Stretching the Brand

This week, the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF) and Demand Media announced the launch of LIVESTRONG.com, an online community dedicated to healthy living, built on the brand essence of LIVESTRONG (e.g. health, fitness, nutrition, balance), a brand Nike created and nurtured for the LAF in 2003.

Containing more than 600,000 pages of content, LIVESTRONG.com includes more than 15,000 videos and articles, 50,000 questions and answers, plus personal profiles, photo galleries, discussion groups, personal action plans, recipes, interactive tools and calculators... (whew) let's face it, it's a behemoth. More to the point, it's a stretch.

I get the strategy- it's an evolution of the brand, leveraging it's key attributes. I'm just not sure I buy it. Where does it leave the foundation? I'm looking at my little yellow LIVESTRONG wrist band today, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Yesterday it said I was united in the fight against cancer. Today, however, I think it says a lot more ...and means a lot less. Let's watch- I could always be wrong.