Brands and expanding offerings Aug13 '07

The best restaurants have the smallest menus. ... Whatever the chef wants to cook is what they eat.

Kevin is referring to restaurants (more distinguishably, brands) that constantly expand their menu items in an effort to increase sales, or attract new customers. His theory is that by getting away from their true "bread and butter," they are somehow damaging the brand image itself.

... then we have Dunkin Donuts offering pizza and hot dogs and selling Sobe and Gatorade and Snapple, Subway introducing their own version of pizza-to-order ...

If you're not careful, Kevin warns:

... you'll turn your business into a convenience store.

He even goes on to say:

Add value, not menu items.

I'm gonna stop here because I'm in full disagreement. In fact, I can't be more adamant.

Brands have to expand their product line - in this case, their menu items. How else can they compete? Nobody can survive forever selling the same product. Eventually change must happen.

There's nothing wrong with expanding your product offerings. In fact, a good brand adapts to your products and services - not the other way around. Your brand consists of your products and services. Your products and services don't consist of your brand.

It doesn't matter if Subway starts selling Apple computers, for example. It's still under the Subway brand. It's their brand and they can mold it how they please. A brand is not going to suffer because it is expanding it's product offerings.

Using Apple as an example - they started out as a hardware company. Now they are in the music industry. How is that not a complete transformation?

Lowes sells groceries, for crying out loud. Groceries at a "home improvement" store.

The point is - neither of these brands are suffering because they began selling other items, different from their "bread and butter."

UPDATE: I meant Menards, not Lowes. I've verified that Menards sells non-perishable goods. Perhaps Lowes does too. I've honestly never been in a Lowes.

Categories: Branding , Consumerism

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If you look at individual household brands you can see that they have deversified themselves with in the market place. An example is Kellogg's; th ... Read more.

Hey, thanks for the comment on my post, and your thoughts here. I actually don't think we disagree as much as it seems. I tried to clarify things o ... Read more.

I was just at a Lowes on Sunday - no groceries there. : ) I'd also like to add that I've noticed Menard's pushing more toward other areas b ... Read more.

I believe Matt was refering to Menards and now Lowes. As long as I have been going to Menards they have always carried other products other than h ... Read more.

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