Brand extension is a marketing strategy in which a corporation marketing a new product with a well-developed image uses the same brand name in a different product category. A remarkable benefit of brand extension is that the new product can reduce risk by using the parent brand name to improve customer perception owing to the core brand equity.
I think Christian Louboutin is a successful example of brand extension. Christian Louboutin is a French footwear designer who launched his line of high-end women's shoes in France in 1991. And he has established a strong brand in a single product line with the immediately-recognizable red-lacquered soles, which became the brand’s fashion signature.
After succeeding in the creation of high heel shoes, purses and perfumes, Louboutin enters the cosmetic industry with its line of nail polishes lin July 2014. One year later, Louboutin offered its lipstick line which receive strong market reactions as lipsticks did.
The most significant point of brand extension, from my view, is that the new product should be well aligned with the core brand. Christian Louboutin perfectly fulfills this factor. Here are some lessons I take from Louboutin’s brand extension.
Enter a relevant category
As an iconic footwear brand, the decision of entering the beauty business is a wise strategy.
On the one hand, beauty industry is highly relevant with Louboutin’s core brand, thus, it is easier for consumers to trust new product lines and for the brand to take advantage of the untouchable reputation in the footwear industry to leverage the beauty products. More importantly, this extension strategy has the ability to evolve brand perceptions from simply a footwear brand and start to establish it in consumers’ minds as a broader style brand.
On the other hand, beauty is an emerging trend among fashion brands such as Chanel, Burberry, and Yves Saint Laurent. As a result, Louboutin can take lessons from those fashion labels which successfully launched the beauty lines and the barrier for Louboutin to take steps into this industry is relatively low.
Carry on the brand’s iconic elements
The most distinctive part of Louboutin’s footwear is its shiny, red-lacquered sole, which defines the brand itself. In the brand extension, its signature red color have translated beautifully into lipsticks, nail polishes, and rouges.
Besides the color, the high heel is also a design element which can deliver the essence of the brand. The element has also been used in the extension product. For example, Louboutin was inspired by calligraphy pens for the cap design and the nail polishes featuring pointed caps, which resembled the brand’s famous high heels.
These iconic elements, which is emotionally connected with the brand and able to communicate brand’s messages, are passed to the extension product designs. It can evoke consumers’ familiarity with the previous products and create customer loyalty relies on the similarity of the iconic elements. Additionally, a branded line of beauty products can also reinforce the Christian Louboutin brand attributes of style and exclusivity due to the similar elements.
Tell a brand story to establish connections between extension product lines and parent brand
In my belief, the brightest strategy of Louboutin’s extension is that it builds a bridge between the red soled shoes and its first beauty line —nail polishes by using a brand story.
The nail polish is the root where the fashion signature—red sole began. Early in Louboutin’s career, the designer famously grabbed some nail polish from an assistant and painted the sole of a shoe he was working on to make it more vibrant. And thus, his signature was born. Before launching the products, the designer Christian Louboutin has announced that he was giving back to beauty what he had taken away from it. By this story, the nail polish lines has gained more significant brand meanings, and it is more likely for consumers to recall former experience and knowledge of red soled shoes when they meet the new beauty products.
Price:high but affordable
Louboutin enters the cosmetic industry with nail polishes and lipsticks in the market including YSL, Givenchy, Dior and Armani. However, while most of these brands sell their lacquers for between $20 and 34$, lipsticks for between $26 and $52, Louboutin sell its nail polish for $50 and lipstick for $90, making them the most expensive on the market.
I think it is not only a pricing strategy to make it in line with the core brand’s positioning and pricing, but also a marketing strategy. Due to the extremely high price, Louboutin astonished the fashion world and create many discussions for itself. Through these fierce debates about whether a Louboutin nail polish worth such a high price, the extension beauty products gained much attention.
A smart point is that although the lipsticks and nail polishes re certainly not cheap, but the price is still affordable for a great number consumers, especially compared with a $600 pair of shoes. In its marketing articles, the brand highlights that its lipstick or nail polishes can be the Christian Louboutin thing you can afford in your life, which seems really alluring and pearsuasing.
Transfer the brand promise
As a luxury brand, Louboutin sells more than design shoes. It also sells an entire feminine experience: feeling confident, powerful and sexy.
As Louboutin said it himself: “A good shoe is one that doesn’t dress you, but undresses you!”. He gives a clear promise that the brand does not focus on offering comfort but on offering something sexy, unique, and powerful.
The same promise was used to create the nail polish and lipstick packaging. Inspired from the heel of its iconic shoes, the nail polish bottles and lipstick tubes all look edgy, hard and sexy. It does not seem to be elegant and soft like other cosmetic products, even some consumers said they look like weapons. In fact, Louboutin use this special design to communicate a unique feminine message: being powerful and in control.
Through the case of Christian Louboutin, it can be seen that the extension product is in line with the brand universe, not only in terms of design and price, but also in terms of brand values and promise. And the high similarities in these aspects between core brand and new product help Christian Louboutin gain the high consumer perception and leverage new product lines by brand equity.
Reference:
1) Will Christian Louboutin Beauté dilute the brand name?
2) Christian Louboutin enters the make-up industry with a nail polish line
http://www.thebrandingjournal.com/2014/08/christian-louboutin-enters-make-industry-nail-polish-line/
3) New Beauty Line by Christian Louboutin to Hit Market in 2013
4) The Louboutin Brand Experience: “flirting with your feet”
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