Brand Matters: Extending Your Brand
Robert C. Sprung can be reached at robert@tippingsprung.com. TippingSprung (New York City) offers brand strategy, naming, and design services.
A recent survey takes a look at brand extensions.
By Robert C. Sprung,TippingSprung LLC
Brand extensions are everywhere these days—from a Jeep stroller to, quite literally, the kitchen sink from Jacuzzi. Some of the topics covered in our recent survey on top brand extensions published in collaboration with Brandweek magazine may not, at first, seem of direct relevance to those in cosmetic and personal care packaging. However, key trends were spotted that can affect all of us. Further, the whole concept of brand extension is identifying what your brand embodies or represents.
The following are a few of the key trends observed in the survey:
Virgin Territory
The big winner in the survey was Iams pet insurance. This shows that there are still unbranded categories like pet health insurance, where no major brands exist. Brands with household names can achieve great results if they look at tangential businesses where they are still relevant.
Overnight Wonders
The other big winner was Febreze, an air freshener that extended into the innovative Scentstories system. Although Febreze hasn’t existed for very long, its manufacturer has been able to extend the brand into this category in a remarkably short time.
Riding Big Brands’ Coattails
The big brands were generally big winners in the survey: Google, Apple, Oprah. The halo effect of these brands also brought along some older brands on their coattails, in some cases injecting them with new vigor (National Geographic on Google Earth, for example). Old media seems to be far from dead—Oprah’s hardcover book collection, on the strength of the Oprah brand, handily defeated the new-media upstarts in the Web, satellite-radio, software, and video-game spheres.
Respondents also voted on which brands they would like to see extended. Examples are:
- JetBlue should offer a “heightened experience” ground-based service called TaxiBlue.
- GM might bring us Segway-style personal transportation.
- Lexus can offer home luxury seating with power controls.
- Purina should bring us membership dog parks.
- Rubbermaid can offer off-site customized storage.
- Thermos might bring us insulated apparel.
- Victoria’s Secret might have a line of romance novels.
Winner |
Runner-Up |
|
| Best Overall Brand Extension | Iams Pet Health Insurance | Febreze Scentstories Air-Freshener System |
| Best Liquor Brand Extension | Starbucks Coffee Liqueur | Grey Goose Entertainment |
| Best Cobranding/Ingredient Branding | Motorola ROKR Phone with iTunes | Black & Decker Iron with Downy Chamber |
| Best Magazine Extension onto a New Platform | Hardback Books with content from O, the Oprah magazine | Forbes Luxury Auto Site, www.forbesautos.com |
| Worst Brand Extension | Harley-Davidson Cake Decorating Kit | Water-Filled Bras from Evian (endorsed promotional item) |
| Results from TippingSprung’s survey of the best and worst in brand extentions. | ||
Full copies of the report are available by e-mailing the author.