Brand extending: attractive, but not without risk.

Brand extension is probably one of the easiest ways for companies to successfully
launch a new product onto the market. Just give it the same name as an already existing
product, so consumers immediately associate both products.Thereby they will
ascribe the same qualities of the product they already know to the new one, before even having used it.

Essential for successfully pulling off this marketing strategy, is of course that the majority of the consumers feel positively towards the product which name will be used and preferably even choose this product over the competing brands’ alternatives.

If this is the case, brand extension is a cheap and easy way to give your new product a head start when launched onto the market. But, as always, there also is a catch: as the product range increases, so does the brand vulnerability. A flaw in one of the products, will affect public opinion towards the entire product range of the brand.

Brand extension has te potential to be a blessing but reckless extending of the brand, can turn it into a curse.

Bram Van Hijfte