????眼下，功能飲料正火。全球范圍內(nèi)這一市場(chǎng)方興未艾。相關(guān)品牌標(biāo)識(shí)紛紛出現(xiàn)在運(yùn)動(dòng)場(chǎng)和極限運(yùn)動(dòng)裝備之上。雖然紅牛（Red Bull）依然主導(dǎo)全球市場(chǎng)，但占據(jù)美國(guó)功能飲料1/3市場(chǎng)的Monster Beverages正在迎頭趕上。

????公眾對(duì)Monster應(yīng)該有點(diǎn)印象，因?yàn)檫@家公司正在面臨一場(chǎng)官司。去年12月，一位14歲女孩在喝下幾罐Monster飲料后死亡，她的母親指控這款飲料部分導(dǎo)致了女孩的死亡。Monster否認(rèn)存在任何過(guò)錯(cuò)。

????追本溯源，Monster能走到今天這一步也有些不可思議：規(guī)模龐大，利潤(rùn)豐厚，以及出售一款頗有爭(zhēng)議的富含咖啡因產(chǎn)品。今年1月之前，Monster Beverage還是Hansen's Natural的子品牌。大多數(shù)擁有多個(gè)品牌的大公司都竭力讓公司名稱遠(yuǎn)離公眾關(guān)注的焦點(diǎn)，然而Monster Beverage卻反其道而行之，用熱門子品牌換掉了公司名稱。

????杜克大學(xué)（DukeUniversity）營(yíng)銷和心理學(xué)教授加萬(wàn)?菲茨西蒙斯稱，過(guò)去20年來(lái)，很多大品牌開(kāi)始整合并持有眾多形象相互沖突的子品牌 “有時(shí)這招很有效，有時(shí)效果不太好。”

????寶潔公司（Procter & Gamble）就是一個(gè)例子。他說(shuō)，寶潔在管理子品牌的時(shí)候就淡化了寶潔品牌的宣傳。寶潔的一大堆子品牌包括丹碧絲（Tampax）、吉列（Gillette）和Swiffer等等。寶潔選擇讓每個(gè)子品牌獨(dú)立推廣，不大肆宣傳它們之間的關(guān)聯(lián)，因?yàn)槿绻患夜镜男蜗笈cSwiffer清潔用品或丹碧絲衛(wèi)生棉條密切相關(guān)，要讓男性購(gòu)買該公司出產(chǎn)的刮胡刀可能會(huì)讓他們感到有些難以接受。

????那些品牌整合失敗的案例部分原因就在于子品牌看起來(lái)與母公司不協(xié)調(diào)。比方說(shuō)，莎莉（Sara Lee）在上世紀(jì)90年代積累了大量品牌，包括Jimmy Dean、 Haynes和Wonderbra。當(dāng)時(shí)的想法是這些產(chǎn)品雖然不同，但可以到達(dá)同樣的客戶。但菲茨西蒙斯表示，消費(fèi)者最終還是覺(jué)得難以將胸罩制造與香腸生產(chǎn)聯(lián)系在一起，所以這一策略最終失敗了。今年夏季，莎莉剝離了咖啡和茶品牌D.E. Master Blenders，并將公司更名為Hillshire Brands。Hillshire Brands依然出售Sara Lee甜品、Jimmy Dean香腸和BallPark熱狗等其他大包裝肉類品牌產(chǎn)品。

????任何品牌轉(zhuǎn)變都可能讓消費(fèi)者感到困惑。就Monster更名而言，Hansen's品牌客戶是少數(shù)，因?yàn)楦癕onster對(duì)整個(gè)公司的營(yíng)收貢獻(xiàn)就超過(guò)了90%。

????Hansen's Natural作為一個(gè)品牌與Monster的極限運(yùn)動(dòng)和比基尼戰(zhàn)衣女郎形象相差甚遠(yuǎn)。休伯特?漢森和他的三個(gè)兒子在上世紀(jì)30年代創(chuàng)立了這家公司——他們?cè)谀霞又蒌N售鮮榨果汁。上世紀(jì)70年代，漢森的一個(gè)兒子推出了天然蘇打水產(chǎn)品，這種飲料裝在有水果圖片裝飾的漂亮易拉罐中。公司適度盈利，1992年現(xiàn)任首席執(zhí)行官羅德尼?塞克斯以1,450萬(wàn)美元收購(gòu)了這家公司。

????Energy drinks are hot right now. The market is global, growing, and young. Brands plaster their logos on arenas and extreme sports gear. And while Red Bull dominates the world market, Monster Beverages is catching up, account for a third of the energy drink market in the United States.

????The public also has Monster (MNST) on the brain because the company is being sued. The mother of a 14 year-old girl who died in December after having consumed a couple of Monster drinks is claiming that the Beverage played a part in her death. Monster denies any wrongdoing.

????Monster has unlikely roots for what it is today -- giant, massively profitable, and peddling a controversial, caffeine-heavy product. Before this January, Monster Beverage was known as Hansen's Natural. And while most big companies with several different brands under their umbrella are distancing their main name from the limelight, Monster Beverage is claiming its sub-brand as the company identity.

????Over the past 20 years, big brands have started to consolidate and contain many sub-brands with conflicting identities, says Gavan Fitzsimons, a professor of marketing and psychology at DukeUniversity. "Sometimes it works great, sometimes not so great," he adds.

????Procter & Gamble (PG), for example, has tried to manage its sub-brands by playing down the P&G name, Fitzsimons says. P&G peddles a bevy of brands including Tampax, Gillette and Swiffer. It chooses to let each stand on its own instead of trumpeting the connection between them – men might have a problem, for example, buying a razor from a company identified too heavily with Swiffer or Tampax.

????Those brand consolidations that fail do so, in part, because of the cognitive dissonance customers feel when a sub-brand doesn't seem to line up with the parent. Sara Lee, for example, accumulated a wealth of brands in the 1990s, including Jimmy Dean, Haynes, and Wonderbra. The idea was that the products, though different, could reach the same consumer. But customers ultimately had trouble reconciling their bra-maker with their sausage links, Fitzsimons says, and the strategy crumbled. This summer, it spun off its coffee and tea business, D.E. Master Blenders, and renamed the company formerly known as Sara Lee as Hillshire Brands (HSH). Hillshire Brands still sells Sara Lee desserts, Jimmy Dean links, and other big packaged meat brands such as BallPark hot dogs.

????Any branding shift could confuse customers. In Monster's case, the Hansen's customers are in the minority, since Monster drove over 90% of the company's revenue before it changed names.

????Still, Hansen's Natural's was about as far from Monster's extreme games and girls in bikinis rager image as a brand could be. Hubert Hansen and his three sons started the company in the 1930s -- they sold fresh fruit juices in southern California. In the 1970s, one of Hansen's sons introduced natural soda to the business, and the drinks had pretty cans with pictures of fruit on them. Business was profitable but modest by 1992, when its current CEO Rodney Sacks bought the company for $14.5 million.