Too Much Touch

Our favorite handset maker, HTC, may be painting itself into a brand corner, WM Experts calls out today. The company has a slew of new products coming to market, including a highly anticipated Android phone. And yet they may be relying a bit too heavily in the Touch ingredient brand.

Named for the gorgeous TouchFLO interface, the Touch brand is being slapped onto every new phone that the company has in its pipeline. Its all too common a marketing mistake--create a solid product or ingredient brand and then "love it to death". Moto's RAZR is the classic example of the risks inherent in this approach.

The situation is particularly problematic for HTC because they have built so little equity into their product brands that the ingredient becomes a key (and ultimately meaningless) product handle. Their announcement May 6 in London should shed more light on their plans.