KICK START YOUR BRAND

Brand Extensions

Extending a brand can be a smart strategy in the right situation. Brand extensions help to combat product proliferation and allow a company to realize the full value of its brand identities. However, a brand can only be extended so far, and overextending can undermine a carefully crafted brand building program.

Branding can be like walking on a tightrope; many names will allow customers to divide and conquer your business, while too few run the risk of overextending individual brands. Having too many brands will lead to customer confusion, since it will be difficult to communicate each brand's core value and differentiation, while too few brands will make a company's messaging seem too broad and general in today's "one-to-one" environment.

The advisability of extending a brand varies by situation. Keen Branding helps our clients to thoroughly assess their individual environment to determine whether and when to extend a brand. We start by evaluating the new product and the existing brand together for name recognition, target audience, positioning and other key brand criteria to determine whether the name associations and perceptions, key attributes and core values provide a good fit or whether the new product will undermine the existing brand. In addition, we will help you to identify ways to implement brand extensions, such as taglines, package designs and look and feel programs, so that customers can easily identify which product will best meet their needs and to minimize product cannibalization.

Keen Branding helps companies to develop strong, core brands that maximize its brand investments while minimizing the cost of developing new brands and the chance of overextending a strong brand.