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New product introductions, particularly line extensions (LEs), are common in consumer goods categories. Despite their commonality, the success of LEs are not guaranteed. The purpose of this study is to provide brands that introduce LEs a benchmark about what success to expect.

This study investigates the success of 36,994 LEs in each quarter for the first three years after introduction. Four indicators are calculated using consumer panel data to benchmark how long LEs survive (failure rate), how competitive they are in the category (market share) and how they are adopted by category buyers (penetration and repeat buyer rate).

Most LEs survive after the first year, but many cease to exist or perform well in the long term. Around 50% of LEs fail a year after launch, but this failure rate halves once seasonal LEs are removed. Failure rates start to approach 80% after three years. Most LEs do not perform better than existing products. Around three in four LEs have a market share or penetration near or below the category norm. Although this percentage decreases the longer after launch, most LEs are still below the category norm.

These new product success benchmarks provide guidelines to practitioners about what success the “typical” LE will achieve. This research can help guide new product investment decisions because it provides context on what is feasible to achieve.

Four market success measures are used, a departure from past benchmarking research which uses practitioner evaluation on metrics seldom used in practice. The authors provide guidelines about when and how to measure LE and new product success more broadly.

International brands are expanding their business into emerging markets seeking new consumers for their products. Multiple research studies suggest that there are two key differentiators between developed and emerging markets that managers must take into account. These are that consumers differentiate between local and international brands, and that consumer segments differ between emerging and developed markets. This paper refutes these myths. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors examine large-scale data of purchase behaviour across seven countries and six product categories through telephone or online data collection. Surveys conducted in conjunction with research consulting projects form the basis of data collection, with samples skewing towards middle-income population from urban areas within the emerging markets. The different survey methods used support the empirical generalisability of the findings.

The authors find that brand user profiles in emerging markets rarely differ between local and international brands across age, income and gender. Differences in segmentation are related to geography – which is likely a factor of infrastructure differences. When brand users are compared, their attitudes towards the brands are also very similar between local and international brands across several attitudinal measures: “high quality”, “value for money”, “meet/understand my needs”, “affordability” and “trustworthiness”.

The research highlights that consumers in emerging markets need not be segmented based on their brand purchasing behaviour when it comes to local and international brands. This is in line with a growing body of literature in consumer segmentation and in contrast to a considerable amount of traditional literature on emerging markets.