Abstract
Industry informants suggest that the equity of well-known, established brands can be leveraged to create value for unfamiliar or less-established brands. To the extent that cues in the retail environment imply some commonality between the high-equity brand and the less-established brand, benefits to the less-established brand may be expected. We refer to this implied commonality as strategic equivalence. Sharing the retail brand portfolio with high-equity brands is one way of establishing strategic equivalence. Display structure—whether the brands are displayed separately or intermixed—can also affect perceptions of strategic equivalence. In two studies, we demonstrate the ability of high-equity brands to increase the value of lower-equity brands in the same retail department and the ability of display structure to moderate this effect.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aaker, David A. and Kevin L. Keller (1990). “Consumer Evaluations of Brand Extensions,” Journal of Marketing 54 (January), 27–41.
Boush, David M. and Barbara Loken (1991). “A Process-Tracing Study of Brand Extension Evaluation,” Journal of Marketing Research 28 (February), 16–28.
Broniarczyk, Susan M. and Joseph W. Alba (1994). “The Importance of the Brand in Brand Extension,” Journal of Marketing Research 31 (May), 214–228.
Buchanan, Lauranne (1992). “Vertical Trade Relationships: The Role of Dependence and Symmetry in Attaining Organizational Goals,” Journal of Marketing Research 24 (February), 65–75.
Carolyn J. Simmons, and Barbara A. Bickart (1999). “Brand Equity Dilution: Retailer Display and Context Brand Effects,” Journal of Marketing Research 36 (August), 345–355.
Hickson, D. J., et al. (1971). “A Strategic Contingencies Theory of Intraorganizational Power,” Administrative Science Quarterly 16 (June), 216–229.
John, Deborah Roedder, Barbara Loken, and Christopher Joiner (1998). “The Negative Impact of Extensions: Can Flagship Products Be Diluted?” Journal of Marketing 62 (January), 19–32.
Keller, Kevin L. and David A. Aaker (1992). “The Effects of Sequential Introduction of Brand Extensions,” Journal of Marketing Research 24 (February), 35–50.
Keller, Kevin Lane (1993). “Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity,” Journal of Marketing 57 (January), 1–22.
Kirmani, Amna, Sanjay Sood, and Sheri Bridges (1999). “The Ownership Effect in Consumer Responses to Brand Line Stretches,” Journal of Marketing 63 (January), 88–101.
Loken, Barbara and Deborah Roedder John (1993). “Diluting Brand Beliefs: When Do Brand Extensions Have a Negative Impact?” Journal of Marketing 57 (July), 71–84.
Milberg, Sandra J., C. Whan Park, and Michael S. McCarthy (1997). “Managing Negative Feedback Effects Associated with Brand Extensions: The Impact of Alternative Branding Strategies,” Journal of Consumer Psychology 6 (2) 119–140.
Park, C. Whan, Sandra Milberg, and Robert Lawson (1991). “Evaluation of Brand Extensions: The Role of Product Feature Similarity and Brand Concept Consistency,” Journal of Consumer Research 18 (September), 185–203.
Pfeffer, Jeffrey and Gerald R. Salancik (1978). The External Control of Organizations. New York: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.
Randall, Taylor, Karl Ulrich, and David Reibstein (1998). “Brand Equity and Vertical Product Line Extent,” Marketing Science 17 (4), 356–379.
Tversky, Amos (1969). “Intransitivity of Preferences,” Psychological Review 76 (1), 31–48.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Simmons, C.J., Bickart, B.A. & Buchanan, L. Leveraging Equity Across The Brand Portfolio. Marketing Letters 11, 210–220 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008183009187
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008183009187