Executive Summary
Prior research on brand extension evaluations suggests that the influence of a brand name on evaluations of a brand extension largely depends on perceptions of how well the extension “fits” the core brand category. This assessment of goodness of fit often requires a deliberative identification of specific characteristics of the extension and a comparison of these characteristics with those of the core. When consumers encounter a product in the marketplace, however, they are unlikely to engage in extensive cognitive deliberation. Rather, they may base their evaluations of a brand extension on their subjective, affective reactions to the core brand without considering any specific features of the extension and the extent to which the extension fits with the core brand category. That is, they may interpret these affective feelings as an indication of how much they like the extension and form initial impressions of it on the basis of these feelings alone. To this extent, consumers who feel good about a core brand may evaluate its extension favorably, even if it is highly dissimilar to the core.
However, not all brands are likely to stimulate consumers’ affective reactions. For brands that do not elicit affect, consumers are likely to judge their extensions on the basis of the judgment-relevant criteria that they typically use to evaluate brand extensions.
The authors conducted three experiments to test these predictions. In Experiment 1, they presented core brands that varied independently in their favorableness and their level of affect elicitation. Participants were exposed to (1) a favorable brand that elicited positive affect, (2) a favorable brand that did not elicit any affect, (3) an unfavorable brand that elicited negative affect, or (4) an unfavorable brand that did not elicit any affect. Then, they were asked to evaluate extensions that were either moderately similar or dissimilar to these core brands. When the core brand elicited affect, participants evaluated the extensions more favorably when the affect elicited was positive than when it was not, regardless of core–extension similarity. In contrast, when the core brand did not elicit affect, its influence on extension evaluations was a function of core–extension similarity. That is, participants evaluated the moderately similar extensions as similar in favorableness to the core brand, whereas their evaluation of dissimilar extensions’ did not depend on the core brand’s favorableness.
Experiment 2 confirmed this influence under conditions in which the authors experimentally manipulated participants’ perception of the affect elicited by the brands through the use of a mood-misattribution procedure. Moreover, the authors validated their assumption that brand-elicited affect had its impact on participants’ brand-based initial impressions rather than exerting its influence at the time of final judgment.
The results of Experiment 1 and 2 might appear inconsistent with the existing findings that the impact of affect on evaluations of brand extensions is mediated by its influence on perceptions of core–extension similarity and that affect has little effect on evaluations of extensions that are dissimilar to the core brand. A third experiment reconciled this inconsistency. It showed that participants based their judgments of brand extensions on their erceptions of core–extension similarity when they were explicitly asked to consider this criterion before making their judgments. Under these conditions, the impact of affect on extension evaluations was mediated by its impact on similarity perceptions. When participants were not prompted to consider core–extension similarity as a basis for their evaluations, however, they were likely to base these evaluations on the affect-based impression they formed at the time they were first exposed to the core brand name. Under these conditions, brand-elicited affect had an influence on extensions regardless of the extensions’ similarity to the core brand.
Biography
Catherine W.M. Yeung is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the National University of Singapore Business School. She holds a doctoral degree from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Her research interests relate to the role of affect and emotion in consumer judgment and to the influence of the context effect on consumer decision making. Her articles have appeared in Journal of Consumer Research.
Robert S. Wyer is a visiting professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Techology and Professor (Emeritus) at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Colorado. He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Special Research Prize for Distinguished Scientist, and in 1998, he received the Thomas M. Ostrom Award for Distinguished Contributions to Person Memory and Social Cognition. Professor Wyer is Former Editor of Journal of Consumer Psychology and Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. His articles have appeared in leading academic journals, including Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Psychology and Advertising, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, among others. He is reviewing for Journal of Consumer Psychology, Psychological Review, Psychological Bulletin, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Canadian Journal of Psychology, British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, Psychological Reports, European Journal of Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Social Cognition, Journal of Consumer Research, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Development Psychology, and Journal of Marketing Research.
J Marketing Research, Volume 42, Number 4, November 2005
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