I would imagine that personnel changes are going to be the marker of improvement for these people.
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