Brand Extension

Abstract

Brand extension is an important brand growth strategy. It is the widening of the range of products or services sold using a particular brand. The research has been done in order to find out the change in consumer’s attitude towards the brand extension and whether they are positive impacts or negative. The failure of extension may make the parent brand’s negative impression and association and will confuse the original brand identity in consumer’s mind. The research problem is important for an organization to make a brand extension so that they could take these risks and facts into consideration. The data was collected from general people to gain wide representation of consumers. The participants in survey participated voluntarily and their responses were kept confidential. The research shows the impact of extended brand on consumer’s attitude that it does not mean they would use all the extended products of that particular brand; it depends upon the quality of the product.

Keywords: Extendibility, Categorization, Line extension, co-branding, Brand Extension, Consumers Attitude

Impact on Consumer’s Attitude from Brand Extension

A brand can be thought of as a name, term, sign, symbol, design or a combination of these which is intended to identify the goods and services of a company and to differentiate them from those of competitors (Kotler, 1991).

Brand extension or brand stretching is a marketing strategy in which a firm marketing a product with a well-developed image uses the same brand name in a different product category. The new product is called a spin-off. Organizations use this strategy to increase and leverage brand equity. It increases awareness of the brand name and increases profitability from offerings in more than one product category. A brand's "extendibility" depends on how strong consumer's associations and consumer attitude are to the brand's values and goals.

Brand extension is the use of established brand names to enter new product categories or classes. Although brand extension is important in practice, few studies have been investigated on how the brand extension strategy is actually used and how it affects brand performance.

Quality of core brand creates a strong position for brand and lowers the impact of fit in consumer evaluation. Similarity between core brand and extension is the main concern of consumer perception of fit. The higher the similarity is, the higher the perception of fit. Consumer’s knowledge and experience affect the evaluation before extension product trail. The more innovation of extension product is, the greater positive fit can perceive.

Brand extension research mainly focuses on the consumer evaluation of extension and attitude of the parent brand. Researcher suggests a sufficient depth