Successful Brand Extensions

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Introduction

Brand extension refers to the successful use of an already successful brand name to launch a modified or new product in a new market or niche. The management of brands is a key element in product strategy in any given business, especially those that operate in highly competitive markets. Brands cannot be developed in isolation, in that they normally categorized within a business product group or product lines. In relation to a product mix, its width can be measured by the number of product lines that a business enterprise offers. This is because a product mix is the total set of brands that are marketed by a business; therefore, it contains several product lines.

Consider the following brands and discuss the extendibility of brands

Brand extension refers to a marketing strategy in which a a business that is marketing a product with a robust image uses the same brand name in a different brand category. It is also known as brand stretching because organizations use it as a strategy to leverage and increase the organization’s brand equity. This helps in increasing awareness of the brand and at the same time increases the organization’s profitability from offerings in more than one product category. Brand extension is wholly dependent upon how strong consumer’s associations are to the brands goals and even values.

Harley-Davidson

Founded in 1905, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company was the only motorcycle manufacturer in the U.S after Indian Motorcycles closed down back in 1953. The American “Motorcycle culture” grew between the 1950’s and ‘60s. This was influenced by movies such as “wild ones” and “Easy Rider”, which helped equate the Harley-Davidson with a lifestyle of a motorcycle outlaw who were perceived as to...

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...not popular the masses, because the product is often seen as a quintessential Australian product.

Summary

During the early 1990’s, many new products used brand extension to create sales and introduce new brands into the market. Brand extension helps to mitigate budget constraints and costs used for launching a new product. This is because launching a new product not only needs a big budget but it is also time consuming. Brand extension is instrumental in the creation of awareness and the promotion of the product’s benefits. It helps reduce financial risk by using an established parent name to enhance consumers’ perceived perception of the brand due to brand equity. This paper examined a number of brands and its successes and failures in terms of brand extendibility, these brands include Harley-Davidson, Red Bull, Tommy Hilfiger, Victoria’s Secret and Vegemite.

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