Beyonce A.K.A. Sasha something-or-other…
You probably saw Georgette’s post in GO and on her Ask Geo blog this morning commenting on the new Sasha Fierce. The whole alter-ego question sparked a hilarious discussion in our office at least. Most of us would agree that once you have transcended the need for a surname, you’ve really “made it.” Prince, Madonna and I dare say now Barack, have all climbed to this the pinnacle of pop culture and the same goes for songstress Beyonce, but maybe she didn’t notice that part. Reports that the diva not only named her latest album “I Am …Sasha Fierce,” but that she feels this is part of her identity and has set up a MySpace page with the moniker, jump out to the marketing crowd evoking a collective “what the?” As far as I can tell there are no confirmations of an actual name change, rather this is all publicity for boosting sales of the new album, but I hope that her agent and marketing staff are advising against playing the new-name-game.
The music industry seems rife with name changers, but the top spot goes to record producer, rapper, actor, men’s fashion designer, entrepreneur and dancer Sean John Combs or Sean Jean, known by his stage names Puff Daddy, P. Diddy, Diddy and Puffy. He must have not gotten the memo that it is OK to have several interests without having to assume a new identity for each. Here is the explanation from Wikipedia; “he was originally known as Puff Daddy and then as P. Diddy (Puff and Puffy being often used as a nickname, but never as recording names). In August 2005, he changed his stage name to simply “Diddy”. He continues to use the name P. Diddy in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the latter after a legal battle with another artist.” Confused? So is everyone else, and you don’t need to be a marketer to figure out that altering your identity when you’ve reached recognition retracts from brand building. Sean Combs himself admitted that people didn’t know what to call him and it was confusing for them, and then in an interview in 2005 with the Today Show he told the audience that he switched from Puff Daddy to Diddy saying that “the P was getting between me and my fans.”
Eh? Yes, I’m sure all the fans were just disgusted with that annoying and superfluous ‘P.’ Not. What would get between the consumers of any brand would be changing your name for no apparent reason six times. So Beyonce, you have a beautiful name, brand, image and probably paycheck because of it, stick with it, girl. As for new names for the rest of us, that’s another post.
