Most ridiculous brand extension

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

I top trump you with Colgate frozen food.

62

I was always under the impression that these were targeted to Boomers, who used to get their drinks at soda fountains, where the jerk would add an extra pump of cherry/vanilla/whatever to the Coke when it was ordered. Because soda fountains disappeared sometime before I was born, the only way for them to get a Cherry Coke was for Coca Cola to make it for them.

63

Man, that’s sounding like a classic OP in Not Always Right where at least a third of the posts are about incompetent managers, not just the public. I’d bet the day you bailed was one of the happiest in your life.

64

While flavored peanut butter isn’t really a “ridiculous” brand extension (no matter how botched), this is truly a stupid brand extension. You may have won this thread.

65

That bring to mind Gerber’s failed attempt to market to college students and adults living on their own for the first time:

Gerber Singles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerber_Singles

66

They’re light and flaky, to be sure.

67

They proposed a dried plum flavor, but no one wanted to even try powdered Prune Tang.

68

To your room.

NOW!

69

Sounds fake to me. From your own cite:

They outright admit to lying about the lasagne, and imply they’re lying about the whole thing.

70

Here’s a 2013 link about the Colgate foods:

https://supplier.community/the-consumer-graveyard-colgate-meals/

2014:

So the Colgate foods appear to be real.

71

Food products have cross-branded with alcoholic beverages since forever…I don’t think that’s really all that ridiculous.

What is ridiculous, is Rock-Ola, a jukebox company, producing M1 Carbines for World War II. I’m pretty sure IBM made them too, but a jukebox company is somehow more ridiculous. Thousands of guys were probably killed with those things!

72

Even worse was the coin slot in the stock.

73

I don’t think that was ridiculous. During WWII, many factories were retooled to make war materiel (planes, tanks, guns, etc.).

74

Wasn’t the whole thing part of a plan by the owner of the company gone horribly wrong?. I don’t think they were in business very long either.

75

I used to think it was really weird when kitchen appliances with the Black & Decker brand started showing up, but somewhere along the way I guess I got used to it.

76

Yeah, I don’t think that I’d count those as “brand extensions” in the usual sense. As you note, a lot of different companies had their factories converted to making war materiel – I used to work for Helene Curtis (a manufacturer of haircare products), and during WWII, the company’s production lines were converted away from making hair products, and were used for making airplane gun turrets and radar equipment. I don’t think that any of that was branded “National Mineral Company” (the company’s name at that time).

Now, if Rock-Ola had introduced a brand of rifles under their brand name (“you love our jukeboxes, now try our guns!”), then that would be silly. :smiley:

77

I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the fiasco of the AMF era Harley Davidsons. A company that manufactures bowling equipment is sure to be able to master motorcycles.:rolleyes:

78

I don’t consider that a brand extension, though (not unless AMF was re-branding the Harleys as “AMF Motorcycles”). That’s an example of a conglomerate, which was a common corporate strategy in the 1970s and 1980s, in which parent corporations tried to broaden their portfolios (and hedge against a downturn in any particular industry) by owning companies in an array of disparate industries.

It also led to such weirdness as General Mills owning Parker Brothers Games and Lionel Trains, Quaker Oats owning Fisher-Price Toys and JoS. A. Bank Clothiers, and Sara Lee owning Coach bags.

It’s not a common strategy now, in large part because companies realized that they were unlikely to be able to intelligently manage disparate divisions (such as a maker of bowling equipment being terrible at managing a motorcycle company).

79

Union Switch & Signal made M1911A1s for a short time until the War Production Board decided it was better if they went back to making bits for railroads. Being a train nut I’ve wanted to get one but…

Remington Rand produced them by the metric buttload but I thought that was a waste of a good tie-in; they should have made Tommy guns as well – Chicago typewriter.

80

Still, the original assertion is not far off.

The same company (approximately) makes canning jars and entire satellites (as well as associated scientific instruments).