Ralph Lauren has spread his name and an image of classic elegance and long-gone aristocracy from blazers to club chairs to suede-textured paint. Johnnie Walker will debut as a men's sportswear line this fall after 178 years as a Scotch whisky brand. And billionaire tycoon Richard Branson has built an empire convincing consumers to trust upstart ventures with the Virgin label -- to fly his airline, shop his record store, try his brand of cola.

All are masters of "branding," a '90s buzzword that has emerged as possibly the decade's hottest marketing phenomenon.

Building a brand and successfully extending it has become as much a matter of survival as sales tool. The idea is this: Equate the brand with a value or promise of an experience (for instance, Disney equals family entertainment), sear the brand into memory, then stretch it over as many formats as possible.

When it works, consumers splash on Lauren fragrance, wake up in Lauren sheets and do their living rooms in Ralph Lauren country. A leveraged brand can pay off big in sales and profits.

"There are cheaper jeans than at the Gap, but what's ingrained is [that] the look is right," says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a national retail consulting firm in New York. " 'I want to look like a Gap person. I can't make a mistake, I bought it at the Gap.' That's what a brand does. That's why branding is so important."

Branding has been around longer than Coke and Pepsi and Tide and Ajax. Disney, considered by many the Lion King of the brand extenders, has spent decades sprinkling its brand of fairy dust into television, movies, retail, theme parks, music. Branson, creator of Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Megastore and Virgin Cola, told the BBC last month that when he named his record company in 1969, "I had some idea of the name being catchy, and applying to lots of other products for young people."

Today, thanks in part to huge growth of the Internet and cable TV, a dizzying array of products and entertainment options vies for consumers' attention.

"We have to fight for our share of people's attention," says Greg Moyer, chief creative officer of Discovery Communications. "If you live on one brand in one medium, if you're only a television channel or only a store, you run the risk you'll be marginalized."

After 13 years on cable TV as the Discovery Channel, the company is extending its brand of "real-world storytelling" to other formats. The first Discovery Channel Store opened in Washington in March; another opens in Harborplace next year. Also in the works: science-oriented feature films for IMAX theaters and traveling museum exhibits.

"We're competing not just with other television brand channels for people's leisure time and attention, but with the time people spend in malls, with their families, traveling or pursuing continuing education," Moyer says. "Every day I am increasingly convinced that we need to be out in the world in people's communities with a physical, experiential demonstration of what our brand is about."

When retailers send out mixed signals about what they stand for, they often struggle (the Limited) or go out of business (Merry Go Round), says retail consultant Davidowitz. Successful branding campaigns, he says, such as at the Gap, put "a tremendous focus on developing a brand that the customer would trust, would love."

If Michael Jordan is a phenomenal athlete, the thinking goes, his athletic shoe, apparel and even cologne must be pretty good, too.

"It's something people can identify with," says Bruce Van-Kleeck, vice president of member services for Washington-based National Retail Federation. "You like our clothes, you'll love our bedspreads."

ESPN, the cable television sports network, has extended its reach by branding itself as a sports fan that's on the scene wherever other sports fans gather, says Judy Fearing, senior vice president of marketing for ESPN. With that vision, the network branched into radio, the Internet, magazines, the ESPN Zone interactive sports bar and restaurant, and next, video sports games.

"Strong brands with deep bonds and relationships with consumers are going to be the ones that will survive," Fearing says. "If you're not relevant and important to a consumer, they will quickly find a replacement for you."

Brands can cross traditional boundaries in part because of the blurring of once rigid lines between manufacturers, retailers and entertainment companies.

Starbucks started small in Seattle, grew into a ubiquitous chain and recently made the transition to manufacturing, packaging coffee for sale in grocery stores.

Nike, on the other hand, crossed the line in a big way from sports-shoe manufacturer to retailer with the opening in 1990 of the first of 13 Niketown stores. Stores at 30,000 square feet or larger draw tourists with interactive exhibits and funky architecture -- an interior replicating a 1930s gym in Manhattan, a display of skier Picabo Street's scarf in Las Vegas, screens showing inspirational films of amateur athletes. Nike insists the stores serve a larger purpose, showcasing the breadth of the product in a way that defines the brand.

"The fact that people spend 45 minutes in the store, you can't put a price on this type of advertising," says Stefanie Carlson, marketing director for U.S. Nike Retail. "It's definitely increased demand for the product."

But what does all the cross-diversification and brand extending mean for the consumer?

"It's a bonanza. It means increased choice, and I think it also means an increased expectation of performance," says Tom Collinger, an associate professor and director of the direct marketing department at Northwestern University. "If they like the brand but don't like the way it is sold to them, they will go to someone else. It challenges anyone in the business to be better on all levels."

But it can backfire, too. Failed brand extensions can hurt the reputation of the main brand.

Before leveraging a brand, a company must clearly define it, make sure the consumer understands what it stands for and have a tacit agreement with customers about what the brand can and can't do, says Tom Freston, chief executive officer of MTV Networks.

Following those rules, MTV has rejected the MTV refrigerator and the MTV restaurant. "We do not have permission to delve in hamburgers," Freston said in a speech on branding this summer in which he listed brand-extension flops: Heinz tomato soup, which consumers thought would taste too ketchupy, and Coca-Cola apparel. Whether or not consumers accept Harley-Davidson furniture, he said, remains to be seen.

"In today's world, building a brand means finding the right places where that brand can appear," says Moyer, of Discovery Communications. "Your customers will tell you when it's successful or not. If you get out of the area of core competency or if people can't understand why you're branding something, you have crossed the line."

Pub Date: 8/18/98