ABSTRACT
Cross-promotion and branding are critical for the creation and use of media product portfolios. The ability to cross-promote and extend a brand is an incentive for companies to develop product portfolios. This chapter explains branding and cross-promotion in relation to media product portfolios. It explores the connection between branding and cross-promotion and the possibilities and problems the strategies pose for media companies with a product portfolio. Media firms that own a portfolio of product lines with one or several brands can advantageously use branded products as mediums for cross-promotion. Brand portfolios are product portfolios that include different brands and/or several branded product lines. The opposite of brand portfolios is brand extension, where one brand is extended onto several products. Cross-customer promotion occurs when a company uses their existing customer base of one of their products to promote their other products.
