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Consumer evaluation of brand extensions: Comparing goods to goods brand extensions with goods to services

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Abstract

Studies in literature on consumer attitude toward the brand extension, and revision of attitude toward parent brand have focused on the influence of a variety of factors concerning parent brand, fit between the parent brand and extension, extension product category and consumer characteristics. In all such studies, the brand that is extended and the extension product category are both either goods-intensive offerings (GG brand extension) or services-intensive offerings (SS brand extension), and researchers have observed paucity of studies on brand extension from goods-intensive offerings to services-intensive offerings (GS brand extension), and services-intensive offerings to goods-intensive offerings (SG brand extension). In this study, the influence of factors concerning parent brand and fit between the parent brand and extension are contrasted between GG and GS brand extensions. Using survey design, data was collected from individual consumers recruited from households in two Indian cities, and analysis of the data was performed using a structural equation modeling approach. The findings from this study suggest that brand extensions from goods to goods is preferable to brand extensions from goods to services under some conditions, such as when quality variance across brand portfolio is high and when product category fit is present.

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Notes

  1. Apple: 118.863; Google: 107.439; Coca-Cola: 81.563; IBM: 72.244; Microsoft: 61.154; GE: 45.480; Samsung: 45.462; Toyota: 42.392; McDonald’s: 42.254; Mercedes-Benz: 34.338. All numbers are in $ billions.

  2. Aaker and Keller (1990) mention that if the fit is incongruous, the extension may be regarded as humorous or ridiculous.

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Acknowledgements

The funding received from Reckitt & Benckiser India Limited toward the field work for this study is gratefully acknowledged. The first author would like to gratefully acknowledge the following academics for their inputs during various stages of this study: Keyoor Purani, Unnikrishnan K. Nair, Shubhasis Dey, Kausik Gangopadhyay, Suram Balasubrahmanyam, Sridhar Guda, Ashok Pratap Arora and one anonymous dissertation examiner.

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  1. Department of Marketing, Indian Institute of Management Indore, Office Room A211, IIM Indore Campus, Prabandh Shikhar, Rau-Pithampur Road, Indore, 453556, Madhya Pradesh, India

    Jayasankar Ramanathan

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  1. Jayasankar Ramanathan
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2Fellow IIM (Ahmedabad), Professor of Marketing at IIMK. Industry experience of 8 years prior to teaching at XLRI, ASCI and visiting assignments at IIMA, IIM Ranchi, MDI and BITS Pilani. Handled consultancy assignments in marketing for manufacturing and service sector. Publications are in Journal of Small Business Economics, Asian Case Research Journal, Energy Policy, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics and IJRDM. Couple of cases hosted by Ivey. Published book on Rural Marketing by Sage and two readings in Rural Marketing.

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Ramanathan, J., Velayudhan, S. Consumer evaluation of brand extensions: Comparing goods to goods brand extensions with goods to services. J Brand Manag 22, 778–801 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/bm.2015.37

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