Brand Extension

Brand Extension means, exactly what you might think, extending the equity, or value of the brand by creating other models, shapes, flavours, styles so you can sell more "stuff" to people who like the original brand model.   In late October 2007 General Motors announced the launch of the H3T which is a H3 built like a mid-size pick-up truck identified as a concept vehicle back in Jan 2004, it has taken a while for GM executives to decide if this would be a good addition to the Hummer lineup see  hummer.com The Toronto Star wrote (2007, Oct 31) "General Motors Corp. is adding a pickup version of its Hummer H3 sport-utility vehicle at a Louisiana assembly plant as the struggling automaker tries to stem the brand's declining sales." The Star reported "Smaller Hummer models are part of chief executive officer Rick Wagoner's strategy to change the brand's reputation for excess as gasoline prices have risen. GM eliminated the largest Hummer, the five-tonne H1, last year." In branding a consumer product, it is always kewl to associate with a hot movie. The Hummer to the left was "Ratchet" in Transformers GM bought the licence for the Hummer brand from AM General in 1999 and started selling the H1 2002 - added the H2 2005 - added the H3 2009 GM sold Hummer to China's Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery 2010 Feb 26 - sale did not go through student Linna(Cheng-Si) X in MGTC46 at UTSC emailed to say she found information that explains "...Sichuan Tengzhong , said  that it withdrew its bid because it was unable to get  approval from the Chinese government, which is trying to put a new  emphasis on limiting China's dependence on imported oil and protecting  the environment." the term - High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (a.k.a. HMMWV or Humvee)

Brand Equity - “… the value of a brand’s overall strength in the market …” almost eveyone in the world knows the Nike logo, which makes this joke universally funny

Brand Equity Online Communities

Brand Equity - enhanced and built by Online Communities   . The enthusiasm for individual consumers contributing to the "reputation building" that results in Brand Equity is something that can come about as a result of a vibrant and enthusiastic online community. Communities of customers is not a new concept in marketing - they existed before the web - but what the web does is consolidate these communities and allow the members to interact more easily and with more frequency. WTGR click on the screen capture to go to the special unit on Online Communities

from http://www.bestglobalbrands.com/2014/ranking/
 

Top 10 Global Brands 2009 / 2010
 

1	Google	Coca-Cola	Wal-Mart
2	IBM	IBM	Google
3	Apple	Microsoft	Coca-Cola
4	Microsoft	General Electric	IBM
5	Coca-Cola	Nokia	Microsoft
6	McDonald's	McDonald's	General Electric
7	Marlboro	Google	HSBC Bank
8	China Mobile	Toyota	HP
9	General Electric	Intel	Nokia
10	Vodafone	Disney	Citi Bank
	according to  Millard Brown	according to Interbrand	according to Brand Directory

Canada's top 10 iconic brands
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1	Cirque du Soleil	Royal Bank	Kraft	Tim Horton's
2	Bombardier	Research In Motion	Roots	Canadian Tire
3	CBC	TD Bank	President's Choice	WestJet
4	Roots	Manulife	Molson	Cirque du Soleil
5	Toronto Maple Leafs	BCE Inc.	Tim Horton's	President's Choice
6	Montreal Canadiens	Bank of Nova Scotia	Maple Leaf Foods	Molson
7	Calgary Stampede	Loblaws	Canadian Tire	Loblaw's
8	IMAX	Bombardier	Labatt	Bell
9	CN Tower	Bank of Montreal	Kellogg's	TD Bank
10	Terry Fox	CIBC	Alexander Keith's Ale	Shoppers Drug Mart
	Canadian Business  Online 2007	seekingalpha.com 2009 based on report by  Brand Finance	BrandSpark Canada's Favourite Brands survey based on customer opinion 2008	2006 ranks by a Canadian industry association

Brand building - not just for consumer products  - it can also be used for Government activities Yahoo news carried a story written by Mark Mazzetti in August 2005  news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/20050822/ts_latimes/armyfightstosellitselftotheparentsofamerica "Army Fights to Sell Itself to the Parents of America" "Ray DeThorne's job is to sell the Army. And these days, it's a difficult product to sell. In marketing terms, the Army is a troubled brand. The daily images of violence from Iraq are scaring away potential recruits for the service" "Even the gush of patriotism that followed the Sept. 11 attacks did not translate into a flood of young people signing up at Army recruiting stations, DeThorne said. "There was a surge of people buying American flags after 9/11," he said. "But there was no surge in people rushing in saying that they wanted to join the Army."  Permission to use the Yahoo! logo and quote from Yahoo! given by Debbie MacLeod, Yahoo! Marketing Manager in email Jan 2005. Copy in the permissions binder.

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Examples of companies trying to develop "product evangelism" by creating a community around the brand and other "especially innovative and exciting" situations Beverage companies do not sell beer, ice tea and cola on the net, why do they have web sites and what do they use them for?

www.snapple.com Snapple, in trying to compete against the Cola giants, Pepsi and Coke is trying to use their web site and other promotion to turn customers who are at the brand insistence stage into "evangelists". The point being not only will these people be faithful drinkers of the beverage line, but that they will be "fans" and encourage other people to drink the products. How do you facilitate their development of fan status - by giving them kewl screen savers, let them order merchandize with the logo, win prizes, enter contest etc. Snapple can also use the online site to gather specific name and address information of loyal customers which they will use in "direct mail" campaigns

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In April of 2000, Molson's got much more reaction than it expected when it launched its TV commercial "I Am Canadian". The web site  www.iam.ca (changed to http://www.molsoncanadian.ca/en/Index.aspx in 2014) on which the commercial is downloadable became, according to some accounts, the number #1 downloaded feature on the web for Canadian surfers in the spring of 2000.  the original "I am Canadian" from 2000  youtube.com/watch?v=BRI-A3vakVg&feature=related When YouTube became popular in the later years of  2K, variations of the commercial appeared and went viral.

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the Quebec version of  "I am not Canadian"  www.youtube.com/watch?v=TncdhLGjFTE&feature=related there is also "I am a muslim" (very funny)  youtube.com/watch?v=JQXh20OuhIc&feature=fvw Canadians are too polite  youtube.com/watch?v=TEsk8b09cQM&feature=related I Am Canadian Anthem  .youtube.com/watch?v=zWDXE9Pbjic&feature=related 2010 Olympics Coke ad  Canada Wins  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99msEwWpJBE  includes original version and final version - interesting, an icon of American culture producing a commercial which captures the essence of Canadian culture moon landing  .youtube.com/watch?v=LEkl_Mnhp1A&feature=related

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At the I AM website, people used to be able to get an email address such as joe@iam.ca or joe@onlycanadian.com or joe@canadianrocks.com  The questionnaire which you fill out to get the free email includes the statement "we are always trying to learn more about you and your interests in order to provide the best and relevant community for Canadian beer drinkers..." Such customer profiling techniques were done by the American cigarette companies in the 1980's in order to develop long-term brand insistence - however it was expensive to do that then due to the amount of free merchandize you had to give away - "kewl" web sites allow this customer profiling to be less costly and you can create communities of customers that in turn create a dynamic that can be very exciting.

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Examples of companies trying to develop "product evangelism" by creating a community around the brand and other "especially innovative and exciting" situations

UTM student Vicky L. in CCT322 in January 2006 found this article about branding and offered her useful comments below. Vicky emailed Prof. Richardson and she said "I picked this piece of news up from the "Bulletin" today: http://www.news.utoronto.ca/bin6/051214-1916.asp It is about a new research study that suggests that sometimes consumers unconsciously tend to treat brands as if they are their close friends and family members (communal relationship) instead of just a product for gain (exchange relationship).   Although I don't think the idea is totally innovative, they do suggest a deeper underlying consciousness that consumers sometimes buy a product just because it seems like the "right" thing to do in his/her social circle than for any real economic value.  Vicky added "This immediately reminded me of the situation with Wahoo' s Fish Taco restaurant chain situation (http://www.wahoos.com/index2.html.) A huge reason why people really enjoy dining at the restaurant (other than relatively good food and fast service) is the "surfer tribe" concept they constantly promote to diners.  They package the experience of going to the restaurant as equal to being a member of this "cool" club and it's the ultimate "cool" thing to do.  With its main target audience of the teenagers who practically eat out everyday seeks everything that indicates "coolness", the strategy proves to be extremely successful. Interestingly enough though, since I had a chance to watch a news report which features why the start-up company is so successful, no one from the show (the diners and the show host) has mentioned anything about that aspect.   Whether they are too shy to admit it or it is actually an unconscious working process, these cues are all important symptoms of social conformity that got exploited successfully by marketing people. " The story found by Vicky on the UofT news site at  http://www.news.utoronto.ca and referred to research that had been done by Professor Pankaj Aggarwal and Professor Sharmistha Law of the Division of Management at the University of Toronto at Scarborough

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Chapter 10 Brand Extension

Brand Extension (AKA Product Diversification) A consequence of trying to extend the product lifecycle through Product Modification of Market Modification Brand Extension helps to keep the PLC going for some products for which the producer has achieved a good ROI on their Economy of Scale

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Brand Endorsements Risky Business

Branding - by using celebrities, or allowing wealthy people to be named as a "giver" is risky business In the 3rd week of September, 2005, Queen's University was embarrased in the national news. Millionaire businessman David Radler (part of Conrad Black's inner circle), pleaded guilty to fraud in the Hollinger International newspaper scandal. Some time ago, Radler (Queen's MBA '67) had donated a million dollars to Queen's so the university named one of the wings in its business school the Radler Wing.  As a result of the negative publicity about Radler and his crimes, Queen's announced in the 4th week of September that they were giving Radler his money back and taking his name off the plaque and taking his name off the building. There used to be a practice at Queen's of only naming campus buildings after people who had died - this way you could make sure it was impossible for them to do anything stupid in the future and embarass the school ! 2010 - two words about using celebrities - first word "Tiger"....... see  www.queensjournal.ca/articlephp/point-vol133/issue4/news/lead3

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Chapter 10 Trademarks

This paragraph below comes from an article reprinted from Visual Arts Trends. The original author was By Craig J.J. Snyder and the original article was at http://www.icograda.com/web/feature-past-single.shtml?pfl=feature-single-2.param&op2.rf1=14   "A trademark is a word, combination of words, design, logo, or symbol that identifies to  consumers the source of goods. That is, tangible goods or things that you can touch.   A service mark is essentially the same thing as a trademark, but it identifies non-tangible services, for example, legal, accounting, and design.  A trade name is the actual name of the provider of the goods and/or services.  A mark is the word we lawyers use, mostly because we usually do not need to distinguish between trademarks and service marks.   (R) is the symbol for a registered trademark or service mark. Under US  and Canadian law, you may  only use this symbol if you have a  registration for the mark.  TM is a symbol that is frequently used with marks to indicate that the owner believes  the word, symbol, or phrase is a trademark. There is really no legal import to this  symbol, but it is a useful deterrent.  SM is same as TM, but it is used with service marks. Few mark owners make this distinction because relatively few people know what these terms mean. "

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