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Abstracts prior to volume 5(1) have been archived!

Issue 5(1), October 2010 -- Paper Abstracts
Girard  (p. 9-22)
Cooper (p. 23-32)
Kunz-Osborne (p. 33-41)
Coulmas-Law (p.42-46)
Stasio (p. 47-56)
Albert-Valette-Florence (p.57-63)
Zhang-Rauch (p. 64-70)
Alam-Yasin (p. 71-78)
Mattare-Monahan-Shah (p. 79-94)
Nonis-Hudson-Hunt (p. 95-106) 



JOURNAL OF MARKETING DEVELOPMENT AND COMPETITIVENESS 

Does Upward Product Line Extension Hurt or Benefit a Firm’s Competitive Advantage? The Case of Honda’s Acura, Nissan’s Infiniti, and Toyota’s Lexus Brands

Author(s): Abhay Shah

Citation: Abhay Shah, (2018) "Does Upward Product Line Extension Hurt or Benefit a Firm’s Competitive Advantage? The Case of Honda’s Acura, Nissan’s Infiniti, and Toyota’s Lexus Brands ," Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, Vol. 12, Iss. 1,  pp. 28-36

Article Type: Research paper

Publisher: North American Business Press

Abstract:

When a company extends its product line (and brand name) upwards to premium products, it hurts its
overall demand, market share and competitive advantage (Caldieraro et al. 2015). However, the three
most successful line extensions in the luxury segment of the auto industry, Honda’s Acura, Toyota’s
Lexus, and Nissan’s Infiniti contradict their findings. This study proposes that if a company pursues
upward or downward line extension, it can gain competitive advantage only if the marketing mix is
consistent with its target market, i.e., a completely new brand name, product, pricing, distribution, and
promotion.