Stretching a well-established OTC brand is tempting. From the first glace it looks easy and more cost effective than bulding a new brand. But many stretching attempts have failed. Here's food for thought how to do it right by @Zbigniew Janik and myself. You can also visit our webpage http://kzpartners.pl/kz-partners-pov/ should you prefer.

1. 1
What is so special in building umbrella
brands in the OTC business?

2. Introduction (1)
2
Building umbrella brands is a topic often discussed in marketing teams around
the world. The whole idea of building an umbrella brand can be described as
„attaching” new products to the core brand in order to make the „new entity”
worth more (not less). The most mind-boggling part of building an umbrella is
the following: should it be done? And if so, how far it should be extended?

3. Introduction (2)
3
On the following pages we focused on answering the last question bearing in
mind differences between 3 different categories. You will find 3 brand stretch
„models” for each of these 3 categories, including the OTC one. We focused
on the differences between them. We hope the slides are self-explanatory.
Please treat them as our reflections, not revelations. Any comments are
welcome.

4. 1. Wide brand stretch model
4
Imagine a luxury car brand. It offers above all status that is an
emotional benefit. This sort of benefit allows the brand image to
transcend well beyond the car’s functional benefits like comfortable
and safe driving. For this kind of brands even products from „distant”
categories will fit the umbrella.

5. 5
Expensive
perfume
Trendy shirt brand
Luxury hand watches
Premium shampoo
Wide brand stretch model: emotional benefit
A luxury car brand

6. 2. Medium brand stretch model
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Now imagine another category. Food. As opposed to status, the
food brands’ benefits include flavor, nutrition, „keeping you going”.
Such benefits don’t allow to stretch the brand so wide as in the
case of luxury brands.

7. Medium brand stretch model: the food brands’ benefits
include flavor, nutrition and „keeping you going”
7
Cookies
Yoghurt
Butter
A milk brand

8. 3. Narrow brand stretch model
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And last but not least, the OTC category. What makes it special and
different from others?
Well, we believe the benefits offered by OTC brands (medicines and
food supplements) belong to 2 major areas: curing from an illness or
preventing an ilness. This means that here the types of benefits are
narrow, primarily limited to treating a given ailment (few of us would
be interested in using a sore throat remedy from an OTC brand that is
known as a specialist for curing a hair loss)

9. Narrow brand stretch model: curing and preventing illnesses
9
Dry cough syrup
Productive cough syrup
Cough syrup for children
A cough syrup brand
Conclusion: OTC categories are narrow in terms of their ability to stretch their
umbrellas beyond their specialist attributes. Therefore the OTC business is more
difficult than others to build umbrella brands.