AUTHOR
Holm, Rikard; Blomquist, Victoria

DATE
2004-07-10

DEPARTMENT/ARENA
Business Administration and Social Sciences / Industrial marketing and e-commerce

SUMMARY
The majority of products that are launched today are extensions of a brand. These extensions are often launched as line extensions where the new product is developed within an existing product category. The use of line extensions has affected customer’s evaluations and purchase decisions, and the factors impacting these are important to consider. The purpose of this thesis was therefore to further explore the customer perception of line extension and how it affects the brand image. Focus groups were used in our empirical research, among our findings we discovered that successful line extensions provides variety and fulfil a customer need, line extensions easily tend to fail if they are too dissimilar from the rest of the brand’s products. The brand image can be strengthened through marketing and promotion of the line extension. The thesis is supposed to contribute and function as a guide for further research in the area.

ISSN 1404-5508 / ISRN LTU-SHU-EX--04/146--SE / NR 2004:146