We’ve worked with a few breweries that were initially planning to launch a new product as a Brand Extension explicitly because they were on a time crunch. Whether or not that was the most appropriate choice didn’t matter. The need to rush to hit a seasonal reset, or get art wrapped up in time for a big can order superseded any time for further consideration.

We debated whether or not we should include this thought here, but we have seen it in enough real world projects that we wanted to address it.

Yes, if you’re on a tight deadline, you can take this approach. Kicking out a Brand Extension will always be faster and cheaper than developing a Sub or Endorsed Brand. But take note: this type of decision can be fraught with pitfalls that could potentially cause problems for you in the future.

You could end up having to rethink this extension down the road. Or you may have to reposition and rebrand it with more intention. Or worse, you might have to do the work to re-educate your fans as to what the extension stands for after they’ve already formed a relationship with it under a different context.

At the very worst, you could muddle your parent brand’s positioning by launching a product that is in complete misalignment with your overall portfolio. This type of decision can backfire and do real damage to the perception of your parent brand. Frankly, the potential consequences of getting a decision like this wrong far outweigh whatever upside might be gained by rushing to get the product to market.

If timeline is a driving consideration here, we would caution you to pause long enough to explore the consequences of launching this product a little later on. If it’s not the end of the world, slow down, think it through and get this right the first time.