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In India, we witness premium brands in several product categories these days e.g. we have Nike and Reebok in sports shoes, Dove in soaps, Royale and Swatch in watches, Scotch in liquors and Camry, Sonata and Mondeo in cars. Premium brands have a clientele in upper and upper middle class homes with high disposable income and changed life style. Premium is contributed by excellence in quality and features. Its distribution is selective. These brands command a price premium. The definition of premium changes from market to market and from time to time. Once upon a time a colour TV was considered a premium product. These days a Plasma TV or an LED TV is a premium product. There are different degrees of premiumness. Premium can be leveraged by extending the brand to other categories e.g. Pierre Cardin fashionwear and Pierre Cardin writing instruments. We can also change the consumer perception about the premium. Premium quality may make it necessary to change the product form e. g. Gold café granules. Premium brands have an exclusive image. They manifest certain exclusive external features e.g. special packaging. Some brands establish their premium on technical advantage e.g. no-frost fridge. Life-style positioning make certain ordinary products premium products e.g.  Hero cycles for girls and mountain terrain bikes.

E-cigarettes are electronics cigarettes where a heating element vaporizes a filled-in liquid to produce smoke. The filled-in liquid consists of polypylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine and flavours. They also make nicotine-free cigarettes. The vapors emitted out are in fact on aerosol mist. They are considered safe, but may contain heavy metals and toxic compounds like tin and zinc. These may be traces of nickel and chromium. Malfunctioning cigarettes may have silicon fibres. There could be explosions too, when they are over-heated.

Most e-cigarettes are manufactured in China and that too by a company Skorite Electronics. E-cigarettes are popular amongst the youngsters. There are many factories in Shenzhen region of China. Some of these units have QC measures whereas many do not. Chinese companies are the first to develop e-cigarettes.

There is no regulatory framework as yet. An e-cigarette has components such as tube-casings, ICs, heating coils and lithium-ion batteries.

Han Li, a Chinese pharmacist, pioneered, the concept of e-cigarettes in 2004. He sold the product through his company. Others soon followed. By 2009, e-cigarettes became more popular in Europe and the USA. Global tobacco giants too have entered the e-cigarette market and they too manufacture in China.MarkTen is a famous Altria-Philip Morris brand.

The first generation cigarettes are just like tobacco cigarettes and are called ‘cigalikes’. Second generation devices are larger and have USB charger. The third generation cigarettes are box-like unit holding multiple and larger batteries. The battery unit called mod is removable. Most portable devices contain a rechargeable battery. The e-liquid is called ‘juice’.

According to Rule 122 (E) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 in India, every new drug product should be sold in the country with the prior approval og the Drug Conroller General of India (DCGI). However, import, distribution and sale of e-cigarettes containing nicotine are not approved. Such cigarettes in the market are being sold without the permission, thus contravening section 18 (b) and 18 (c) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. Hence according to the FDA, Maharashtra state, the sale is illegal. Maharashtra is the second state in India after Punjab to regulate the illegal sale of e-cigarettes.

These exploded on the scene in the late-2000s and made vape Ahe Oxford Dictionaries 2014 word of the year.

Philip Morris has designed iQOS, pronounced EYE-Kose which is a plastic case. Into its one end, you insert cigarettes called HEETS. iQOS is acronym for ‘I quit ordinary smoking!’ Tobacco of the inserted cigarette is heated without burning it. It produces a warm nicotine-laced aerosol. They also have designed TEEPS where users ignite a carbon tip that heats the tobacco. These products are closer to the ordinary cigarettes. STEEM is a twist on a medical inhaler. MESH is e-cigarette using flavoured nicotine liquid.

There are fears that these new substitutes ultimately drive people back to conventional cigarettes.

Electronic cigarettes and other Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) such as vapes, e-hookkahs and e-cigarettes  have been banned in India through an ordinance in 2019. There are prison terms and fines. Previously, these devices were considered safer alternatives to cigarette smoking. Vaping is a fashionable term for using vapes. Some vape-related illnesses have been reported from the US. It is reported that even nicotine-free vapours from such devices can harm blood-vessels. Besides, in an e-cigarette cartridge, there is as much nicotine as in a pack of 20 regular cigarettes. It can be a potential source of addiction.

There were 450 plus brands and 7700 flavours of vape juices being marketed in India before the ban.

The government has banned production, manufacture, import, export, transport, sale distribution, storage and advertisement of e-cigarettes.

There are no standards for the manufacture of vape juices. It is shrouded in ambiguity. Some people had taken to make their own juices consulting online guidance. Vapes can also be used to deliver psychotropic substances. Aerosols expose the users to ultrafine harmful particles, heavy metals, volatile organic compounds.

People smoke for the nicotine, but die from the tar that is essentially the residue cigarette leaves. Tar contains 7000 chemicals, 80 of which are carcinogenic.

E-cigarettes are also called electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS). Worldwide, stick cigarettes market is 110 billion sticks. India has a share of 11.3 per cent of cigarette smokers of the world. As compared to this, e-cigarette or ENDS market is miniscule. It is Rs. 300 crore market, mostly grey. There are e-cigarette manufacturers such as Juul and Philip Morris. They claim e-cigarette are superior to traditional cigarettes as they lack cancer-causing tar and have a lower nicotine content which is useful to wean smokers off cigarettes.

There is lobbying from both sides. The health ministry has advised states to ban e-cigarettes, and many states have done so. There is litigation on this issue. DTAB has endorsed a proposal to include ENDS as a drug under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. It is another way to ban the product. Even if it is not banned it will come under the jurisdiction of the FDA. There could be sale only at the pharmacies and that too under prescription.

ENDS is a recreational product. Consumers believe e-cigarettes are healthier. The Association of Vapers of India argue that they should be given the freedom to choose. If ENDS could be banned, there is a strong case to ban traditional cigarettes too.

The solution is to have regulation, rather than an outright ban which will push the whole thing in the grey market. There are many countries which have legislations to regulate ENDS.

In e-cigarettes, apart from nicotine, there are flavourings,  additives, propylene glycol and glycerol. These are considered harmless on inhalation.

However, there are harmful effects of nicotine which affects central nervous system, digestive system and circulatory system. Nicotine too has the carcinogenic potential. There is risk of addiction. It affects the way the synapses are formed and can harm the parts of the brain that control learning and is responsible for decision-making and impulse control.

Vapes are a little larger than an e-cigarette. It has a longer battery-life, and uses a rechargeable module. E-hookahs, like e-cigarettes, allow the user to inhale vapour that may contain nicotine, other flavours and chemicals.

Vaping is considered safer since the tobaco in cigarette has tar and nitrosamines. Tar contains carcinogenic chemicals.

Extensions are basically of three types — product-related extensions or line extensions, image-related extensions and un-related extensions. Line extensions are used by companies to upgrade their customers e.g. Lever upgrades ordinary Lux users to Lux International and Lifebuoy users to Lifebuoy Plus. Sometimes a company downgrades the product for a different segment of customers.

Image-related extensions should have a match between the parent brand and the extended brand in terms of image. Such a fit exists when companion products are introduced for instance, Cibaca paste and Cibaca brush. Even product extensions can have an image match, say Prestige Cookers and Prestige pressure pans. Dettol  antiseptic liquid and and Dettol soap has achieved such a fit. Another matching expected is between organisation and the extension. Lakme as an organisation is associated with feminine beauty care. It is, therefore, unmatched to market like  Lakme After Shave Lotion, a typical man’s use product. If the organisation’s brand image and the extended brand’s image do not match, the extension is likely to fail.

Inspite of the above match making, there are failures if the marketing mix for the extended brand is not managed properly.

In unrelated extensions also, the match making principles holds good. Sometimes unrelated extension happen along the route as the organisation evolves e.g. Tata started from steel and textiles but extended to diverse areas like power cosmetics, medicines, telecommunications, consumer electronics, computer consultancy and software etc. Since then, it has withdrawn from areas like soaps, oils and TVs. Wipro had a small plant making hydrogenated vegetable oil at Amalner in Maharashtra. Since then, they have entered into computer harware and software. Godrej has registered its presence in a number of industries e.g. safes, fridges, soaps etc.

Extensions become successful if the organisations show commitment, there is matching of the brand and extension and proper attention is paid to the marketing mix of the extended brand.

The aim behind the brand extension is to transfer a set of associations accompanying the parent brand to the extended brand. Any extension, therefore, becomes successful depending upon the nature of the parent brand. All brands do not have the same degree of extendability. Can we extend a brand like Videocon to a product like salt? Or can we extend for that matter Nature Fresh brand to a brand of TV? But how is it that a Pierre Cardin brands appears on shirts as well as pens?

Conventionally, brands are just names put on the products, thus instead of calling flour, we call it  Annapurna. It is not just salt, but Nature Fresh salt. This name at the most identities the product or its manufacturer.  Such brands have no scope for extension, as they are just product brands.

As brands evolve, we can identify its differing composition; say there is one various pickles. Mother’s mango pickle, lime pickle and chilli pickle. The differing composition allows us to extend the brand name to closely related products.

After a period of time, the brand begins to acquire its own independent existence. It has now what we call a brand identity. It is not fettered to the product boundaries. Such a brand has greater possibilities of being extended.

Brand associations may be product oriented. For example, ACC brings to our mind. Cement bags, of good strength, used in construction. Such brands are extended to the product category. They can also be extended to attributes which may be relevant in a different product category. We can select the attribute ‘ strength’  for example from ACC brand, and extend it to an adhesive. Some brands, however, sever such product oriented associations and start reflecting the aspirations of their customers. Cartier reflects high fashion and trendy style. It can be extended to spectacles, shoes, clothes, perfumes, furniture and a host of their products. Here the brand acquires more intangible character. These brands can be extended to dissimilar categories. They connect to the inner urges of the customers.

Gillette is extended to shaving system, shaving gel and after-shave. The  ‘agglomerating glue’  is the shaving products. It determines the success of brand extension.

When an existing brand name is extended to a product of different category, it is called brand extension. To illustrate, Park Avenue, a brand name for shirts is extended to toiletries. Nirma, a detergent brand name is extended to Nirma toilet soaps. The distinction between a line extension and brand extension is the factor of product category. It is constant in line extension but is variable in brand extensions. Brand extensions are really speaking category extensions.

The brand extension route saves in promotion costs as the common brand name benefits all products falling under it . The reputation rubs off the range of brands. It reduces the cost of new product launches. Brand extensions also make it absolutely clear to as what the brand stands for.

Brand extensions are of various types. Generally, product form variations are called line extensions, but when the form is perceived to be a different category altogether, it can be treated as brand extension. Nestle can be extended from milk to condensed milk.

Brand extensions do bring about brand distinction based on the on attributes. A hair oil brand based on the hair care premise can be extended to shampoo. Brands can be extended to totally unrelated categories e.g. fashion design clothes to jewellery to writing instruments. Here the prestige associated with the brand is exploited. A good brand image has immense possibilities of extension. A brand can be extended to meet the diverse needs of a specific target audience e.g. a company puts the same brand name on a shampoo, diapers, after-bath talc and massage oil for babies. We can have brand extension on distinctive competence of a company e.g. Honda operates in two-wheelers, gensets and automobiles. Brand extensions can be based on distinctive taste, components or ingredients, say Cadbury can extend itself  from chocolates to drinking chocolate and biscuits.

If the parent brand contributes positively to the extended brand, it is a good extension. Sometimes even the extended brand contributes to the parent brand. It is better. Sometimes the parent brand may not contribute at all or contributes negatively to the extended brand. It is a bad extension. Sometimes extended brand weakens the parent brand. It is worse.