LITERATURE REVIEW:
The idea of marketers behind brand extension is to satisfy the customers by taking an upper hand in the competitive world. There are some companies which extend their brands within the same category but of different flavours. All the marketers extend their brands in the same line updating the trends in terms of tastes and preferences of the customers. But there are many problems associated with these line extensions. Line extensions hold good as far as they meet the needs and wants of the consumers but once the brand proliferation takes high pace so as to withstand the competition, it leads to negative track introducing new problems. Customers are confused if there are wide ranges of products indistinct in their features and also shelf filling becomes a tough task to the retailers in giving priority to wide varieties which also includes their own brands (Kotler,2006).Line extensions mostly targets a particular market segment considering the needs and tastes of the consumers. But sometimes the target market for the products may change based on psychological or geographical factors (Kotler, 2006). Therefore segmentation should also consider the type of product before choosing the target market. However these kinds of Line extensions do land up with negative results like cannibalising the parent brand, taking away the market share of the existing brands including parent brand. To avoid the failure of the newly launched product, the proper decision should be taken by the manager plays a vital role in any organisation. Here raises the question whether to centralise the brand portfolios or to manage them individually. Centralisation is the best way to handle the situation when number of brands enters into the market, as individual handling of brands may result in overlapping investments and customer confusions. In centralisation, brand loyalty helps in building up the overall brand image of the organisation further promoting new products avoiding the problem of incredibility. Though this approach does not have much role in cutting costs but it helps in gaining consistency across organisation and to improve brand power (Mike Leiser, 2006). However, there are also cases where centralisation fails to manage brand portfolios. After considering pros and cons of both centralisation and decentralisation, it can be said that centralising or decentralising brand portfolios depends on the type of the product.
As customers are the judges of product’s efficiency, the problem of brand uncertainty arises if the marketers are not keen on competitors. Brand positioning allows the target market to recognise the distinctive offering and image of the corporation. So it is very important for the company to position itself in proper segment. Samsung is the brand which suffered the low quality brand image in its early stages and now challenging the world-class brands like Sony by repositioning itself as brand of quality (Robin, 2003). Hence proper positioning of the brands avoids the influences of the segments on global companies by driving away confusions in the customers’ minds. But creating competitive brand positioning involves a common problem, which is negative correlation of attributes or benefits that make up the points-of-parity and points-of-difference. However, this problem can be addressed by presenting two different marketing campaigns each explaining different attributes as done by Head & Shoulders (Kotler, 2006). For better understanding of brand positioning, knowledge of customers’ perception on brand is the important requirement for any marketer, as strong insights into customers’ behaviour provide clear path for them to design their positioning strategies. Without adequate knowledge on customers’ needs and wants it is not affordable at the marketers end to attempt for any changes in their positioning status or other marketing activities. As the tastes and preferences of customers keep on changing depending on trends, it is marketer’s part to enhance and update the requirements considering the satisfaction levels of the customers. But there are situations at which customers switch to another brand for the sake of variety. According to consumer decision making theory, consumers do a lot brand switching for the sake of diversity rather than dissatisfaction. (Kotler, 2006). As discussed above, insights into customer behaviour not only helps in positioning their brands but also helps in retaining customers of repositioned brands. Especially when the organisations re-launch their brand, it is very important for them to prove that they still maintain the core values of the previous brand in order to retain the core customers. Retention of core customer is possible only when the marketers have a clear idea on what customers like and dislike about old brand. Effective brand image management is the only way to avoid the negative consequences of brand extension. After critical analysis on centralisation and decentralisation, it is clear that centralisation is more beneficial rather than handling them individually, as global brands promote brand image to the greater extent and avoid customer confusions. But many marketers resist centralisation considering the issues such as need for local adaptation and overlapping investments. In fact marketers should realise that centralisation of brands avoid customer confusions and build parent brand image as credibility factor plays a major role. To minimise the adverse effects of brand extensions, insights into customers and proper economic analysis is most essential which involve brand audits and brand valuation (Kotler,2006).Therefore quality of the product or service is the key element which promotes customer retention and improves customer satisfaction. Especially when the brand is to be extended, quality is more important in retaining the core customer and instead brand extension should not lead to capitalising on parent brand image without any improvement in the quality of extended brand.
NEED AND JUSTIFICATION OF STUDY
Numerous marketing concepts emerge in the consumer market and whereas the brand extension play important role in the market place. Effective brand extension will improve the sales. There is a need for a greater understanding of the brand extension with the international market and the factors responsible for success or failure of the brand. In particular, there is a need to identify the role of brand extension within the consumer market. IT will help the companies who are trying to extend their brands.
RESEARCH AIMS
To find the importance of brand extension in the survival of parent brand
To find the importance of brand name in consumer purchase activity
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
To find out the importance Brand image.
To investigate the influence of one Brand on parental Brand.
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Why brand extension matters in consumer market?
To what extent sub brand is responsible for the survival of parent brand?
How companies are facing challenges for brand extension?
DEFENITION OF TERMS
BRAND EXTENSION : A new brand in the name of existing brand.
SUB BRAND : A new combined with the existing brand.
PARENT BRAND : A pre-existing brand giving rise to sub brand.
FAMILY BRAND : A parent brand of multiple extensions.
LINE EXTENSION : parent brand is used to brand new product that targets a
New market segment by the parent brand.
CATEGORY : parent brand is used to enter a different product
EXTENSION Category from that currently served by the
Parent brand.
LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH
It will involve time taking of brand managers of different multi-national organisations who are busy in with their responsibilities. It also requires consumption of valuable time business man and even the customers. It also involves cost factor as it wastes the valuable time of managers and the marketer’s .Getting time to fill the questionnaires and obtaining the feedback from different business man is also difficult and sometimes can lead to the decrease the accuracy of primary data collected. Time constraints and hectic schedule at work are only limiting factor for the primary research. It may sometimes create problems in collecting qualitative answers and feedback
METHODOLOGY
This section explains the methodology followed at different stages of the research. It briefs the different methods that can be used for conducting a research and the methods that were used to accomplish this research. It follows the issues such as research approach, research structure, quantitative & qualitative research, and data analysing. Research methodology undergoes three main phases defining the research approach, implementation and collection of data, and finally the methods of evaluating and analysing the collected data and states the suggestions as per the requirement.
RESEARCH APPROACH
The choice of research approach is the only factor which will affect both result and the process of the research to be continued. All the scholars expect that the researcher should have thorough Understanding of his/her objectives of research and methodology to be implanted. Researchers who have better understanding of research philosophy will give better result (Eldabi et al, 2002).
DATA COLLECTION METHODS
According to the sources data collections are of two types namely primary data source and secondary data source. Primary and secondary data collection sources are differed as follows.
Primary data sources
Primary data collection basically the data collected by the researcher itself. In other words, Primary data is normally regarded as data collected by the original researcher by using his own way of investigation. Primary data consist of both quantitative and qualitative research. In performing this research work it includes both qualitative and quantitative research data. Primary data can be collected from different direct resources and it can be expensive and time consuming. Different ways are used for collection of primary data such as Interviews, Questionnaires, surveys, and other observational ways.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Qualitative research data consist of both written and spoken words by different persons, and normally does not include any numerical values. Observation studies and interviews are example of some of the qualitative research which is conducted in this dissertation work (Oliver, 2002). Qualitative research consists of data which is easy to understand and formulated as per the requirement. In the market today primary qualitative information is mostly obtained from postal surveys, personal interviews, and observation ways.
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH
Scholars described that quantitative research deals with both positivistic and interpretive approaches. In this data collection numbers are always involved and it consists of numerical etc. It involves the filling of questionnaires and the counting of the numbers filled. Quantitative Research enables the researcher to find out percentage, ratio or quantity of respondents opinions against the questions. There are three major techniques of quantitative data collection. They research uses of observational methods, survey methods and experimental methods for the collection of data. Surveys are widely used for the collection of data in the completion of dissertation.
SECONDARY DATA SOURCES
Secondary data that have already been collected for some other purpose, perhaps processed and sub sequently stored (Olive, 2002). Secondary data is cheaper and is easy to access. Secondary data can play a variety of roles in this research process as it provides useful background information on market., Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of industrial marketing management, Mintel market Intelligence Published by mintel to explore monthly market research reports on various consumer goods and the Industry Trends and Forecast Published by Keynote Report, to explore research reports on various markets. The internet sources consisting of different web sites will be useful to finding the secondary data. Researcher has subscribed few online magazines and reports on brand and brand extension. There are some basic books that are required to follow on the research work with consistency and the underpinning of supportive theories and concepts such as marketing management 12e, Brand Extension, Principles of Marketing etc.
DATA ANALYSIS TECHNIQUES
A set of questionnaires will be given to the brand managers at different organisations, marketers and to the customers. The answers of all the questions will be noted manually and on the basis of their responses, pie charts/ bar graphs will be made. The quantitative method will allow the researcher to collect the data from the respondent in the numerical format, thus achieve a high level of reliability and accuracy. The Researcher will analyze the data by listing the questions according to the different styles of Leadership and will consolidate the results for each question in a separate sheet. The final results will be depicted and discussed in separate section. To help validate the data different data analysis techniques can be used to interpret the Comparison with sampling frame such as percentage of responses that placed positively on brand effects in purchasing decision and percentage of responses that placed positively on price, after sale service or spare parts availability.
A detailed research plan with time scale plan
REFERENCES
Eldabi, T. Irani, Z., Paul, R. and Love, P. (2002), “ Quantitative and Qualitative Decision-Making Methods in Simulation Modelling”, Journal of Management Decision, Vol.40, Iss.1.
Kotler, P. and Keller, KL. (2006), “ Marketing management”, ed.12,prentice hall, upper saddle river, new jersey
Oliver, P. (2002), “Research for Business Marketing and Education”, UK Teach Yourself Publishers,Uk.
Martinez, E. and Jose, M.P. (2003), “ the negative impact of brand extensions on parent brand image”, Journal of Product & Brand Management, [online].12(7),Availablefrom <>[accessed on 29 04 2009]
Robin, R. (2003),“Samsung shows its strength “ [online]. Available from:<>[accessed on 1 05 2009]
