Talk:Rebadging/Archives/2016

Definition of "badge engineered" and scope of this article

A working definition of "badge engineering" is the notion of a company sticking on the badge on one vehicle and trying to pass it off as another, rather than "engineering/manufacturing" a new product. There are many vehicles in this article which do not fall under this definition:

• cars sold in different markets with slightly different names: for example Opel / Vauxhall / Holden / Pontiac. They're all GM cars. So what if they use local brands?
• joint ventures: e.g. the Pontiac Vibe / Toyota Matrix. Yes it is a kind of rebadging since the vehicle is identical under the skin, however it was a JV by both companies, so one can't say that no real engineering or manufacturing went into it from either manufacturer.
• production under licence, e.g. the Fiat 124 and its offshoots, Peugeot 405 / Pars, etc.
• cars that are twins, e.g. the Dodge Caravan / Plymouth Voyager twins. One is not a rebadged version of the other. Are they both rebadged? If they are both rebadged, which was the original?

This article should focus on the rather crass and opportunistic "badge engineering" that was used to market cars.

I propose this article needs a prune to:

• get the examples consistently conforming to some agreed and meaningful definition of badge engineered".
• remove the vast amounts of spurious and unreferenced content.--Cornellier (talk) 06:24, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

This seems like an opinion based matter. I would support including any car that is not substantially different from one that it was designed with or from. If two or more vehicles are purposely designed together, they should be discussed together. My understanding of the concept includes both the same car made for more than one market or for the same car being sold by different brands in the same market or even joint ventures. The point is it's the same, regardless of minor visual differences in interiors or body kits (though there are degrees). I understand there are business reasons why this practice is done, but it seems disingenuous on some level and I would call it out where I see it. I'm not necessarily suggesting that any company isn't doing it's share of work, simply that if two cars are fundamentally the same, we should all be honest about that. falkin42 69.150.209.129 (talk) 19:12, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Worse, rebadging isn't just cars it is done with all types of product. Some gearheads thought it was all about them, and here we are. The dictionary gives this definition of rebadging: "relaunch (a product) under a new name or logo." :/ 76.105.216.34 (talk) 21:24, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Narrow focus of the article.

The entire article seems to focus disproportionately on cars, yet rebadging is widespread throughout the consumer market and affects a lot more industries. Power tools and appliances come to mind as an exemple. 76.71.231.130 (talk) 19:55, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I agree and therefore made an addition to the lede to handle it. The lede now mentions that "Rebadging in the automotive industry can be compared with white-label products in other consumer goods industries, such as consumer electronics and power tools." — ¾-10 02:17, 5 October 2016 (UTC)