Extending your brand by optimizing your customer relationship

Notes that the role of brand as more than just a marketing communications icon is increasingly obvious to leading businesses. Brand drives nearly two‐thirds of customer purchases and impacts nearly every function area of the business. It stands to reason, then, that extending the equity of the brand will fuel growth while allowing the business to outpace competitors. This article examines the positioning considerations that will enhance the effectiveness of brand extensions. What is crucial as part of the underlying strategy is consideration of the organization’s brand customer relationship and how extensions serve to broaden it. It requires combining a strategic view of the entire organization’s business drivers with principles and models from traditional and retail marketing to define new tools that will make more of its total customer base.