University Marketing Assignment: Brand Development Strategies

This assignment explores brand development strategies, providing a comprehensive overview of four key approaches: line extensions, brand extensions, multi-brands, and new brands. The solution begins by defining brand development and presents a matrix illustrating the different brand strategy choices. It then delves into line extensions, explaining how companies introduce new product variations under an existing brand name, with an example of Coca-Cola's diet cola with vanilla. Brand extensions are discussed, showing how brands expand into new product categories, with the example of Dove's Men + Care line. Multi-brands strategy is explained, highlighting how companies use multiple brand names within a single product category, using PepsiCo as an example. Finally, the assignment covers the creation of new brands for new product categories, using Toyota's Lexus as an example. References from Kotler & Armstrong (2010) and Athanasopoulou, Giovanis & Avlonitis (2015) support the analysis.

Marketing Discussion 3
Course Name:
University Name:
Student Number:
Student Name:
Submission Date:
Table of Contents

Brand development..........................................................................................................................3
Line extensions............................................................................................................................3
Brand extensions..........................................................................................................................4
Multi-brands................................................................................................................................4
New brands..................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5
List of Figures
Figure 1: Brand development choices matrix..................................................................................3

Discussion Topic
“Explain the four choices companies have when developing brands. Provide an example of
each”
Brand development
Brand development is the fourth brand strategy decision that an organisation makes about
building a certain brand. A firm has four choices when developing a brand which are shown in
following matrix diagram.
Figure 1: Brand development choices matrix
Line extensions
It refers to bringing in additional product variants of a given product category under the existing
brand name by introducing new colour, size, flavour or form. Companies find this choice as a
low-cost approach to launching new products (Athanasopoulou, Giovanis & Avlonitis, 2015).
Example: Coca-Cola used line extension to introduce the new flavour, diet cola with vanilla,
under the same brand name.

Brand extensions
It occurs when a company extends its existing brand name to a new product category.
Organisations use this strategy to minimise advertising expenses required for building
recognition of a new brand name (Athanasopoulou, Giovanis & Avlonitis, 2015). For example,
Dove extended its Men + Care brand from soaps to shampoo, deodorant and body wash
products.
Multi-brands
It means to marketing different brand names in a particular product category. Companies use
multi-brands strategy to ensure more shelf space of retailers and to appeal different consumer
groups using different brands (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). For example, PepsiCo has eight
brands under the product category of soft-drinks. Moreover, it also has nine brands of fruit drinks
and three brands of energy drinks.
New brands
Finally when a company creates new brand for a new product category, new brands strategy is
used (Kotler & Armstrong, 2010). For example, Toyota created a new brand Lexus to
exclusively focus on luxury automotive buyers.

References
Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2010). Principles of marketing. Pearson education.
Athanasopoulou, P., Giovanis, A. N., & Avlonitis, G. J. (2015). Marketing strategy decisions for
brand extension success. Journal of Brand Management, 22(6), 487-514.