Taking pot-shots at bete-noires Jack Trout and Al Ries, he firmly says: ``People have no choice but to go for brand extensions because it allows you to leverage reputation or value across markets.'' Consider why Kapferer makes a case for brand extensions--and other Kapferer-kanons:

* Why brand extensions are necessary:

To get a degree of freedom. Cigarette companies such as Marlboro for example, needed to extend into a line of menswear to be able to develop the Marlboro brand. But it was tricky: when Marlboro asked what the typical consumer looked like and tried to develop a line of suits, shirts and sweaters around it, it failed. The brand extension worked when the company introspected on what the Marlboro brand stood for--western, ruggedness--and arrived at the right brand extension of denim jeans.

Because brands are not immortal, they are what managers make of them. Smirnoff realised that it's vodka might have a 50 per cent share of the UK market, but it was not reaching out to the young generation. So they came out with a new product, Mule, which had a new taste, a new look, only 4 per cent alcohol. The only equity Smirnoff leveraged was the glamour associated with the brand.

But only those brand extensions should be pursued which bring something to the brand and not just take from the brand. There might be a market for people who want to see a Mercedes-Benz in their kitchen and not in their garage, but does it mean the company should start selling Mercedes-Benz washing machines?

Because the rise in advertising costs calls for a reduction of brand portfolios. To tackle this, companies migrate the products under other brands. It does not mean you kill the product which is a source of cash, you just migrate it under mega brands.

Because it is difficult to justify that the increasing advertising budgets benefit one single product. For years Mars advocated the product brand--Mars is bars, bars is Mars. But now they need more products to get more profits from a 40-year-old reputation. So they introduced the Milky Way bar, which extends not only the name, but also the taste, values, and benefits associated with the brand.

Because some brands are associated with a declining product category. Such companies need to jump to another growth product category. Look, a high-reputation manufacturer of skis, in the face of global warming, decided to enter the mountain bike market for all-season sales. But leveraging on their reputation of creating security systems for the foot, Look introduced an innovation in the pedal of the mountain bikes. Here, the brand extension was an extension of know-how.

To feed new values in the brand, conveyed by its presence in new activities and markets. Until 1995, Nestle was absent from yogurts--though it had local brands. That year, the company killed the local brands and introduced the Nestle brand of yogurts because the trend in the foods industry is towards ultra-fresh products with a short shelf life. Nestle wanted to be associated with things that are put in the refrigerator, rather than things put in the cupboard.

To own a concept by multiplying the products where this concept adds value. Bic started out with ballpens, moved to lighters, then disposable razors. It reinforced the idea that Bic is an inexpensive product and offers the best quality at that price.

* The misconceptions around brand extensions:

Companies are more conservative than their consumers. They stick to historical roots when the brand was only the name of a new product. However, over time, brandnames acquire surplus meaning.

For long, the basic equation was one brand equals one product equals one promise. This limited the growth of the brand to line extensions through a variety of formats, uses or tastes.

Is the brand once and for all, limited to its historical product, its upgrading and variations? Or is the historical product only the first witness of a brand meaning which is not limited to a single market?

* Levels of branding

Brands always start with a product and a name. With time, marketing mix and consumption, the name gains awareness and changes meaning to become a product. Eventually it moves to a category, then it develops attributes, and from there a brand becomes a concept and then a value.

So if you decide to expand in a remote category away from your initial category, it should be done step-by-step and through progressive close extensions to your category. McCain went from fries, to pizza, to buns, before getting into iced tea.

Two, before expanding, help your brand get a higher meaning. Gillette used to offer the closest shave, but when it began preparing for an extension into the skin-care and deodorant market it started saying `the best a man can get.'

When you launch a product in an extension category, be careful how you finance it. Extensions can weaken the core product if you don't have separate budgets.

* Scope of a brand:

Over time and through extensions, a brand meaning may change. Hence encompass a wider area for further extensions in the brandname. Moving from concrete to abstract meanings, a brand evolves as follows: a product (Orangia drinks in Plus, Light, Red versions); a family of products (Campbell's soups); a know-how (Nivea is equated with skin-care); a category (Coleman is associated with the outdoors); an attribute (Bic products are simple and easy to use); a value (Marks & Spencer emodies trust); and a style (Chanel).