Marketers often rely on brand extension strategies to mitigate the risk of launching a new product in the market and to leverage the strength of existing brands. Past researches have relied on the product brands for studying brand extensions. A field experiment was performed to assess the success evaluation of two leading banks into present and future brand extensions. Future brand extension received higher success evaluation than that of present brand extension for ICICI Bank while for State Bank of India, there was no significant difference between the present and future extension. The paper looks into issues such as category similarity, brand association of master brand, brand affect and finally the success perceptions in creating favorable consumer evaluation in case of bank brand.

According to Janet (2001), strategic brand building is the single most powerful tool that any company has to build to remain competitive. In today's competitive environment, it is important to occupy a space in the consumer's mind. The value of a brand is measured not only in terms of the advantages it provides in its present competitive arena but also the potential advantages it offers in untapped markets (Srivastava and Shocker, 1991). Marketers often attempt to leverage the strength of the existing brand. Strong brands are successfully extended into other product and service categories. Some brands cannot be extended at all because of poor extension potential (Tauber, 1993). From a marketer's point of view, a brand can be extended to new categories only if the consumer believes that a brand has a logical fit with the new categories. Initial research in brand extension attempted to identify the variables that influence the perceptions of an extension. Many studies explored the consumer evaluation for brand extensions for product categories (Aaker and Keller, 1990; and Keller and Aaker, 1992).

Presently, when the services contribute to more than 50% of India's economy, service brands offer lot of scope for leveraging the strength of the brand. Of late, banks are taking keen interest in implementing branding strategies. Many banks in the recent years are trying to create a distinct identity. With this, they aim to make their presence felt by the customers and other stakeholders. Major banks which have done extensive brand facelift includes Bank of Baroda (India's international bank), Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India and Andhra Bank. Famous personalities such as Amitabh Bachchan (ICICI Bank), Shahrukh Khan (ICICI Bank), Rahul Dravid (Bank of Baroda), Hema Malini (Bank of Rajasthan), and Juhi Chawla (Dena Bank) were used as brand ambassadors. Banks are entering into the area of insurance, remittances, gold trading and other areas by leveraging their brand assets. While attempting to grow, banks are leveraging their existing brand equity by entering into newer areas and through various co-branding initiatives.

Brand Management Journal, Brand Extension, Bank Brands, Master Brand, State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Brand Image, Present Extension, Safe Bank, Trusted Bank, Brand Management, Brand Facelift, Brand Ambassadors, Co-Branding Initiatives.