Baidu’s Qiyi Launches New Brand Name iQiyi

Still remember the Qwister setback for Netflix? The company finally made peace with its angry customers by announcing backing off the plan to spin off and rebrand its DVD rental business. If there’s anything we can learn from the irritation, it should be that don’t easily give up your existing brand name easily – unless it really sucks.

Apparently, not everyone learns from history. Qiyi, the online video subsidiary of Baidu announced today its brand upgrading plan to change its brand name and domain name to iqiyi(爱奇艺) and iqiyi.com separately, which seems to many is a lame move since there’s no point in doing so. Also Qiyi (or should I say iQiyi from now on) ‘upgraded’ its brand proposition to “Love Qiyi, Wtach Freely, Life in Displays(爱奇艺，自由看，屏生活)”.

The Beijing-based Hulu-like service just launched its new tagline last month, with a brand proposition of “Love Qiyi, Watch Freely”.

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