Effective brand extensions are extending category boundaries through holistic product and package combinations. Here are the critical steps for success, from brands that do it well.
By Jim George
Rather than launch new brands, which are risky and costly to implement, many consumer product companies are leveraging the equity in existing brands and extending them into new categories If your brand is among them, does it slip like a glove into the new category or does it leave confused shoppers saying “huh?”
Brands that successfully cross into multiple categories adhere to a few basic steps, according to brand and innovation managers and package designers who do it well. Here are four of their rules to follow.
• The brand needs to stand for something that is greater than the product.
• The results need to benefit the consumer’s life style.
• The product launches need to draw attention to both the brand and its values.
• And, ideally, both the product and package should change consumer behavior.
In today’s skittish economy, well-crafted brand extensions squash consumer skepticism by offering value and providing context and meaning apart from other products. These are the same expectations that consumers hold for other facets of their lives, says Heidi Caldwell, who has directed product launches and design programs for Nestlé, Unilever, Hormel Foods, and other product manufacturers. “Understand what is changing about consumer behavior,” she says.
But don’t ask consumers what they want, advises Caldwell, Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Development at Brand Engine, since they often aren’t sure what they want. Therefore, products that address their unarticulated needs can fail in research because consumers naturally seek comfort in what’s familiar to them.
Jeff George, Vice President of Research and Development at Quaker Foods and Snacks, agrees. “The danger in asking consumers what they want is they’re not going to tell you,” George explains. “Ask them what needs aren’t being met.”
Stand for something
George points to Frito-Lay’s TrueNorth brand as an example of this thinking. TrueNorth is marketed by Frito-Lay, which along with Quaker Oats falls into the PepsiCo stable of brands. Nuts are a commodity product in the snack aisle, but TrueNorth, George explains, rises above that with what he describes as “aspirational value.”
The brand delivers a message of health and wellness—benefits that hold high aspirational appeal for consumers and become a lifestyle expression—when delivered through products such as Almond Cranberry Crisps, which elevate almonds into the realm of snack chips. Package structure and design support this higher status with a standup pouch contrasting the metal cans and glass jars that dominate the category.
But there is more going on with this package, George adds. The yellow-tint background and colorful arrangements of the nuts used in creating the crisps create what marketers describe as “aisle disruption,” a visual billboard of products that offers something compellingly different in the category.
“It’s very important for us to establish the ‘right to succeed,’” George says. “In the case of nuts, you have to bring something new, relevant, and value-added, with consumer benefits and retailer benefits.”
George recommends that brand managers think more broadly about their brands to take them into entirely new realms of consumer consciousness. “Consumers today don’t have the discretionary income to pay for products that aren’t doing something for them,” he says. “It can’t just be a brand. It has to be a product with benefits that support the brand.”
Brand and its values
Brands that extend into new categories often share an important third trait. They not only offer tangible benefits that fill a category gap but also reinforce a brand’s values. Duraflame Inc., Stockton, CA, succeeds on all these levels while also grabbing a 13% share of the firelog segment with Duraflame Stax, a new sub-brand of firelogs for wood-burning fireplaces. Stax creates a new sub-category: the firelog-firewood hybrid. Packaging for the brand reinforces Duraflame as an innovation leader and also draws attention to its commitment to protecting the environment.
Stax firelogs satisfy consumer preference for a real fire experience by combining the ease and fast-lighting convenience of firelogs. Three of the logs, when stacked together, provide more than a three-hour fire. They remain solid while burning and simulate the sound of a crackling wood fire.
Stax is available as single logs and in three-packs and six-packs. Single and three-pack logs are wrapped in one-color-printed kraft paper from Printpack . The kraft paper doubles as the lighting agent for the logs. The three-pack logs are bundled in polyolefin from Bemis Clysar and a scored graphics card that is offset-printed on both sides by RR Donnelley in six colors plus a gloss aqueous coating. The six-packs are marketed in a C-flute corrugated carton containing a white, SBS outer sheet that Packaging Corporation of America rotogravure prints in six colors plus an aqueous coating.
Crystal Whole, Brand Manager, explains that Stax represents a technological breakthrough sufficient to warrant its own category, which presented a number of marketing challenges. “We had to create value versus wood; it’s three of our logs versus 25 to 30 pounds of normal firewood to have the same fire,” Whole says. “So you’re using less product and creating this value system.”
One way that packaging delivers on value is by assuring that shoppers understand the significance of such a hybrid product. High-definition photography provides a homey feel, showing a stack of the logs positioned on a grate and engulfed by a roaring fire.
Besides showing product value, Stax packaging serves a second marketing role by reinforcing Duraflame’s commitment to the environment. Stax logs consist of recycled sawdust, agricultural fibers such as nuts and shells, and nonpetroleum waxes and oils. The logs’ clean-burning benefits are called out on package fronts in a green banner that contrasts the predominant orange-and-black color scheme.
Change behavior
If the product and package meet consumer expectations for meaning, value, and lifestyle benefits, a fourth way of creating a successful brand extension is a real bonus. By identifying unmet needs in a category and doing holistic planning, creative teams can change consumer behavior with a well-designed package.
Dial Corp., a Henkel Consumer Goods Inc. company, is doing that in household cleaners. The category has a reputation as a clunky mix of products in which brand owners often opt for the “fastest and cheapest” approach to packaging in two of the aisle’s prominent subcategories: bathroom cleaners and toilet care. Stock bottles and pump sprayers are typical packages.
Henkel is prominent in both categories with category-specific products marketed under its Soft Scrub brand. The company is bridging both categories with Soft Scrub Total Bath & Bowl Spray. Though other all-in-one deodorizing cleaners for the bathroom are on the market, what elevates Total Bath & Bowl Spray is a package structure that simplifies product use and creates additional value.
“The overall design has a lot to communicate in only a few seconds,” says Wendy Warus, Vice President Home Care, Henkel International. “Structural design is the key element. Consumers quickly understand that this is a breakthrough cleaner because the bottle design combines the elements she loves about each of her current cleaner forms: the long neck of a trigger bottle, the trigger itself, and the angled neck of a toilet bowl cleaner.”
Dean Lindsay, who has decades of experience as a structural designer, believes the Soft Scrub package is significant because spray bottles historically have been a useful but unattractive household cleaning tool. Total Bath & Bowl Spray changes that with a package that marries a custom-designed HDPE bottle from Silgan with a stock trigger sprayer from AFA Dispensing Group).
The package enhances convenience in household cleaners for two reasons, says Lindsay, spokesman for Tirso Olivares Design, which designed the package. The design features a distinctive angled neck and spray trigger that enable consumers to spray both rightside up and upside down. That eliminates the problem of liquid failing to expel from the wand as the sprayer is squeezed when the bottle is turned upside down.
Just as important, the package structure allows for a new behavior during product use: directing and squeezing the spray nozzle in all directions. The bottle’s ergonomic design positions the hand lower on the neck area during spraying, thereby reducing user fatigue, especially when turning the hand and squeezing the spray nozzle to expel a targeted flow of cleaner.
TrueNorth, Duraflame Stax, and Soft Scrub Total Bath & Bowl Spray are three recent product launches that successfully extend brands. Why? Brand Engine’s Caldwell believes strong brand extensions respond to overall consumer trends and reflect changing attitudes and product usage occasions. These products enrich lifestyles and create holistic user experiences..
The author, Jim George, is the Editor-in-Chief of Shelf Impact! Contact him at george@packworld.com.
