Brand extensions can be a key source of additional market share and new revenue for a product line. A successful extension can also breathe new life into the original brand. This reason alone often is incentive enough to grow the brand’s footprint.
A brand extension that transcends most every demographic and is simply suitable with little or no adjustments to the parent product, its packaging, pricing, placement or promotion is a home run. The most successful brand extensions require the least amount of work. But let’s face it, in the consumer products categories, that is probably a rare occurrence.
Questioning the obvious
Brand teams very carefully rationalize a decision to develop a product extension. There are clear rules of engagement they follow to ensure the fundamental questions are answered.
Are we extending this brand to a new market segment because it fills a void or affords a measurable impact that a competing product can’t (or didn’t)? Is it sustainable and defensible? Are we certain the intended target market will adopt the brand, or is it too closely identified with a market segment that isn’t them? Can we win and can we be profitable?
Some of the not-so-obvious questions to ask about your brand extension include,
Is it:
- gender shrewd?
- race sensible?
- culturally cognizant?
- age appropriate?
- senior citizen savvy?
- belief system aware?
- relationship independent?
- economically equal?
Perhaps the answers to most of these questions can be captured in the answer to this question:
Did the brand team take into consideration the preferences, tastes, and sensibilities of the new market segment?
Stating the obvious
Repurposing a product for another gender, culture, race, age range and/or any other combinations that define a market segment is not simply a matter of changing colors, language, key messages and the images on the packaging. Brands must research the new market very carefully and make absolutely certain that the product attributes that are attractive to one market segment hold the same endearing magnetism for another.
It’s a custom-fit world today. There are more and more niche brands popping up and their owners are willing to settle for a sliver of your pie, i.e. one of the bullets above. Can your brand extension develop and protect its turf?
Missing the obvious
To gain perspective on how brand managers consistently fail women when designing and marketing their products to them, read this article in Forbes online by Molly Ackerman-Brimberg, executive insights and trends strategist at Ziba, a Design and Innovation Consultancy based in Portland, Oregon.
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