FOUR steps to ensure an appropriate—and successful—brand extension
1. Make sure your extension has a compelling benefit and that it offers something your customers and prospects can’t get anywhere else. It must be relevant to their lives and be differentiated from other offerings, including your own.
2. Understand the role cannibalization can play. New product launches can chip away at existing brands. Don’t accept the increase of unit sales for the extended product or service at the expense of the parent brand.
3. Is there additional brand equity lurking in the new product or service? Should Volvo, the company that owns the brand known for “safety,” really sell a convertible?
4. Do the “noun test”Is your organization considering adding a new program, offering, or initiative? Before you extend your brand with something new, do what I call the noun test. Here’s how it works: Since a brand can only stand for one thing in the mind of your supporters or prospects, determine what that one thing is—your noun—and make sure your new program, offering, or initiative WORKS with that noun.
(Brand) is a (Noun)
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