Brand Extension

Brand extensions are a familiar phenomenon for most marketers. Organizations see them as the easiest way of entering new markets or segments. Establishing a new consumer brand internationally costs at least 100 million rupees. Thus brand extensions are seen as an easy and possibly inexpensive way of entering new business lines or strengthening old ones if done with caution. Broadly speaking, there are three types of brand extensions as.

Product-Related Extension – is more popularly called ‘line extensions’. A line extension is typically a product or flavor or fragrance variant. Examples of this are Nirma detergent powder extending into cake and Frooti soft-drink extending into other variants besides the mango flavor.

Image-Related Extensions are those where the brand extension bears some logical or emotional relationship with the parent brand. Examples of this are Cinthol moving into talcs from toilet soaps and Zodiac moving into belts from shirts. In both, the same consumer is targeted demographically and psycho- graphically.

Unrelated extensions – are those where the parent and the brand extensions have little in common but for the brand name. A classic case of this is the brand name Godrej appearing on soaps, safety locks, almirahs, typesetters, hair-dyes, refrigerators and other products.

Product-Related Extensions

There are several reasons for having line extensions. These are

• Giving the consumer more options (e.g. Five variants of Cinthol),
• Cornering more shelf space (e.g. variants of Yardley talcum powder)
• Creating some excitement around an old brand (e.g. Rin Supreme)
• Expanding core promise to new users (e.g. Ariel Super Soaker)
• Managing a changed market situation (e.g. Colgate’s Gel extension fight Close Up).

But by and large the important underlying reasons for line extension are

• An unfulfilled need
• Up gradation of existing customers

Nirma detergent cake was a big a success as Nirma detergent powder because it satisfied the average Indian housewife’s need to scrub clothes. Magic, a brand extension of Ponds Dream flower Talc, similarly fulfilled the up market buyer’s need for a stronger and a more lingering perfume. Classic Mild’s brilliantly upgraded the image of the parent besides being in line with the trend of growing preference for milder brands among urban consumers. In fact it is easy to see that whenever a brand was extended to meet an unfulfilled need it was successful.

Hindustan Lever was fairly successful in upgrading customers through its brand extensions. Examples of this are Lux International, Lifebuoy Plus and Clinic Active. Lux International brought in new customers from other premium soaps besides upgrading some of Lifebuoy’s customers by offering a new benefit of combating body odour. Clinic Active took off where the parent left. Clinic Plus itself started as an anti- dandruff shampoo. But as the brand grew in prominence it had to broaden its positioning to connote ‘health’. The anti- dandruff platform was hence read into the extension Clinic Active that became a success.

Some brand extensions have failed possibly in their up- gradation attempts For instance, Mysore Sandal Classic as a glycerin soap had tough competition from Pears which is more clearly focused on the skin care benefit. Raaga herbal powder tried to upgrade to Raaga Plus as an herbal paste. It was very attractively packaged in green but lost customers because the paste dried up, causing problems in usage.