Microsoft is now ditching the quite confusing add on “Live” that they have been tacking on everything the past few years. Sure, in some cases it made sense, but other times…

Rajeev Batra, a marketing professor at the University of Michigan and a co-author of a scholarly article titled “Brand Love,” says Microsoft failed to notice a basic principle: “When the same brand name is used on multiple new products, those new brands should be all similar in key ways,” he says. Trying to extend the “Live” from Xbox to Windows, with a bewilderingly diverse set of unrelated products and services was a mistake, in his view.

Lessons learned: if a brand name to begin with doesn’t live up to what it promises, or feels like a tacked on surface designed only to dazzle (what I like to call “lipstick on a pig”), your intended customers (users, community, fans, call them what you like) will never feel the love.

Read the full article here: Goodbye to Windows Live (and Whatever It Meant)

From that great Microsoft insight, then read this, to further dive into what actually makes people engage with your brand: Three Myths About What Customers Want

Hint: it is not related to how often you update your Facebook Page.