One of the key goals to any marketing effort is to get the general public to know and love your brand. You want them to be familiar with your product name so that when they go into a retailer (or wherever they would make the purchase), they can ask for your product by name. This is much better than if a customer goes in to ask for “that doohickey” by “some company.”

This is why I find it quite confusing why Dreamworks Animation and Paramount Pictures would take the strategy that they have for the fourth entry in the Shrek movie franchise. When the announcement was first made for this sequel, the movie was referred to as Shrek Goes Fourth. That’s already a clever pun, but apparently it wasn’t good enough.

At some point during the development cycle, they decided to change the name of the movie to Shrek Forever After. That’s still a pun and it’s debatable whether it is more or less clever, but it seemed like that movie title was going to stick. It appeared on a lot of marketing material and it seemed to be the title going forward.

However, the title was once again changed recently. In some circles, people still call it Shrek Forever After, but it seems that all the new promotional material is referring to the movie as Shrek: The Final Chapter. Some other material calls it Shrek: The Final Chapter in 3D.

With this many name changes, the Shrek movie probably won’t lose much steam, since the Shrek franchise is already very well established, but can you imagine if this was a new product or a new franchise altogether? The branding is a nightmare! Unless you have a very good reason to change it, it’s probably in your best interest to choose a “good” name and stick with it.