Consumer Attitudes to Brand Extensions - Dissertation Example

One of the ways in which a company will expand its business is through a brand extension. The most common way to use the brand extension is through creating a brand that uses an attribute of the existing product that can be extended into an associated product so that the equity that has been built can be used to market the new product line. One simplistic example of how a brand can be extended is observed in the Hershey brand as has the attribute of chocolate. The chocolate attribute can be extended into milk products, syrup products, cookies, and ice cream, thus extending the brand to other types of products while retaining the benefits of the brand (Sexton 2008).

The use of brand extensions is an important and vital part of the expansion of a company where the life of the company is dependent upon growth. In creating a product that extends the brand in a significant and profitable way, the expansion of the business can lead to branches of expansions that develop forward through new attributes that are created through each brand extension. To further use the example of Hershey, once the brand extension is used to extend into products for products related to chocolate, the extension can then lead to extensions from the attributes from each of those individual products that no longer need the chocolate attribute to expand.

In developing an understanding of how consumers think about the brands that they buy and how that extends further down the product line, marketing of new products can be increased for success, providing for trust to be used towards better consumer relations. Through expanding a business into other product lines, a brand can eventually be expanded into non-related product lines due to the power of the originating brand and the trust that has been imbued into it by the consumer. 1.2 Aim and ObjectivesThe following aim and list of objectives have been identified in order to define the scope of the research that is intended. 1.2.

1 AimsThe aim of this research is to understand the way in which consumer attitudes develop about the extension of brands. The research will look at how a brand’s equity is experienced from the perspective of the consumer and how attitudes about the brand provide for the decision-making process to develop in regard to making purchases of new products. The aim of this research will be to explore brands and the attitudes about those brands that are extended through relevant attributes of products. 1.2.

2 ObjectivesThe following objectives will frame the research in order to create a scope from which to define the study:• To look at the attitudes of consumers when looking at new products that carry one or more attributes from established brands.• To understand the experience that consumers undergo when a new product is brought onto the market with the advantages of a brand name from an established product line onto the new product line. • To observe the response to new products that carry a brand name from similar products forward into a new line.

• To provide an understanding of how consumer decisions are made in reference to new product lines when a brand extension has been made.