Throughout the history of the development of Virgin Group, not all their brand extension products were brilliant. Virgin Cola is a typical negative example. Though the sale of Virgin Cola occupied about 50% of the market share when it was first put into the market in 1994, the phenomenon did not last long, and Virgin Cola disappeared gradually from the USA market (Chen &Gu 23). One of the reasons why Virgin Cola failed is that it had no advantage over its strong competitor Coca-Cola in the market. Slater and Muniz have found that consumers have strong loyalty to Coca-Cola (Chen & Gu 23). As customers could not find any distinctive properties that Virgin Cola had compared to Coke-Cola, the strong loyalty made them to buy Coke-Cola when facing
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Besides the unique features the brand extension product should have, consumers’ “high perceived fit” between the parent brand and extension products is another point a manager should consider to increase the odds of brand extension success. Fit can be generally deemed as the overlap or similarity in features between the core brand and extension category (Bridges, Keller & Sood 1). In the previous literature, there have been two major kinds of fit discussed: product-to-product and brand-to-product similarity (Shen, Bei & Chu). The former fit is based on the shared attributes in both parent brand category and its extention category. A potato chip and its extension product, a cheese cracker, both snacks, could be viewed as fit due to their dry and salty characteristics (Bridges, Keller & Sood 1). The brand-to-product fit, on the other hand, means that the extension product, which might not be similar with the parent product’s category, should be consistent with its brand …show more content…
In 1900, the first upright piano was produced and due to its high quality, world renowned pianists designated the Yamaha piano to serve for many world-class stages. It has now become the world’s largest manufacturer of musical instruments. The Yamaha Motor, shared the same brand with Yamaha instrument, begun in 1955 and it has developed to the second largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. The motorcycles seem unrelated to instruments but are consistent with Yamaha instrument’s core brand concept. The philosophy of Yamaha is to create “inspired state of mind” among people (Yamaha), and what people receive the experience with Yamaha products is a kind of pleasure from the depths of the heart and soul. It is not only a piece of instrument, but also represents a special lifestyle. And Yamaha Motor might be a good interpretation of such lifestyle: providing people all over the world with exciting experience and pleasure. The similar idea between Yamaha instrument and Yamaha Motor is one of the reasons that results in the success of Yamaha Motor (extension products). The significance of perceived fit can be seen not only in real cases, but also from some researchers. Thus, managers need to know the consumer-perceived concept of their brand. Though it is difficult, managers might gather the information from
Besides the unique features the brand extension product should have, consumers’ “high perceived fit” between the parent brand and extension products is another point a manager should consider to increase the odds of brand extension success. Fit can be generally deemed as the overlap or similarity in features between the core brand and extension category (Bridges, Keller & Sood 1). In the previous literature, there have been two major kinds of fit discussed: product-to-product and brand-to-product similarity (Shen, Bei & Chu). The former fit is based on the shared attributes in both parent brand category and its extention category. A potato chip and its extension product, a cheese cracker, both snacks, could be viewed as fit due to their dry and salty characteristics (Bridges, Keller & Sood 1). The brand-to-product fit, on the other hand, means that the extension product, which might not be similar with the parent product’s category, should be consistent with its brand …show more content…
In 1900, the first upright piano was produced and due to its high quality, world renowned pianists designated the Yamaha piano to serve for many world-class stages. It has now become the world’s largest manufacturer of musical instruments. The Yamaha Motor, shared the same brand with Yamaha instrument, begun in 1955 and it has developed to the second largest manufacturer of motorcycles in the world. The motorcycles seem unrelated to instruments but are consistent with Yamaha instrument’s core brand concept. The philosophy of Yamaha is to create “inspired state of mind” among people (Yamaha), and what people receive the experience with Yamaha products is a kind of pleasure from the depths of the heart and soul. It is not only a piece of instrument, but also represents a special lifestyle. And Yamaha Motor might be a good interpretation of such lifestyle: providing people all over the world with exciting experience and pleasure. The similar idea between Yamaha instrument and Yamaha Motor is one of the reasons that results in the success of Yamaha Motor (extension products). The significance of perceived fit can be seen not only in real cases, but also from some researchers. Thus, managers need to know the consumer-perceived concept of their brand. Though it is difficult, managers might gather the information from