Page 284 - Marketing Management

CREATING BRAND EQUITY | CHAPTER 9 261

extensions through the years—Fruit on the Bottom, All Natural Flavors, Dan-o-nino, and Fruit
Blends. In a category extension, marketers use the parent brand to enter a different product cate-
gory, such as Swiss Army watches. Honda has used its company name to cover such different prod-
ucts as automobiles, motorcycles, snowblowers, lawn mowers, marine engines, and snowmobiles.
This allows the firm to advertise that it can fit “six Hondas in a two-car garage.”
A brand line consists of all products—original as well as line and category extensions—sold
under a particular brand. A brand mix (or brand assortment) is the set of all brand lines that a
particular seller makes. Many companies are introducing branded variants, which are specific
brand lines supplied to specific retailers or distribution channels. They result from the pressure
retailers put on manufacturers to provide distinctive offerings.A camera company may supply its low-
end cameras to mass merchandisers while limiting its higher-priced items to specialty camera shops.
Valentino may design and supply different lines of suits and jackets to different department stores. 64
A licensed product is one whose brand name has been licensed to other manufacturers that
actually make the product. Corporations have seized on licensing to push their company names and
images across a wide range of products—from bedding to shoes—making licensing a multibillion-
65
dollar business. Jeep’s licensing program, which now has 600 products and 150 licensees, includes
everything from strollers (built for a father’s longer arms) to apparel (with Teflon in the denim)—as
long they fit the brand’s positioning of “Life without Limits.” Through 400-plus dedicated Jeep
shop-in-shops and 80 Jeep freestanding stores around the world, licensing revenue now exceeds
$550 million in retail sales. New areas of emphasis include outdoor and travel gear, juvenile
products, and sporting goods. 66

Branding Decisions

ALTERNATIVE BRANDING STRATEGIES Today, branding is such a strong force that
hardly anything goes unbranded. Assuming a firm decides to brand its products or services, it must
choose which brand names to use. Three general strategies are popular:
• Individual or separate family brand names. Consumer packaged-goods companies have a long
tradition of branding different products by different names. General Mills largely uses individual
brand names, such as Bisquick, Gold Medal flour, Nature Valley granola bars, Old El Paso
Mexican foods, Progresso soup,Wheaties cereal, and Yoplait yogurt. If a company produces quite
different products, one blanket name is often not desirable. Swift and Company developed sepa-
rate family names for its hams (Premium) and fertilizers (Vigoro).A major advantage of individ-
ual or separate family brand names is that if a product fails or appears to be of low quality, the
company has not tied its reputation to it. Companies often use different brand names for differ-
ent quality lines within the same product class.
• Corporate umbrella or company brand name. Many firms, such as Heinz and GE, use their cor-
67
porate brand as an umbrella brand across their entire range of products. Development costs
are lower with umbrella names because there’s no need to run “name” research or spend heavily
on advertising to create recognition. Campbell Soup introduces new soups under its brand name
with extreme simplicity and achieves instant recognition.Sales of the new product are likely to be
strong if the manufacturer’s name is good. Corporate-image associations of innovativeness, ex-
pertise, and trustworthiness have been shown to directly influence consumer evaluations. 68
Finally, a corporate branding strategy can lead to greater intangible value for the firm. 69
• Sub-brand name. Sub-brands combine two or more of the corporate brand, family brand, or
individual product brand names. Kellogg employs a sub-brand or hybrid branding strategy by
combining the corporate brand with individual product brands as with Kellogg’s Rice
Krispies, Kellogg’s Raisin Bran, and Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. Many durable-goods makers such as
Honda, Sony, and Hewlett-Packard use sub-brands for their products. The corporate or com-
pany name legitimizes, and the individual name individualizes, the new product.

HOUSE OF BRANDS VERSUS A BRANDED HOUSE The use of individual or separate
family brand names has been referred to as a “house of brands” strategy, whereas the use of an
umbrella corporate or company brand name has been referred to as a “branded house” strategy.
These two branding strategies represent two ends of a brand relationship continuum. A sub-brand
strategy falls somewhere between, depending on which component of the sub-brand receives more
emphasis. A good example of a house of brands strategy is United Technologies.