You are welcome to share your thoughts on this article written by Kathy Oneto,Vice President, Brand Strategy at Anthem Worldwide, San Francisco

In today’s tough marketplace, we are seeing more and more brands trying to grow through stretching their equities, sometimes pushing the envelope and challenging consumers’ perceptions of what the brand is all about. These days consumers generally accept the concept of a lifestyle brand that effectively stretches, and we frequently see big brands like Ralph Lauren, Quicksilver, or Patagonia stretching to provide their target consumers with the newest accessory or product to suit his or her lifestyle. Another example of a well-known brand with broad stretch is Arm & Hammer. From a humble start as a baking soda brand, the company leveraged its potent ingredient to stretch into kitty litter, oral hygiene, fabric care, and more. But how far is too far? In looking at the factors that allow a brand to stretch, marketers can start with two key questions:

1. Where does the brand’s credibility lie?
2. Where does the consumer give you permission to stretch?

Several examples demonstrate how brands have leveraged their credibility to enter new markets and where their consumers have effectively granted them permission to stretch.

Moleskine, the makers of the legendary notebooks, has recently launched a reading collection that includes reading glasses, a portable and rechargeable booklight, and an e-reader and book stand. According to their website, these products are

…designed to complete the kit for the modern-day nomad who loves travelling, writing and reading.

Photo: Moleskine has embraced their consumer and come to know him, understanding his lifestyle and behaviors, thus anticipating a wider range of needs and providing solutions for more situations.

Moleskine stretches its brand to include everything for the “modern-day nomad,” including laptop cases, pens, and reading lights.

The Toms brand has taken its mission-based one-for-one (“one person buys, one person is helped”) business model and has shifted from a shoe company to a much broader platform, most recently expanding to eyewear. The brand anchors on the goal of trying to improve as many lives as possible, which ultimately delivers a powerful emotional benefit for the consumers buying and a powerful functional benefit the people in need on the receiving end. This broader social mission platform could in theory be applied to a near endless list of everyday products, but for now the brand is focusing on the highest impact needs that are also operationally feasible. Based on Toms’ success and the credibility the company has gained with its consumers, the question for this brand is not about where they can stretch, but how they’ll be able to keep up operationally to deliver on their mission as they continue to grow.

Photo: Skinny Cow expands its brand of guilt-free indulgence from frozen novelties to candy.

The Skinny Cow brand provides another example of a brand that has anchored on a key benefit—indulgent, guilt-free treats—and recently stretched into new categories. The brand started with indulgent, good-for-you frozen novelties and has extended its expertise to now offer multiple products with the same benefit in the candy aisle. With the ever growing obesity rate in the U.S. and American consumers’ insatiable sweet tooth, this benefit will likely fuel Skinny Cow’s innovation pipeline for some time to come.

The Amazon.com brand has come a long way since its beginnings as an online bookseller. The first step was to reach beyond just selling books to become the largest online retailer of all goods—the complete source from A-Z. Miraculously, at the same time the company was also able to expand their expertise in books to redefine “bookstore” again, launching the first widely accepted e-reader, the Kindle. From the Kindle, Amazon quickly went on to extend the e-reader capability into online media, offering MP3 downloads and streaming videos on demand to compete with the likes of iTunes and Netflix. Finally, Amazon has a successful B2B offering, which leverages its core competencies into other services, such as hosting and cloud computing. This unprecedented brand stretch leverages Amazon’s unmatched capability of providing secure, online transactions. It’s Amazon’s easy-to-use and reliable online platform, which has built incredible trust and loyalty among its consumers, that has ultimately allowed the brand to be much more than just an online bookseller.

Although we’re talking about a trademarked whole grain and sesame blend and not an online transaction capability like Amazon, Kashi has leveraged a core product feature to extend well beyond its initial product offerings. While Kashi has successfully grown into a broader lifestyle brand that supports a healthy, natural lifestyle, the brand has stayed true to its start throughout its stretching. Their tagline “Seven whole grains on a mission” has been very powerful in its simplicity. Given the health benefits of grains and the market’s appetite for health and wellness solutions, this simple notion of creating a wide range of good-for-you products with their famous grain medley has allowed the brand to effectively stretch throughout the grocery store.

From these examples we see that brands typically anchor in one of three areas to stretch their brands into new categories: consumer target (Moleskine), benefit (Toms, Skinny Cow), or features and attributes (Amazon, Kashi). Stronger brands utilize two or more of these aspects to tie their portfolio together. But before considering which anchor to use to stretch your brand, always begin the discussion with credibility and permission—what are the limits of your brand’s relationship with its target consumer, and what will your consumer allow you to do?

About the Author

Kathy Oneto is an experienced brand marketer with over fifteen years of marketing and general business management experience. At Anthem, Kathy has led strategic engagements with clients such as Avery, Chevron, Diamond Foods, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, PetSmart, Safeway, and Seagate.