Leveraging a Brand Through Brand Extension: A Review of Two Decades of Research*

This chapter reviews 20 years of research on family brands, particularly as it pertains to brand extensions and the conditions under which brand extensions are likely to succeed. Most brand extensions succeed in part because of consumers’ familiarity with the parent brand name. Consumers trust that a new brand extension will fulfill the brand’s promise and they expect a brand extension to be consistent with the parent brand’s core associations. The chapter discusses relevant research findings on success or failure of brand extensions. It provides a discussion of three brand factors (brand strength, brand extension consistency, and information prominence or accessibility) that have been found in academic research to increase acceptance of brand extensions. The chapter then examines some of the brand extension strategies that have been researched relevant to product, pricing, distribution, promotion, and competitive strategies, and evaluate their effectiveness.