A lot of already successful companies have launched sub-brands in the past year or so. What’s interesting to note is that most of these sub-brands have been very successful in the market in a very short time. To think of it, most of these sub-brands have a very niche market: IUNI for pure grunt, Micromax’s Yu for CyanogenMod (and price), and so on.
It appears as though China’s Lenovo has now taken inspiration from these Chinese and Indian brands, and is in the works of launching its very own sub brand — Fancy Maker — next year. Since margins are low and stock needs to be moving, the new Lenovo sub brand will be online only, therefore following the likes of Xiaomi, OnePlus, etc. Which also means that the brand will be up against the aforementioned companies, besides other upcoming ones.
Lenovo recently completed acquisition of Motorola, a company that runs the ‘Moto Maker’ scheme to allow users customize their Motorola phones. One can’t help but wonder if Lenovo decided on the Fancy Maker name to get a kick out of the rhyme.
Coming back to the online-only model, we’d bet our money on some sort of an invite/registration process in place; although nothing on that has been officially announced by Lenovo yet. With more and more players stepping in the affordable flagship game, the year 2015 promises to be more than just exciting for the everyday tech enthusiast!
More manufacturers need to set up their online store ! It’s so easy and much cheaper than selling it using resellers and physical networks.
Fancy Maker? Really? Really?
If the phones are good no one will think twice about how bad the names are. The Chinese aren’t the greatest when it comes to naming their devices. We have seen such gems as: Red Rice, Monkey King, Kissme, Red Bull, and Zorro. And then there are the two brands with the least imaginable names: iNew and iOcean.
Lenovo has other antics like Sisley or Golden Warrior. Red Rice is funny but it doesn’t sound bad to me. The most hilarious names in my opinion are Dakele Small Cola and Doogee Kissme. Personally I like when branding is Chinese like Jiayu, Meizu, Xiaomi, there is no need for bad English names such as Elephone, Ulefone KingSing, Doogee, iNew, iOcean. My friends always laugh at the naming when I talk about Chinese phones.
…Little Pepper…
Who names these things?
One of the most successful sub brands has been OPO for OPPO/Vivo. Although they continue to try to claim to be a small independent startup which is just hilarious.