Brand Extension Success Factors

The brand image is the brand's total personality impression in the consumer’s mind (real and imaginary qualities and shortcomings). It is developed through advertising campaigns over time with a consistent theme. Talbot and his team conducted social media research and there objective was to: -

Brand extension is a technique in order to create a good brand image and increase the sales.

Brand image has developed the propensity among consumers regarding brand preference and brand loyalty, which are becoming the deciding factor of consumer buying decisions. Furthermore, Companies with the help of advertisement, promotional events, research and development, and using popular faces as their brand ambassadors are targeting to create their brand image which directly stimulates the buying decision of customers.

Brand competitors and the diversity of choice that is available to consumers, puts brands under pressure to offer high quality products and service, excellent value and a wide availability (Clifton et al., 2009). Brands must differentiate themselves from the competition and create an unforgettable impression.

In determining whether or not a brand extension will be successful, corporations and marketing strategists must attempt to build strong correlations between the existing brand and/or product line. A strong pairing or high-fit brand extension immediately associates a new line or extension with currently held views of consumers. The more dissimilar a new product

But for new customers, the new brand extensions will be essential to be able to offer a competitive product offering that will attract them to the brand. Therefore, we can avoid conflict between both segments by letting them choose the products they want depending in their needs.

It has been acknowledge (Romaniuk & Sharp 2004) that Brand salience can be defined as the propensity of the brand to be thought of by buyers when they are in a buying situations. A brand awareness strategy depends on how well known the brand is, Brand Salience is forming image to refresh their memory about the brands that can linked to consumer mind as well as the quantity and quality of the cue to brand links (Olson & Peter 2005), it is very important that consumer can connect to their mind as many cues as possible . The level of consumers’ brand awareness necessary to induce purchase varies depending on how and where they make their purchase decision for that product category or form. The brand attitude is focus on evaluating the brand, according to Schiffman and Kanuk (2007) “attitudes are relevant to purchase behavior are formed as a result of direct experience with the product, word-of-mouth information acquired from others, or exposure to mass-media advertising, the internet, and various forms of direct marketing”

Since an increasing number of people focus on brand names instead of product, brands become important elements for customers to choose products (Carroll, 2008). When customers trust the brand, the benefits for the manufactures are generated. In the first place, brands can be used by products as the tool to identify and differentiate themselves from various products. Secondly, brands are helpful for companies to build a competitive advantage (Bick, 2009). Therefore, organisations take more attention to branding.

The reason companies start to co-operate is due to technological and psychological changes of the business environment. There are two reasons why this occurs (Uggla, 2000): First, technology and new distribution patterns open up new possibilities for cooperation where brand extension and brand alliances become more interesting from a strategic point of view. Second, consumers look for risk reduction, and brand extension and brand alliances might be the right strategies to reduce consumer risk. Strategies to meet the demands of a changing world are co-branding and ingredient branding.

Brand extension can be either when a brand is extended into the same product category or into a new product category. Aaker and Keller (1990) describe this co-branding strategy as when a new product or service uses an existing brand name that had been associated with it before the extension. The strategy is that the brand equity and brand image of the brands used to create what is called the extension, transfers to the extension (Hadjicharailambous, 2013). This brand image quality of the existing or parent brands, and the perceived brand fit that are the main factors that influence the success of the extension (Meyvis, Goldsmith, & Dhar,

Brand extension refers to marketing strategy in which same name of a brand is used in a different product category. In short it is similar to brand stretching. Brand extension helps in evaluating opportunities related top product category, it identifies resource need and it helps organization to increase brand equity. brand extension is successful when customers value and goals match with that of core business and when these goals and value are personified in a brand then the brand is more acceptable by the customers in a business. brand extension is done for some purpose like for growth and development, trend in industry ,Economic Benefits and also for creating competition.

However, the marketer should be wise enough to ensure that the brand extension strategy is not

Brand Extension, basically, is a peculiar strategy related to the Brand management. There are various factors that tend to affect the brand extension process. These may include Parent Brand experience and awareness, brand image, perceived extension fit, perceived Quality, perceived performance and similarity of the products. Moreover, the parent brand loyalty, equity and personality also play a huge part in the brand extension process (R. Priyadharsini et al, 2013).

In recent times, branding has played a pivotal role in some brands’ success. This has been made possible through the ability of some marketers to capture the essence and minds of people (consumers), and put the trends and characteristics into the personality of a brand. Customers have always found ways to identify themselves with certain products, and on several occasions, branding campaigns

This results in the consumers differentiating the brand from its competitors as a result of likelihood of consumers purchasing the brand. Hsieh & Huang, 2013 also suggested “the connection between brand and brand image is complementary. A positive image not only shows the characteristic of a brand, catching people’s attention, but also promotes the positive merits and values of a brand, as well as the loyalty of consumers.” Hence, the author believes that as brand image is described as a perceptual phenomenon also acts as an important factor that contributes to the perception differences among