Artificial Limits of Brand Extensions

Brand Extension has been one of the buzzing advisory space and as i read a neatly written post by Jennifer Rice on How far a Brand can Stretch, i was wondering if the limits we put to a brand are in any way real. I for one believe that every brand name can carry anything under it and it is only limited by its competence. There are no external limits to a brand in terms of consumer perceptions, which are absolutely and continuously capable of changing.
It may sound a little brash and provocative, so let me share where i am coming from. When i look at an Apple moving from category to category, or large conglomerate brands like the TATAs or a GE, i fail to see why a brand cannot cut across many unrelated categories.
My submission is that a brand extension assumes a certain easy-way-out by doing a me-to or a sub-optimal offering, which is aimed at purely riding on the strength of the existing equity of the brand built through the good work done in another category. It is actually a lazy marketer's answer to growth.
A brand really keen to enhance its reputation will focus on bringing something dramatically new to the new category and by doing that will not only succeed in the new initiative but also enhance the overall equity of the brand. Who would have suggested Apple expand into MP3 players?
After all, if brands are like humans, the argument can go towards their limitless potential in extending and expanding themselves. I have seen many individuals building successful reputations in more than one unrelated areas of life and being celebrated rather than questioned for it...
As the Company Brand paradigm takes hold, this question of what is the extendable limit of a brand is going to come under increasing pressure to prove itself innocent.

Whether you say you can...

Was writing on David Maister's blog about whether 'being interested in people' is a necessary managerial trait and can it be acquired. The dominant opinion seems to be that either you have the attitude or don't, and acquiring it is nearly impossible.

i had an opinion to the contrary and wrote an elaborate one on that but while writing it opened up to me that Ratan Tata is probably the best example we have of a manager/leader who is a recluse and yet extremely effective.

My mind boggles at what he has achieved in terms of turning around a group whose complexity and diversity is unimaginable and he has done it by adhereing to a rigidly ethical value system in an environment in which everything is up for grabs and norms are anything that can be bent. And he has done all that after the age of 55, till which time he was more or less written off as a leader within and outside the group. Can there be a more vivid example of someone learning the skills, developing the attitudes when the situation mattered. Won't we do the same when a situation leaves us with no escape route.

Which brings you to another basic inquiry - are we born with certain fixed wiring or do we develop attitudes and preferences as life goes along which are capable of being challenged if the context changes. Also, if we are born with them, how do we discover them. IS it just a function of being good at those things or of enjoying doing certain things?

HAven't we seen that we can be good at a lot of things that we do not particularly enjoy doing and similarly there are things which become boring the moment certain accountability is introduced into it. If you enjoy movies does that necessarily make you a good critic or a movie maker?

So what does that mean for corporations and the conversations they have about themselves- we cannot beat the multinationals? We cannot do top end stuff? Our competence is only in commodities? By saying this they have started blieving it, and behaving in line with it, and obviously the results are reinforcing it.

I am reminded of a beautiful Zen conversation- when a Zen master was asked whether he knew how to play a violin, he replied- I don't know. I have never tried.