Melbourne Business School - Theses
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ItemA conceptualisation and experimental investigation of brand extension evaluation: the role of brand fit and of category fit in an integrative process model based on the accessibility and diagnosticity of inputs to the evaluation( 2014)Brand extensions are a crucial method of introducing new products. Brand extension research was initially framed around the idea that the evaluation of a new extension is a categorisation process that depends on the existence of fit between the brand and the product category into which it is extending. Nevertheless, in the marketplace, extensions that lack fit have been successfully introduced. Following a review of the brand extension literature, I argue that there is ambiguity in the current conception of fit. I define three different concepts: similarity, brand fit, and category fit. Category fit, between the extension product and its product category, is an independent variable not previously researched, but I argue that it too can influence consumers’ evaluation of a brand extension. To explain when and how fit plays a role in the evaluation of brand extensions, I develop an integrative model of the consumer’s evaluation process. This model is based on the simple proposition that any accessible, diagnostic input into the evaluation process can contribute to the resulting evaluation. The model, which follows directly from basic attitude-formation theory, specifies multiple evaluation pathways, not all of which are categorisation based, and it identifies situational factors and customer characteristics that affect input accessibility and diagnosticity. One cognitive contextual factor, whether the consumer is prompted to make a judgement of fit immediately prior to evaluating the new brand extension, can also affect the evaluation pathway taken, and if the inputs derived from that pathway are perceived as diagnostic, then that pathway will be used to evaluate the extension. An experiment was conducted to examine the effect of fit, and fit cognitions, on brand extension evaluations. The experiment followed a 2 x 2 x 3 factorial design: Brand Fit (low/high), Diagnostic Associations (positive/negative), and Type of Immediate-Pre-Evaluation Fit Cognition Induced (brand fit/category fit/none). Results revealed (a) that an extension of a positively evaluated parent brand that has accessible and diagnostic associations can be positively evaluated regardless of fit; (b) that accessible and diagnostic associations, whether or not they come from the parent brand, can affect the extension evaluation; and (c) that a consumer’s immediate pre-evaluation judgement of fit can artificially inflate the impact of fit on the evaluation of a brand extension. Overall, the experimental results lend support to the proposed process model of extension evaluation, and this accessibility-diagnosticity perspective has significant implications for marketing theory and practice. In particular, (a) lack of brand fit is not necessarily an impediment to successfully extending a brand; (b) a psychologically real type of fit exists not only between the extension and its brand but also between the extension and its product category; and (c) brands are more extendible, and hence more valuable to their owners, than previously thought.