In Defense Of…9.07.05: The Brand Extension (Part 1 Of 3)

Posted by JP Prag on 09.07.2005

After this case, In Defense Of… will be splitting into the “In Defense" and “Of"brands. The two brands will share the “…"

In Defense of…
By JP Prag

Issue #19

The Brand Extension (Part 1 of 3)

Intro

Hello my long time supporters and new readers alike, and welcome to the first ever Wednesday edition of In Defense Of…! Last week we FINALLY finished off the case of the IWC vs. Goldberg, which can be read in the intentional Part 1, the unintentional Part 2, and the uber-unintentional Part 3. Gosh darn, that case just kept up picking steam.

Of course, that is with good reason. Because with 81.1% of the vote, Goldberg has been found:

NOT GUILTY!

Ha! That wasn’t even close. I was so worried, as were many of the not guilty people. I am glad to see the new law of the IWC was met with praise (except for one person, who could not believe that I would dare lay down rules to how people can read my writing. Well, he does have a point, but I still dare!). This shows me that people are capable of being incredibly positive and open, so I am proud of all that we have done.

Speaking of positive, have you had a chance to check out Hidden Highlights yet? JT and I bring you a great new article that is all about changing the way we watch and enjoy wrestling. Check it out each and every Sunday morning in the former home of this article.

Speaking of this article, we should start to get to the case at hand!

Still, perhaps this is your first time clicking on In Defense Of…? Maybe you didn’t read about Goldberg, Vince not buying out WCW’s contracts, Earl Hebner Screwing Bret Hart, Dusty Rhodes: Head Booker, The Finger Poke of Doom, Kevin Nash, the Elimination Chamber, or even Eric Bischoff. It might be that you are only a fan of the modern WWE, or that you never came to 411mania on a weekend. Well, for those new to the concept, this article has a pretty simple premise:

Certain people, events, organizations, and storylines in wrestling history have gotten a bum wrap. Certain writers have presented overtly critical comments and outright lies as fact, and others have followed suit. Well no more! “In Defense of…” has one reason: to bring the truth to the wrestling fan!

And that’s what I intend to do.

Me? I’m the One and Only JP, and I think I found a new place to live! I never said that was necessarily a good thing.

Some dame walked into my office and said…

Three and half months ago (now you are starting to understand my backlog) regular 411 reader Manu Bumb (who appears in many reader write-in sections all over the net) came to me with a very compelling story:

How about the brand extension? I hear people giving it crap all the time, but I still think [it’s] awesome, even if it hasn't reached maturity yet. I think, 10 years down the road, with minimal interaction between the shows and minimal trading, the draft lottery will pay off… The brand extension was never meant to work overnight. They need to build superstars first, who will be the future of this business…

And there were quite a few good points before, the middle, and after those “…”, but I think we will save them for the case!

Why this?

Manu has a huge point; people have ripped on the brand extension since the beginning. It is the same thing I highlighted in The Elimination Chamber case. Before ever getting to see something, people have already judged its worth and decided whether or not they like it. From that point on, it does not matter what they see, they will let their initial prejudices blind them to all the good that is happening.

The Brand Extension is a long term project meant to change the way the WWE does business. We are only a few years into it, but so much has happened. The next few issues will explore the intentions of the brand extension, what it has accomplished, and where it is going. This will be an odd case because everything is not what has happened, but more about giving something the chance TO happen.

What is a brand?

When we talk about a brand, what do we really mean? In the normal business sense, a brand is an image, logo, or trademarked line that is immediately identifiable with a company or a product. For instance, when you see a swoosh you think Nike. Or when you see lightning bolts on a plastic bottle you think Gatorade. The most successful brands are the ones when you see it you know the product, the company, and the image it is supposed to represent.

A brand does not have to be limited to the visual sense. It could be oratory, also (“I’m loving it!” = McDonald’s). In another sense, it can also be a feeling. When someone says, “Let’s go to Burger King, Wendy’s, or McDonald’s” you have an immediate emotional reaction to each company’s name, and a preference that comes to mind. That is your brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is the emotional connection you feel to a company name or image, and it is how companies consider you a customer.

For years, the brand of the WWF was the WWF, and you had a reaction to it. Whether that was positive or negative depends on the person. As time went on, the WWF established other brands, such as Wrestlemania and Summerslam. These events became so big they were established names unto themselves beyond the WWF, and existed whether someone were aware of the WWF as a company or not. Later yet, the WWF turned from a touring performance company to a television entertainment company. With that came the advent of RAW (formerly and apparently presently according to my DVR Monday Night Raw) and SmackDown! (now Friday night SmackDown!, except for this week, maybe). During the late 90’s, people often knew of the shows RAW and SmackDown! whether or not they necessarily knew much of the WWF. The two shows had become brands unto themselves. More on this in a minute.

The WWF went through a major change when it was forced to drop the F and add an E. The WWF brand had become synonymous with wrestling in general. When people talked about wrestling, they often qualified it with “WWF wrestling”. Or when someone mentioned a fight, they would say, “Like in the WWF?” You see, having a brand being recognized as the industry is not always a good thing, though.

Let’s say you are the Band-aid company. Band-aid is a brand that has become synonymous with adhesive strips. Now everyone else who sells adhesive strips is living off of the Band-aid name and gets free advertising whenever someone says Band-aid. The same goes for Q-tip (cotton swab), Kleenex (tissue), Xerox (carbon copy), Post-It Notes (sticky pads), Tupperware (reusable plastic container), Rollerblades (in-line skates), AstroTurf (artificial grass), Jell-O (gelatin desert), and Ramen (instant noodles); and even Fed Ex (shipping) and Google (internet search) are recently falling prey to losing brand recognition. Some would have you believe that when your brand is synonymous with the product or the industry, you are the ultimate success. But that could not be further from the truth. When your brand is used to describe an entire industry or product, then it is worthless and you gain nothing from it. If all chocolates were called Godivas, then would you go to the Godiva store and spend four times the normal cost for chocolate? If all soaps were called Dove bars, would you buy Dove or the generic store brand?

The choice is clear. Losing your brand means losing all of the power and value that goes along with it.

Even during WCW’s height, people referred to it as WWF wrestling. Read the old interviews with Goldberg, Sting, or Hogan during WCW’s top days, and the uniformed will still call them WWF wrestlers. WWF had become wrestling in general, and was worth a lot less at that time.

When the WWF purchased WCW, then it did not matter anymore. They had a near monopoly on the industry and therefore did not need to reinforce to people that there was a difference between wrestling in general and the WWF.

But that was not so in the days of the Monday Night Wars. Since WWF already meant wrestling, they needed to find a way to attract and keep an audience on their programming and not on WCW’s. Hence, a new focus came: RAW and SmackDown!

The advertising for the late 90’s focused on getting people to tune into RAW or SmackDown!, not into the WWF. The same was true in WCW, people were asked to tune into Nitro and Thunder, not WCW. It was “Tonight on RAW: Stone Cold confronts the Rock”. It was not “Tonight in the WWF: Stone Cold confronts the Rock”. There is a subtle difference, but it was how the WWF attracted an audience. They made sure that people, especially the casual fans, knew the difference between RAW and Nitro since they could not teach them the difference between the WWF and WCW. This worked as people knew Stone Cold and the Rock were on RAW while Goldberg and Sting were on Nitro. They may have called it all wrestling or WWF, but they knew the difference in the shows.

This, obviously, became crucial in the deciding factors of the Monday Night Wars. By making their drawing factors in line with a television name brand, it allowed the WWF to gain and maintain the casual fan audience and media attention that eventually led to them winning the war.

After the war was won and the dust cleared, the WWF faced a new problem. They lost the F and gained an E, but the mass media and the casual audience did not know. To them, the WWF equated to wrestling, and that was all there was to it. Those people (and most wrestling enthusiast) did not recognize the WWE as a brand name that they equated with wrestling. Even the few articles that did appear about wrestling at this point or with former wrestling stars usually said “WWF” (even if that person were never in the WWF). What was the WWE to do?

Well, because of the Monday Night Wars, they had developed RAW and SmackDown! into brands of their own, and they were the only brands (outside of the major PPVs) the company still owned that the casual audience would recognize.

When they decided to split the company into two traveling units, they decided that each company was going to go under the WWE (unrecognized brand) corporate umbrella. But they needed something the audience would recognize right away. They could not call one of them WWE and the other WCW or ECW or the Federation or any such thing (more on this later). They needed something the audience immediately recognized with the style of the WWE product, and those names were RAW and SmackDown!.

And as time has moved on, the WWE has discovered a new tidbit: 70% of the audience is Brand loyal. That means that only 30% of the audience watches both RAW and SmackDown! while the remainder only watch one or the other! Don’t believe it? Just take a look though the message board at all the people that are “protesting” watching SmackDown! or don’t get Spike TV (most people get USA, right?). The RAW and SmackDown! brands attracted and have retained different audiences based on their style, wrestlers, and availability.

So the WWE has been working for past year to create cross-over brand appeal to expand both audiences.

Now, a network rating point equals about 1,096,000 households and last week SmackDown! did a 3.0 network ratings. That means there are about 2.3 million people who are watching SmackDown who are not watching RAW. There is a potential audience to plow with a whole other product. The brand extension revealed that there is a WWE to be built with the existing audience, not just outside of it.

You might ask, though, why the WWE would go through the brand extension in the first place? After all, in 2002 they were the WWF, the InVasion was over, and there was a whole new world ahead.

But why oh why oh why would they ever do this?

Who better to ask then the WWE itself. In December 2003, the WWE posted this in their FAQ section of their website in response to the question "What was the reason for the brand extension?":

The brand extension has enabled WWE to create two separate and distinct television shows that would provide the opportunity to develop and establish new WWE Superstars. The RAW and SmackDown! brands each have a touring company, thereby enabling us to increase the number of international live events yet lower the number of events at which each of our Superstars performs. Fewer events extend the careers of existing talent while provide more exposure to new talent. As well, there is the further opportunity to develop more pay-per-view events and distinctive consumer products. The company is considering increasing the number of pay-per-view events to 14 in fiscal 2005.

Quite a bit covered there, and we will explore the success of each, but let us just now focus on the intentions of the WWE:

(1) They wanted to establish new stars. Being the only game in town, they had most of main event talent already under contract and would likely gain the rest over time. They wanted to split those talents up to have others enter the mix.

(2) They wanted to have more live events to create more gate revenue and give more talent a chance to get practice and develop. On the same token, they did not want a single wrestler to appear at five shows a week and instead be at 3-4, thus keeping their body and mind in better shape. This would also lower the probability of injuries for these wrestlers.

(3) They wanted to add more PPVs. Having one company meant they could only have 12 PPVs overall. But only a year before the brand extension there were 12 WWF, 12 WCW, and 6 ECW PPVs a year. The WWF felt that there was an untapped market who purchased those PPVs who now had extra income that could be used on WWF PPV products instead.

Of course, there was the unstated reason here: the WWF/E wanted to create its own internal competition. They ruled the wrestling world and needed to find a way to innovate and re-attract the casual and WCW audience. So the brands were set up and given distinctive flavors. You may notice that the color red now equals RAW and blue equal SmackDown!, or that big guest stars show up on RAW while the future champions first appear on SmackDown!. The shows have been developing more branding over time, quite different from where they started.

The Beginnings of the Extension to Today

On March 18, 2002, WWF CEO Linda McMahon announced that since co-owners Vince McMahon and Ric Flair could not work together, they would be separated permanently.

Aside: Just to clear this up so this storyline so it makes sense, McMahon and Flair each owned 50% of the Class B super voting stock, while the rest of us out in the stock market owned a percentage of Class A regular stock. Every share of Class B stock was worth 10 times the voting power of Class A—that is, one stock of Class A would get me one vote at a stock holders meeting while one stock of Class B would get me ten. Since each owned shares that far outweighed the voting power of Class A stock, they could do whatever they wanted in the company… to an extent. You see, the Board of Directors had become the official overseers and decision makers of the company in the best interest of all share holders. Although they are voted on by the amount of stock you have, they are only voted on once a year. So even if Flair and McMahon did not like their decisions, they still had to adhere to them until they could use their voting power to remove a board member a year later. So the board of directors through Linda McMahon decided to split the company in two and give each of the two Class B controlling stock holders control over one half of the company. Since their personal rivalry was hurting the company and thus the stockholders, the only fair solution was to get them away from each other since they could not get the controlling stock away from either.

The next week on RAW, each owner would get a chance to pick a superstar or tag team or stable (depending on the contracts of those teams) one at a time, alternating evenly. Each would have ten picks and then the rest would be randomly assigned. The Undisputed World Champion (Triple H) and Women’s World Champion (Jazz) were off limits since they would float between brands to defend their titles, as was Stone Cold due to a contract clause. McMahon got to pick first since he won a coin toss.

There are a number of interesting choices, but at the end of the day SmackDown! had the Tag Team, Hardcore, and Cruiserweight championships while RAW had European and Intercontinental. Well actually, Raven defeated Maven for the Hardcore title on the last mixed brand SmackDown!, so that belt went back to RAW.

Problems arose early as Ric Flair tried to make the Undertaker the #1 contender, but McMahon said he had first pick by virtue of the coin toss. So Hollywood Hulk Hogan became the #1 contender for Backlash, and RAW and SmackDown! would trade PPV main events each month. At this point, there was very little difference in the brands, and they shared everything except a couple of titles and TV time slots.

Another problem arose after Hogan defeated Triple H for the title. Triple H then became a SmackDown! wrestler but still kept showing up on RAW. There was no way to control him and no penalty to do so. The Undertaker then started showing up on SmackDown!. What were the owners to do? This could not go on.

And then the WWF became the WWE! Too many things were happening.

Jazz also then lost the Women’s Championship to Trish Stratus, thus making her part of the RAW roster as had happened to Triple H. Finally all the superstars had a core brand (even Stone Cold had previously signed with RAW).

Later yet, we learn that when SmackDown! superstar Chris Benoit showed up on RAW he was allowed to do so because he was injured and not on the active roster. So apparently, only being an active wrestler keeps you on a brand.

Things were going too crazy and the brand extension needed a new direction. Vince decided to do that by defeating Ric Flair in winner-takes-all-ownership match on RAW on June 10, 2002. It would seem that the brand extension would be over, then. But wait! Remember in the aside that I explained that the board of directors can control the final say in the WWE, and can only be voted out once a year? Well, despite Vince having so much clout, the board of directors, from a storyline point of view, were happy with the brand extension and wanted more of it. Vince, then, had to placate them.

After a month of planning, the WWE came up with a new direction: General Managers. Each would be in control of their brand and report to Vince as the ultimate overseer. On July 15, 2002, Eric Bischoff became the GM of RAW, followed a few days later by Stephanie McMahon becoming the GM of SmackDown! Thus, the Brand Extension Version 2.0 was born!

Vince also announced that superstars were now allowed to negotiate with either brand’s GM to get the best deal they could. Immediately, an open back and forth trading war ensued. Not just people, though, but titles. The entire structure of the original draft was changing. Meanwhile, the European and Hardcore titles merged into the IC title, creating one major mid-card title.

Then the unthinkable happens. Brock Lesner, the Undisputed Champion, refused to appear on RAW or face any RAW challengers. The championship became in dispute. As I said in In Defense of… The Elimination Chamber (Part 2 of 3):

Things were looking grim, especially when the Undertaker jumped to SmackDown! that week and defeated Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle in a triple threat match (how poetic) to become the new #1 contender.

What was Eric Bischoff to do? Well, all though the weekend, there was much backstage wheeling and dealing, but McMahon would not budge. He had one choice. On Raw on September 2, 2002, Eric Bischoff said the Undisputed Championship was now in dispute. Since Brock Lesner refused to meet the #1 contender for the title, the rightful #1 contender Triple H would be awarded what made up one half of the Undisputed Championship: the venerable World Heavyweight Championship.

Debate all you want about the lineage of that belt (and we will in Issue #45), there is plenty of precedent for stripping the champion of the belt and awarding it to the challenger if the champion refuses to meet the challenger. In 1929, the National Boxing Association withdrew it’s recognition of Gus Sonnenberg as World Heavyweight Champion when he refused to meet credible challengers. The NBA (and later the National Wrestling Association) then had a tournament to crown the rightful World Heavyweight Champion, which was won by Dick Shikat when he defeated Jim Londos. This branch of the title would remain disputed until 1948-1952, when Lou Thesz started gathering all the World Heavyweight Championships to become a true Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion. So we can see from this example that Bischoff has plenty of history to look back on when it comes to withdrawing recognition of a champion and awarding it to someone who he thinks is the rightful and worthy title holder.

At the same time, the women’s championship also became exclusive to RAW for the same reasons, though Stephanie did not chose to dispute it. Now, each brand now had a top World Champion of its own, with a Women’s, Tag Team, and IC title on RAW and a Cruiserweight Title on SmackDown! On September 22, 2002, the open contract period came to an end, and each brand was forced to build from the inside. Version 2.5 had begun.

SmackDown! focused on wrestling and had two top athletes, Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle, win the newly created WWE tag team championships. Over time, fighting between these two, Los Guerreros, Edge, and Rey Mysterio (affectionately dubbed the SmackDown! Six) would highlight SmackDown! for months to come. Meanwhile, RAW became more about storylines and flash, with things like Katie Vick, HLA, and returning stars like Scott Steiner and Kevin Nash. Also, the IC title merged into the World Heavyweight Championship, meaning each side now had an even (odd?) three titles.

Wrestlemania approached and the Royal Rumble was given a new twist. Each brand would get 15 superstars, and the winner would get to face “the world champion” in the main event of Wrestlemania. Brock Lesner won and went on to defeat Kurt Angle in the main event.

Things stayed quiet for a while with some minor trades and the return of the IC championship. That is until Version 3.0 of the Brand Extension began on June 15, 2005 with the first ever brand-only PPV (RAW), Bad Blood. In an interview, Jim Ross had this to say:

BS: Wrestlers have the incentive for Sunday at the ppv, obviously putting on the best show they can besides the financial reasons, but this will be the first brand-only, RAW-only ppv. What's the mood around Connecticut? Are the WWE offices a little bit more tense than normal? Any sort of expectations or ramifications come out of this ppv?

JR: No, I think it's business as normal. I think everybody's looking forward to it. The guys have a--there's a friendly, natural rivilary between the RAW and Smackdown rosters. We don't have that ECW 'Us Against the World' mentality. Which I think is counterproductive, as far as, the RAW guys hating the Smackdown guys. Or Michael Cole and Tazz knocking JR and King and vice versa. I don't think that, to me, is a positive. At least that's my view, I could be wrong on that. I think there is a very friendly, competitive nature with the rosters.

You see that manifest itself when we have our co-jointly produced ppvs when all the guys are in the locker room at the same time. I think the guys on RAW are probably gonna be, will rise to the occassion, because they know their peers are going to be watching. I think it's a pretty healthy environment right now. Really, Brian, I think everybody is pumped up and it's gameday. Sunday, you go out and you get it done. And I think that's what we're intending to do.

And life goes on. SmackDown! had it’s brand-only PPVs, the two shared major PPVs, King of the Ring went away, the United States Championship came back. Paul Heyman, Kurt Angle, and Theodore Long became the GM of the SmackDown! while Mick Foley and Steve Austin both took temporary co-leadership roles on RAW. People came, and people went, trades happened, new people premiered, new gimmicks were formed. The mode changed, the day changed, there was a lot of change going on. New rules were formed (the winner of the Royal Rumble can pick their brand champion to face), new events were formed (draft lottery, RAW vs. SmackDown! color wars), and some wrestlers found they have never seen the other brand. This is Version 3.5 of the Brand Extension still going on today, but definitely not the end of it.

The point of all of that? The Brand Extension is a work in progress! The WWE has recognized that things need to change, and they are constantly trying to make it a better experience while also creating cross-brand appeal (have to attract the rest of that 70%). Is it perfect yet? No. Are they trying to get there? Yes!

And the WWE will not get there if all we say is “the brand extension sucks. It’s a failure and they should reunite the brands.” I’ll get to that last point in Part 3, but you should know by now that being critical without a recommendation yields nothing. The only thing that is going to make the brand extension better is to let the WWE know what we like about it and where we can see improvement. They are in it for the long haul, and we as the audience have the responsibility to give suggestions that improve the product, not just be counter to it.

But I’m afraid there is one suggestion that just will not fly.

Where’s my brand?

Over the life of the Brand Extension, one thing that keeps popping up to the surface is the names of the brands: RAW and SmackDown!. Many people have come on and asked why not name the brands WCW or ECW? Those are certainly recognized products that would draw well!

That may be so, but think about this. Let’s say that SmackDown! became WCW. That means RAW would become the WWE, right? There would have to be a counter to the resurgence of WCW. But that brings us back to the original problem we stated at the beginning: the WWE is not a recognized brand name. While the WWF is a recognized brand that is synonymous with wrestling, WWE has not created that connection in the vast majority of people’s heads. Meanwhile, RAW is an immediately identifiable brand that attracts an audience. So while WCW might help one program, the other program suffers from being just WWE.

Then there is the other end. The WWF/E defeated and ate WCW and ECW. As much as we may not like it, that is the be all and end all of the Monday Night Wars and the wrestling revolution of the 1990’s. You have to realize that Vince and many people in the WWE cannot and will not ever accept the resurgence of a brand that could overtake the WWE. Can you imagine if WCW SmackDown! got better ratings then WWE RAW? All those people who spent so many years working in the WWF while WCW demolished them would suddenly find themselves second banana to the brand they tried to destroy.

Yes, in reality it would not matter since WWE corporate would be reaping the profits. But there is psychological toll that is taken. Look at what happened at AOL Time-Warner. The Times and Warner people wanted nothing to do with the AOL people, and stopped all the synergies of the merger from forming. This, with the downturn in AOL subscribers, led to the company just become Time Warner again. Even though AOL was victorious in acquiring Time Warner, they lost internally and became what they had bought. Because of that, many AOL people left. Even though they were still in charge and were still making money, they could not deal with the psychological impact of working for a brand that had been under them.

Many of those people loyal to Vince and the WWE would not be able to handle it if the “enemy” brand became predominant. To them, it would be as if Vince had turned his back on his own creating just for the sake of money. It would be like if McDonald’s bought Wendy’s and then renamed all of its restaurants Wendy’s. Where is the victory for all those who worked to make that acquisition possible?

So the Brand Extension in its current form becomes the compromise. Nobody in the WWE office will care whether RAW or SmackDown! is on top. Both of those exist UNDER the WWE umbrella, not beside it. It is completely psychological, but makes a big difference in the office and backstage employees who put everything on the line to bring the WWF to its superior heights of the late 1990’s. Although it may seem neurotic to an outsider, it makes sense in the heads of those who have been there. And those are the people Vince needs to support to keep his empire going.

RECESS!

Do you think we covered enough this week? There was just so much background to get in today—I hope you are starting to see the points develop. I tried to sneak some good little marks in with the history, so watch out for that to come back next week!

Speaking of next week, when we return, we’ll take a look at the main event scene because of the Brand Extension, the dream matches we have and have yet to see, more on the new situations and scenarios brought about by the Brand Extension, and finally the multiple deaths of both RAW and SmackDown!.

So tune in next week for In Defense of… The Brand Extension (Part 2 of 3)!!

Of course, be sure to check out Hidden Hightlights in the meantime! Don’t forget to send JT and I your Hidden Highlights for RAW, SmackDown!, Heat, Velocity, Impact, or any other show you saw this week (that includes house shows and indy events, you know)!

Until then, the defense rests!




Know a particular person, event, organization, storyline, etc… in wrestling history that needs a defense? E-mail the One and Only JP at [e-mail], and I’ll be glad to hear your case.