Brand Extensions
Outside of the world-class brands that are established in a variety of consumer segments, niche-category brands offer real opportunities. Universities, for example, especially Harvard, Cambridge, Princeton, Wharton, the London School of Economics, and Oxford, have done an excellent job of extending their brands and making them relevant in non-academic areas by licensing their brands selectively for general business, language, and training books and manuals. Middlebury College, well known for its expertise in world language curriculum, has teamed up with K12 Inc., a digital publishing company, and created a joint venture called Middlebury Interactive Languages, which publishes online language courses for schools.
Associations and not-for-profits, such as the International Reading Association (IRA) and the American Medical Association (AMA), have been very effective in extending their brands based on their reputation among their members and the influence they have outside of their organizations. One of the best examples, both in the U.S. and the U.K., are their respective automotive associations, the AAA and the AA.
Corporations and celebrities have also been able to leverage the trust that their brands have built in the minds of consumers to generate easily recognized publications. Kraft Foods, General Mills through its Betty Crocker brand, Martha Stewart, Rachael Ray, Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay, and Wolfgang Puck have generated numerous best-selling cookbooks, and Home Depot and Black & Decker have licensed their brands for popular home repair books. As an example of two publishers joining forces, where one is the more dominate brand, John Wiley & Sons has been the official worldwide publisher of the Microsoft Official Academic Course book series.
Branding Symbiosis
When corporate icons like Microsoft and Kraft partner with a publisher, two objectives are met: the corporations receive additional branding and marketing—in a sense, free advertising—in addition to royalty revenue generated from the publications; and the publisher leverages the brand with its content to help accelerate sales. Without a name-brand partner, the publisher’s content (on software code or recipes) may not have the same use or reuse value. The corporate brands are not only well recognized and respected, but readers will be apt to have more confidence in the content if it is associated with a known brand. The branding identification helps to differentiate similar content from one publisher over another. A counterargument is sometimes made that some content can be diminished in value or viewed more like advertising than trusted editorial content if it is tied to a corporate brand. But if the alignment is a good one, like the examples above, linking a corporation to carefully selected content can be a benefit to the brand, the publisher, and the consumer.
Brand extension, like brand alignment, must be well managed and applied carefully so that it is not abused. Consumers must not only trust the brand, but they must be able to feel that they can trust the particular application or extension of the brand. The brand extension must be logical and well directed, and cannot be seen as a stretch, or it will fail as a marketing aid. As a hypothetical example, it probably would not be a good idea for McDonald’s to put its name on a line of software products or for Lenovo, on the other hand, to help McDonald’s sell burgers with a “McPC meal.” While these examples might seem ludicrous, I can recall a popular cereal brand that failed when it tried to use its brand on educational workbooks and websites. Why did it fail? Cereal cannot logically bridge the divide between breakfast food and education, whereas LEGO—with its clear association with skill-building, architecture, engineering, and design—can more easily be a partner to education. This is especially true with the growing popularity of STEM/STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering/Art, and Math) courses.
A good example of brand extension, outside of the publishing field, comes from a partner of mine in the licensing business. Andy Lieb, the founder of the JRL Group, represents Cobra Electronics, a market leader in automotive and outdoor lifestyle electronics. Cobra Electronics was seeking a co-branding partner for its CB radio line. JRL secured a licensing partnership with Harley-Davidson, a brand with significant equity that, given its customer base, would logically extend into CB radios. The parameters of the license included a specific distribution channel targeting professional truck drivers who have an affinity for lifestyle brands such as Harley-Davidson. Net result: a special limited edition Harley-Davidson/Cobra CB radio sold out and created pent-up demand in the market, thus achieving both goodwill and a successful product that generated good margins for Cobra and a royalty stream for Harley-Davidson.
Cobra’s success with the Harley-Davidson tie-in with their CB radio caused it to think about a similar strategy for its two-way radio line, or walkie-talkies. For this product line, JRL evaluated numerous outdoor lifestyle brands and negotiated a licensing partnership with Realtree, an outdoor gear and lifestyle brand with an impeccable reputation for quality. In particular, Realtree is well known to the outdoor enthusiast for its unique outdoor artwork patterns. At the same time, even though the Realtree logo and artwork are enormously popular, with almost a cult following, having an electronic market leader like Cobra as the manufacturer of a branded product gave it instant credibility and recognition in a product category where Realtree had no presence. In this case, both companies brought their unique branding and market position to a new line of products. Realtree brought design, outdoor lifestyle appeal, and a strong following, while Cobra brought technology, innovation, and dependability. Net result: a full line of Cobra/Realtree two-way radios was successfully launched and continues to gain market share with outdoor enthusiasts.
Although brands can be significant assets in establishing immediate intimacy with consumers and for gaining market share, not all brands, even the most recognized ones, play equally well in all markets. For any market, a decision has to be made as to who has the best brand for selling the most products in that market. In the case of publishing in international markets, the local publisher is usually in the best position to make the right choice, especially since it is taking most of the risk.
The surest way to gain market share is by leading with the most recognized local brand and to keep egos out of the equation. If necessary, the power of a brand can be validated by using focus groups and surveys, especially for fine-tuning the demographic reach of certain brands. In general, assuming a reasonable amount of effort in time and resources, brand publishing can be a very effective tool for building awareness in any format—print, digital, or mixed media.
