Cadburys made mashed potato

I know right? Cadburys, the brand that’s renowned for making high-end chocolate, also sold instant mashed potatoes. How messed up is that? Chocolate was the one thing I was promised as a child if I ate my potatoes. It’s not surprising then to understand why my faith in Cadburys being the finest chocolate brand in the world was shaken.

The instant potatoes I’m referring to is ‘Smash’. The product was aimed at the new microwave generation of working mums and if you grew up in the 80’s (yes I did) you’ll no doubt remember the advert. After very little sales success, Cadburys eventually sold Smash in 1986 for a princely sum, but at the very real cost of lowering their brands’ perceived quality.

Where is Smash now? Well if you must ask it’s doing very well under the new owners Premier Foods, who sell in the region of 150 million packs a year under their Batchelor’s brand.

What’s my point?

Firstly, “Oi, Cadburys — No!”. Secondly and more to the point, it’s easy, if not lazy to assume that because a brand has reasonable success in one area, it will succeed in other unchartered areas. In the case of Cadburys, the new brand line didn’t capitalize on Cadburys brand equity, it cannibalized it.

Sometimes brand line extensions simply don’t work. And in some more bizarre case they just don’t make sense.

Here’s a glimpse of the many brand extension failures:

• 1982 — Colgate: Frozen Foods (the famous Beef Lasagna is currently under investigation)
• 1988 — Bic: Disposable underwear
• 1989 — Bic: Fragrance for men and women
• 1999 — Cosmopolitan magazine: Yoghurts
• 1989 — MacDonalds: Pizza
• 1990 — Coors beer: Sparkling Spring Water
• 2015 — Burger King: ‘Flame’ a meat fragrance for men

OK, the last one on that list was a promotional stunt.

Brand extension is a logical business progression. If a business wants to expand, then it needs to sell more things to more people. Right? Nope. Wrong. Bad Cadburys — now go to your room and think about what you’ve done.

The brand line extension trap

There’s a false sense of security (Ego) created by brand equity that lulls brands into thinking that extending their name onto new products is a win, win. OK, so Cadburys ‘Smash’ was an extreme jump from chocolate to potato, so let’s consider another brand. In the late 1970’s 7 Up had a (not to be sniffed at) 8% share of the soda drinks market. It made sense that to increase their brands’ market share, they simply needed to create more variety. So they introduced ‘Cherry 7 Up’, ‘7 Up Gold’ and ‘Diet 7 Up’. Every marketing spreadsheet… Wait, were spreadsheets a thing in 1970? Doesn’t matter. Every marketing report and flipchart anticipated that the product line extension would result in a minimum 3% market increase. Actually, their sales crashed by nearly 5%. Customers couldn’t understand or relate to the new line extensions. The new product range detracted from what made 7 Up unique. By trying to appeal to new customers, they lost the appeal of their existing customers. Sometimes keeping your focus narrow can actually broaden your customer reach.

And to coin a phrase ‘If it ain’t broken…’

If you’ve built your brand around an ideal, don’t change, challenge or be seen to question that ideal. Coca-Cola, the king of the soft drinks for over 130 years (despite narcotics not being deemed a suitable ingredient) decided to ‘fix’ their famous drink by releasing ‘New Coke’. ‘New’ Coke? Really? Then what’s this crap we’ve all been drinking for the past 130 years? The public of course rioted, stumbling about in a fizz of confusion forcing Coca-Cola to quickly reinstated ‘Classic Coke’ alongside ‘New Coke’ causing even further confusion over choice. Oh yes, I remember meeting ‘New Coke’. And I felt cheated and lied to. Like when they switched Darrin in ‘Bewitched’ with no apology and not so much as a word from Samantha. New Coke didn’t last. Bewitched ended 3 seasons later.

When does it work?

It’s difficult to extend your brand into other commodities when your brand is ‘synonymous’ with that commodity. Brand extension works best when your brand is associated with a ‘value’ proposition that appeals to your customers’ bottom line. When I think about a brand extension, ‘Virgin’ springs to mind. I don’t personally like the brands’ look. Visually I think it’s cheap and dated. The Virgin brand however has an entrepreneurial prowess. It’s famous for wanting to do it better, different. Its brand proposition is the spirit of adventure although not all Virgin brand adventures have been successful, there were a few that got lost along the way. ‘Virgin Cola’ didn’t sway the savvy soda swigging consumers’ loyalty from the likes of Pepsi and Coca-Cola. I remember trying it and feeling underwhelmed by the taste and not particularly seduced by the shapely Pamela Anderson inspired bottle aptly named ‘The Pammy’. Their domestic airline brand ‘Little Red’ didn’t really take off (sorry). Another Virgin brand extension ‘Virgin Brides’ is an example that really should have made my brand line extension failures list. Whenever Virgin launches a new ‘something’ I think the world just watches and waits to see if it flops or flys, but the launch of a new Virgin brand line never fails to draw a shower of the media’s attention.

easyGroup brand on the other hand is a brand that’s synonymous with value. With it’s no-frills, tick the boxes, get the job consumer promise, it has launched sub-brand lines from pizza to property. Despite this diverse mix of products and services, their brand remains consistent, recognizable, and clear with absolutely no confusion around what you, as a consumer, are about to buy into.

What did we learn?

Brand extensions can work, but remaining true to your brand positioning and value proposition is crucial if you don’t want to end up in the Museum of Failure. Brand line extensions are arguably cheaper and quicker than creating a whole new sub-brand that would otherwise require people like us, research time, and marketing budget to launch and so it’s an attractive route to market. But take heed — if your newly released brand line is making your customers do a double-take (like they’ve just seen a baby with an earing), then chances are you’re letting your lazy, brand ego get the better of you.