It ’ s a danger for every company , but do these changes in consumer behaviour and the requirement for increased brand awareness mean it ’ s now harder to diversify your line of products within an overarching brand identity ?
Adamson doesn ’ t believe so , but he does feel companies need to be a little cleverer about how they do it , ensuring that the integrity of what their company stands for is not compromised . “ You have to make sure that whatever product you go into , the benefit of your brand is still delivered in that new category or that new segment and it reinforces what the core idea is ,” he asserts . “ I think BMW has been pretty successful switching from sports sedans to SUVs . Yes , their SUVs perform differently than their other models but when they talk about why their SUV is better than other SUVs , it ’ s still tied to that core idea of ‘ the ultimate driving machine ’. If you ’ re in an SUV , ‘ the ultimate driving machine ’ lets you go through a riverbed and up an incline without tipping the car over , and through mud and muck . If you ’ re driving a sports sedan , that means you can go around the corner on the highway at 60mph and not feel that you ’ re going 60mph around the corner . They have a clear definition of what BMW-ness is . “ Now they ’ re experimenting with electric cars , the definition of what ultimate driving means has some latitude but no matter what it is , the worst thing you can do to a brand is to line-extend it or diversify into
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