Should a company want everyone to buy their product? From a sales standpoint, it’s an obvious YES. But from a branding perspective, could it hurt you in the long run?

Nascar is an overwhelmingly American WASP institution. I’m sure many of you are conjuring “Bubba” with the pickup truck draped with a confederate flag. Now just imagine if there suddenly was a spike of Nascar interest in the Chinese community. Chinese people would then start watching races, be seen in the crowd, wear Nascar gear, etc. Would the original fan base be receptive to these new fans? Would they be turned off, seeing the new audience as intruders to their private club that they love so dearly?

I’m not saying that Nascar is run by the Klan. But a situation like that highlights how people can invest so much of themselves into a brand, that they can feel betrayed when it changes from what they originally bought into.

Burberry suffers from a similar “problem” in the UK where chavs wear their products, robbing the brand of its air of class. There’s also talk of American Idol being a victim to such a case, since their ratings are involving more and more parents, moving the show away from the intended tween demo (this partially explains the mystery of Taylor Hicks’ victory).

Last year, Cristal said that they don’t want rappers to talk about their product anymore. They lower the brand’s prestige, it seems. If you’re saying that your beverage is the drink of lords and kings, and then you see your beverage in a video surrounded by mounds of bouncing flesh and ex-convicts…well, bit of a contradiction there.

I’m sure Cristal loved the sales but hated the association. This is basically the equivalent of the convenience store selling slurpees to inner city kids, but then telling them to shoo away from the store, you’re scaring away my customers!

You could be like the ever-growing Facebook and accept the fact that you are sitting on a fantastic product that has appeal far larger than your current audience. Welcome everyone with open arms. There’s going to be complaints — but those dissenting voices are drowned out by the incessant, soothing sounds of the cash register.