Should this carry your name, or a new one?

Why would Apple ever launch something off-brand?

It would make very little sense. The name is one of the most valuable assets the company owns, and it can be applied to almost anything they choose to make. They have sub-brands, certainly, but the relationship is never in doubt. You always know whose product you are holding.

Let's compare that to Procter and Gamble, which owns a long list of brands, many of them sitting next to each other on the same supermarket shelf without ever mentioning their parent, apart from a tiny logo on the back of the packaging. Or Alphabet, where some brands are famous and others give no sign at all of who owns them.

None of these companies is confused. All of them made a conscious decision on how to build and leverage their brand best.

Innovation teams often assume that a house brand is the best path forward.

Sometimes that is right. Sometimes it isn't. What matters is that it should be a deliberate choice, rather than a passive assumption.

Two things are worth considering.

First, how much of your value sits in the name itself? If your company is effectively the brand, a new name throws away an existing competitive advantage, and the new thing starts from zero for no good reason.

Second, what does the new offer ask of your existing customers? If it asks them to think differently about who you are, the house brand will drag on it, and it will drag on the house brand in return. A separate name might be a better fit then.

There is also a third option that gets forgotten. Existing products, new brand, new narrative, aimed at a segment that responds to a different story. Nothing in the value creation chain changes, but the perception does.

After all, what good is the best solution if no one knows its name?