Evaluating the Opportunity for Brand Extension
							  Brand Extension Guidelines
																						
							While evaluating the Opportunity for brand extension, it is essential to take consumers brand knowledge structures into account.
                            Marketers must focus on the relatively more important associations as a potential basis  of "fit". Because any one Brand is not viewed equally 
                             favourably by all  the market segments that the firm would like to  target.
                                                  Brand Extensions  are  evaluated  on the basis of their capacity to maximize market coverage.Each Brand should  justify its
                           marketing and production costs.
                                                     It is important to evaluate the opportunities for Brand Extension , on a  regular basis, so that no potential customers are being
                           ignored, and so that in the process weak brands are identified and unprofitable brands are either improved upon or removed.

                                 In evaluating opportunities for brand extensions, the following considerations   serve as touchstones:

                              1. Successful brand extensions take place when the parent brand is seen as having favourable associations and there is a perception of  fit      
                        between the parent brand and the extension product.
                               2. There are many types of fit: Product-Related attributes and benefits as well as Non -Product-Related attributes and benefits.
                              3. Perceptions of fit may be based on technical or manufacturing commodities, depending on  consumers knowledge of categories.
                            4. High Quality Brands stretch farther than Average Quality Brands.
                              5. A Brand that is seen as a proto-typical of a product category can be difficult to extend outside the category.
                          6. Concrete attribute associations tend to be  more difficult to extend than  Abstract benefit Associations.
                         7.  Consumers may transfer associations that are positive in the original product class but become negative in the extension context.
                          8. Consumers may infer negative associations about an extension.
                        9. It can be difficult to extend into a product class that is seen as easy to make.
                       10. A Successful Extension cannot only contribute to the Parent Brand Image but also enable a brand to be extended even farther.
                        11. An Unsuccessful  Extension hurts the parent brand only when there is a strong basis of fit between the two.
                     12. An Unsuccessful Extension does not Prevent a firm from "Babk Tracking" and introducing a more similar extension.
                  13. Vertical Extensions cannot be difficult and often require Sub-branding strategies.
                       14. The most effective  Advertising Strategy for an Extension emphasizes information about the extension (rather  tha the reminders
                          about the Parent Brand.)

                                                    Brand Extension Guidelines:
													
									 Research in Brand Extension has  identified  the following inferences which serve as  the Guidelines charcterizing a Good Brand Extension:

                        1. Brands should not be extended unless they are well -known , and unless they have  high awareness and a good reputation among the 
                            New Target Market.
                        2. Brand extensions must be a logical fit with consumers' expectations.
                          3.Brand extensions  must have leverage in the new category.
                            4. Brand Extensions that could create confusion or a negative image for the parent should not be undertaken.
                          5.  Brands that consumers use synonymously with a category should not be  extended to other categories.
                            6. Brands should not be stretched to too many diverse categories risking dilution in the long run.
                          7. Brand extensions that will not create positive synergy  for the parent brand should not be pursued.
						  8. Brand extensions must take consumers expectations and their requirements as first and foremost , and they must make business sense.
				     9. Every Brand extension should open a category for the firm. the whole point of Brand extension is to enter a new category, efficiently and
					       Successfully.
						   10. A Critical part of every Brand extension Research study is developing  a Brand plan. . Short and Long term  Possibilities should be 
						           identified and brought to the Front.
								    
									 In a nut-shell, launching a Brand Extension is not enough; it should be adequately supported and defended, so as to 
									    enable it generate sufficient sales.
										
										
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