Going gold

Ever wondered what the limit could be of stretching your brand? If we may believe fashion magnates Dolce&Gabbana there is none. After creating cloths worth a fortune, the duo kept searching for new ways to keep their customers happy. They launched a series of perfumes, make -up, a set of designer watches, even more expensive sunglasses, a collaboration for a jewellery line with Swarovski, a with 24 carat gold plated mobile phone, etc.

But they went even further. If your covered in D&G from head to toe, why shouldn't you want to go eat, drink and chat in you favourite's designer restaurant/bar?
In Milan Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana have their own themed restaurant with matching bar. The name Gold is very recognizable as you can see in the interior of the bar. This innovative idea wasn't all that successful in the end but still an amazing attempt in getting your brand's name out. Future plans: Hotels.

Source: TheStar

Mattias Dierickx

Old brand in the spotlight

Why is it that so many brand extensions fail as a concept? Many attempts in stretching a brand resulted in losses of relatively small amounts of money in case of the big brands or, worse, loss of the original brand due to enormous debt made by the failed brand extension for the smaller brands. For the small companies a failure of an extended brand is catastrophic but it isn't all bad for a bigger company. Many years have passed since the first time companies made use of brand extensions and the original goal of launching a product faster with the use of a familiar brand is somewhat outdated. Lately bigger brands with enough cash to think about extending their brand and failed to keep the consumer's attention focused on their brand launch a new product just to get the news. That is why brand extensions are more often considered as a useful marketing tool rather than a new form of production or income. And if consumers seem to like the product, the company is lucky twice.

Source: Brandchannel

Mattias Dierickx

Mature cousin

The all-known coffee brand Starbucks welcomes a new family member. After introducing its frozen sister in 1995 for people with a sweet tooth and enabling sales on a larger scale with a bottled brother the following year, adults now can experience an alcoholic, coffee based beverage. As you can see Starbucks made some successful products which all started with a simple cup of coffee. The secret behind those successes is without any doubt the collaboration between Starbucks and a known brand for the different products. When it first started to produce Starbucks Coffee Ice Cream the company asked Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream for help in their production process. Same story when the company wanted to make its bottled Starbucks Frapuccino and knocked on the door of the Pepsi-Cola Company. For its latest product Starbucks made a joint venture with Jim Beam Brands Co. It always made a great success.

Put on top of your To Do list for making a successful brand extension: Go get some advice from an experienced producer.

Source: Brandchannel

Mattias Dierickx

Playboy energy!

One of the best known brands in the world is Playboy. Playboy has done a lot of brand extensions from television shows to clothing to snowboards in cooperation with Burton to perfume, other brand extensions can be found on their website www.playboy.com . Most of these extensions succeeded because of the well-known iconic bunny emblem. One of the latest brand extension is a new energy drink, the flavor is said to be similar with the red bull energy drink. In my opinion playboy shouldn’t overstretch it’s brand. I believe Playboy should give up some of it’s side activities and concentrate more on brand extensions that go together with the core activity's value.

Tom Debakker

Aston Martin power?

Aston Martin is planning to release a new car, the Aston Martin cygnet. The cygnet is not an ultimate luxurious sports car like the other cars that Aston Martin produces, to see the entire offer visit www.astonmartin.com . The cygnet is a remake of the Toyota IQ (but more expensive, since you have to pay for the Aston Martin emblem ). With the cygnet the company will try to expand its market towards people with less purchasing power, that’s why the cygnet is an example of a brand extension by Aston Martin. Rather the brand extension will succeed is not sure, since Aston Martin now risks to lose his status and elite credentials. Despite this risk Aston Martin does have good motivations to sell the cygnet. Some of the reasons are to meet with the CO2 emissions the EU targets, other reasons are the fact that the crisis makes it hard for Aston Martin to make money and the interest of people for hybrid cars. Conclusion I don’t think this is the right market strategy, because they want to sell this model to people with less purchasing power, but for half of the price you have a similar car from another brand. On the other hand Aston Martin does have the experience on the surface of brand extension, for example with Hackett, that designs clothing with the emblem on it.

Tom Debakker

Microwave fries by Burger King

Burger king, one of the biggest fast food restaurants will also try a brand extension. In many ways Burger king is similar to McDonald's for example the concept and the menu ( to know more about the concept visit www.burgerking.com ). But now it will try to launche microwaveable French fries, this is a creative new idea that has not been tried out by McDonald's and other fast food chains. Remarkable is that Burger King will sell this product in retail.
Burger King has an agreement with ConAgra Foods Lamb Weston, to bring a retail line of microwaveable Burger King French fries. The first product that will be released is the King Krinkz, if the product will be a success then other tastes and shapes will also be released.
If the taste of the fries will be as good as regular fries then Burger King has a very good chance to succeed. In the past McDonald’s and other fast food chains have tried similar extensions, McDonald’s for example sells ketchup under it’s own name at Germany.

Tom Debakker

One way, or another!

“If the brand itself isn’t strong, the brand extension is likely to be weak”. Agreed, but it’s impossible that this is the only factor on which the success of a brand extension depends. The fact whether a brand extension is going to be a success or not, also has a lot to do with the type of brand extension that you choose.

First, there are these products that have a different form, but are similar to an original parent product. (You can, for example, buy Kellogg’s cornflakes. But now you can also buy Kellogg’s candy bars.) Next, there is this strategy which anticipates on the image or status of people. Sometimes, people buy a certain product of a certain designer just because it seems to be a good thing for their image or status. Designer clothing labels have been extended to furniture, jewellery, perfume, cosmetics and a host of other items. (I’d like to refer to the blog about Armani I wrote earlier.) Further we have the brands that ‘own’ a particular flavour. Customers might want that property in other categories of food. And last but not least there are also the so-called ‘companion products’. These products are a natural companion to the products the company already makes.

Of course there still exist other different types of brand extension. But for now, I’ll leave it at that. We wouldn’t want the choice to be too difficult, right?

Virginie Bohez

Hunting success.

Successful brand extensions are not that easy to identify, develop and position. Just sticking a known name on a new product does not guarantee its success. In 1990s, 81% of all the new products used brand extension to introduce new brand! Because launching a new product does not only costs a company much time, but also a big budget (to create awareness and to promote the product’s benefits), managers better make sure that their brand extension is going to be a success!

First of all, it is very important to research what categories consumers will accept for the brand. A successful brand helps a company enter new product categories more easily, but without first knowing the consumers’ view of the boundaries of the brand, you are taking high risks!

Beside that, a brand extension should also have “leverage”. Without leverage, a brand extension is just a weak idea.

Conclusion: Even though a brand is well known, it needs much more than that to become a good candidate for brand extension.




Virginie Bohez

Just one stretch too far...

If you thought “ Harley Davidson Perfume “ was an outrageous idea, then wait until you read some of these absurd yet inventive brand extensions.

First of all we had Cosmopolitan Yogurt. Though the Cosmopolitan magazine is red all over the world, the idea of distributing yogurt clearly didn’t appeal to their customers. This might have been just one step too far from their core activity.
Secondly there was Colgate with their “ Colgate kitchen entrees “… In my opinion nobody wants to be reminded of their toothpaste while eating their lunch. As a result, this unfortunately chosen product knew a rather short existence.
Lastly we had “ Bic underwear “. As you can guess, this idea couldn’t attract a lot of consumers either.

I think I can conclude by saying people are open for innovation and creative ideas but there is a certain line that cannot be crossed. Brands should not be stretched too far in order to keep them fresh!

Maud Bossuyt

Choose your direction !

Choosing for brand extension is a major decision and therefore needs a thorough research. A first important decision to make is whether you are going to implement a horizontal or a vertical extension. But what exactly is the difference between those two?

The main difference is quality and price. If you extend your brand in a vertical way, you produce a product that has a different level of quality or price than your parent brand. While in a horizontal extension, your price – and quality level stays the same but you enter a new product category.
( Graph = example )

In this article they did a research on how a vertical brand extension affects the parent brand. The most important conclusion can be recapitulated in just one word: distancing. If a producer of high-quality products decides to extend to a low – quality product, he has to make sure that there is some distance between the core brand and the new product. Especially when there is a difference in quality, the damage to your parent brand can get rather high.

Anyhow, vertical as well as horizontal extension, can strengthen your brand image and increase your sales!


Maud Bossuyt

Nothing Armani can't do.

We all know the world famous fashion designer, particularly noted for his menswear: Giorgio Armani. By 2001 he was acclaimed as the most successful designer to come out of Italy, with an annual turnover of $1.600 billion, and a personal fortune of $5 billion!

What most people don’t know is that Armani, the company he formed in 1975, is more than just a fashion house that designs haute couture. The company also manufactures, distributes, and retails haute couture, ready-to-wear, leather goods, shoes, watches, jewelry, accessories, eyewear, cosmetics, and home interiors.

And there is even more! Armani also plans a chain of luxury hotels and resorts in several big cities all over the world. Another creative idea of Armani was to join Samsung and design the Giorgio Armani phone. The company also operates a range of cafés worldwide, in addition to a bar, restaurant, and nightclub. And to conclude the row, Armani also creates furniture, lamps, linens and dining essentials.

Despite the fact that Giorgio is known as a workaholic, who can sometimes be rude and arrogant, the man succeeded to develop a complete empire!

Virginie Bohez

Ultimate extension

As an introduction on the already intensively discussed subject of brand extension , I would like to start by presenting world’s most stretched brand ever: Virgin.

Though most people know Virgin as an airline service, it is much more than that.
Virgin entered the world as a music record shop but this well-known brand can now be found in various product categories. Their activities go from broadcasting over aviation to cosmetics.

But extending a brand also includes taking very high risks. If your market strategy fails, it might damage your brand image or leave a financial hangover behind.
Even specialists like Virgin sometimes fail at convincing their target group. The most known example of a “ Virgin – failure “ is without a doubt the launch of their own Virgin cola.

Nevertheless, brand extension can be a very effective way of refreshing your brand!

Maud Bossuyt