How to ruin a household brand name

I have discovered 5 easy steps to taking a million dollar brand name and run it into the ground so it not only loses credibility, but becomes synonymous with the exact opposite of its original intention.

• Step 1: Create a fantastic concept and sweep it nationwide. Base your concept on giving folks tips on making beautiful household decorations, foods, and crafts out of everyday items. Become so popular that your very name brings to mind a do-it-yourself can-do attitude and quality and sophistication. Be the model by which all domestics aspire to.
  
• Step 2: After your reputation is established, begin licensing your name to mass produced merchandise sold in big box stores known for low quality cheap goods sold largely to low income markets. Add a shred of credibility to the project by at least selecting colors, patterns, and themes.
  
• Step 3: Abandon the DIY attitude and focus on themes that encourage people to buy more mass produced products instead of making things on their own with everyday household items.
  
• Step 4: Overprice these goods so that the low income market they are catering to will not want to buy them, and the high class market that they would appeal to won't have them available because they are sold in stores that they wouldn't step foot in.
  
• Step 5: Abandon all pretense of class by taking an existing product already in popular and in mass production and slap a label with your name on it and jack up the price for no apparent reason.

As a big wine drinker, I am appalled that Martha Stewart is "rebranding" Ernest & Gallo wine. Not only does Martha bring nothing to the wine business by doing this, but she has yet again chosen a product that is known for it's cheap availability. She could have only done worse by putting her face on a box of white zinfandel.

It is sad that Martha Stewart, who was once the "diva of all things domestic" has become a poster child for commercialization and brand consumerism. I would probably try Martha Stewart wine if it wasn't for one important thing, she doesn't have a vineyard, so Martha Stewart Wine really doesn't mean anything.

The good news is that if you already enjoy Ernest & Gallo, you're already drinking her "new" vintage.