This was the case in 1982 when Thomas Nelson Publishers released the New King James Version, a new translation of the Bible that combined beautiful verbiage and dutiful translation with contemporary language. Likewise, no one who was around in 1985 will forget the debacle of New Coke, the ill-fated attempt to change the recipe of a drink so ubiquitous that some Americans use its name to mean any soft drink at all.Įven the world of Bible publishing has not been immune to appending the word “new” to old properties. In 1991, Major League Baseball’s Chicago White Sox moved across 35 th Street to New Comiskey Park, a fully modern facility with none of the intimacy and character of its namesake lyric bandbox.
Popular culture is full of instances where producers tried to leverage preexisting brand equity into an altogether new product.
