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Part of an ongoing lesson plan for my daughters. Lesson 1.

Lesson 2: Reasons not to buy, or buy into, the Slumber Party Girls’ brand extensions. 

Today, girls, we’re going to discuss “brand extensions,” which have nothing to do with the Slumber Party Girls’ (SPG) hair.

A brand extension is when a company takes the good name of one product, say, Barbie, and puts it on a new product, say, Breakfast with Barbie cereal. The idea is that if we like the first product, we’ll be more likely to buy the second product.

A good example from Brand Extension Research: If you like Sun-Maid Raisins, you’ll probably buy Sun-Maid Raisin Muffins.

Sun-Maid Raisins have been around since 1915. You know that you like Sun-Maid Raisins because you’ve tasted them and they are good. You’ve never had a bad Sun-Maid raisin. Sun-Maid has earned its reputation.

It’s very difficult for a new product to earn its reputation in today’s market, as they say. Companies can’t afford to wait two or three generations to make a profit. So instead, an entertainment brand like the Slumber Party Girls buys its reputation.

For example: One way to gain a good reputation is to have people talk about the product in a positive way. Maybe someone will tell you they like Sun-Maid Raisins and that you should try them. Fair enough.

So maybe you’ll read a great review about the new Slumber Party Girls CD on a message board sometime and think wow, I should listen to their music!

Hold on. Chances are that message came from another child who is being paid to write that. Through Pop Generation (part of the delightfully named Total Assault, LLC, a marketing and sales consulting firm), kids can sign up and receive points to promote entertainment brands, including SPG. Points earn prizes. Kids get points for sending instant messages, for posting to message boards, and for bringing up the Total Assault’s clients in chat rooms.

Girls: when someone receives money (or prizes) to share their opinion, it is no longer an opinion. It is a paid advertisement.

Why do companies pay people to talk about and promote their products and brands? Could be because they don’t want to wait to get their products out into our hands. They can make money faster that way. Or, could it be that if they waited for the product to naturally earn a good reputation, it would never happen?

So without rightfully earning their initial reputation (as singers and dancers, I guess) why would you want — and spend your money on — SPG brand extentions? Think about this, because there may be a few coming around the bend. Let’s see:

Dolls, play sets, DVD games, books, a magazine (Kewl), clothing, videos, movies, a 26-episode sitcom, a concert tour, and the all-encompassing “accessories and novelty.” (Sources here, here, here, and here.)

So girls, if you are smart enough to not rely on a manufactured reputation, marketers have nothing left to do but rely on psychological research to determine what you need at this point in your life. And convince you that their product — in this case, the Slumber Party Girls — will meet that need. That’s coming up in Lesson 3.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 22nd, 2007 at 10:54 am and is filed under The Corporation, Marketing to Children, Slumber Party Girls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.