Abstract
When companies plan to build multi-category brands by adding new products to their product lines, two questions loom large: (1) whether and (2) when brand extensions perceived as distant (comparatively dissimilar) from the company’s existing core line of products should be introduced. Since many real-world firms have introduced distant brand extensions, this paper focuses on the second question: when the company should introduce a distant extension within a series of other closer extensions—a decision for which there is little research-based guidance for managers. Building on theories of mental categorization, the authors argue that early (vs. late) introductions of distant brand extensions can be more beneficial for the brand. Three studies support this conclusion, demonstrating that early (vs. late) introductions of distant extensions can result in more positive final brand attitudes; that is, attitudes held after all the extensions have been introduced. This effect is driven by how easily the distant extension is integrated into consumers’ brand concepts and is moderated by overall brand positioning. Importantly, this effect on final brand attitudes is shown to influence behavioral measures of product preference and brand engagement.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aaker, D. A. (2012). Win the brand relevance battle and then build competitor barriers. California Management Review, 54(2), 43–57.
Aaker, D. A. (2014). Aaker on branding: 20 principles that drive success. New York: Morgan James.
Aaker, D. A., & Keller, K. L. (1990). Consumer evaluations of brand extensions. Journal of Marketing, 54(1), 27–41.
Alter, A. L., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2009). Uniting the tribes of fluency to form a metacognitive nation. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13, 219–235.
Beverland, M. B., Wilner, S. J., & Micheli, P. (2015). Reconciling the tension between consistency and relevance: Design thinking as a mechanism for brand ambidexterity. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(5), 589–609.
Boush, D. M., & Loken, B. (1991). Process tracing study of brand extension evaluation. Journal of Marketing Research, 28(1), 16–28.
Chun, H. H., Park, C. W., Eisingerich, A. B., & MacInnis, D. J. (2015). Strategic benefits of low fit brand extensions: When and why? Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(4), 577–595.
Dawar, N. (1996). Extensions of broad brands: The role of retrieval in evaluations of fit. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 5(2), 189–207.
Dawar, N., & Anderson, P. F. (1994). The effects of order and direction on multiple brand extensions. Journal of Business Research, 30(2), 119–129.
Day, G. S., Shocker, A. D., & Srivastava, R. K. (1979). Customer-oriented approaches to identifying product-markets. The Journal of Marketing, 43(4), 8–19.
Gürhan-Canli, Z., & Maheswaran, D. (1998). The effects of extensions on brand name dilution and enhancement. Journal of Marketing Research, 35(4), 464–473.
Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: A regression-based approach. New York: Guilford Press.
Heath, T. B., Chatterjee, S., Basuroy, S., Hennig-Thurau, T., & Kocher, B. (2016). Innovation sequences over iterated offerings: A relative, innovation, comfort, and stimulation framework of consumer responses. Journal of Marketing, 79(6), 71–93.
Hill, S., Ettenson, R., & Tyson, D. (2005). Achieving the ideal brand portfolio. Sloan Management Review, 46(2), 85–90.
Jap, S. D. (1993). An examination of the effects of multiple brand extensions on the brand concept. In Advances in Consumer Research, 20, 607–611.
John, D. R., Loken, B., & Joiner, C. (1998). The negative impact of extensions: Can flagship products be diluted? Journal of Marketing, 62(1), 19–32.
Keller, K. L. (1999). Managing brands for the long run: Brand reinforcement and repositioning strategies. Californian Management Review, 41(3), 102–124.
Keller, K. L. (2002). Branding and brand equity. In Cambridge. Marketing Science: Institute.
Keller, K. L. (2003). Brand synthesis: The multidimensionality of brand knowledge. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(4), 595–600.
Keller, K. L., & Aaker, D. A. (1992). The effects of sequential introduction of brand extensions. Journal of Marketing Research, 29(1), 35–50.
Levitt, T. (1960). Marketing myopia. Harvard Business Review, 38(July-august), 57-66.
Loken, B., & John, D. R. (1993). Diluting brand beliefs: When do brand extensions have a negative impact? Journal of Marketing, 57(3), 71–84.
Love, B. C., Medin, D. L., & Gureckis, T. M. (2004). SUSTAIN: A network model of category learning. Psychological Review, 111(2), 309–332.
Mao, H., & Krishnan, H. S. (2006). Effects of prototype and exemplar fit on brand extension evaluations: A two-process contingency model. Journal of Consumer Research, 33(1), 41–49.
Markman, A. B. (1999). Knowledge representation. Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Medin, D. L., & Schaffer, M. M. (1978). A context theory of classification learning. Psychological Review, 85, 207–238.
Meyvis, T., & Janiszewski, C. (2004). When are broader brands stronger brands? An accessibility perspective on the success of brand extensions. Journal of Consumer Research, 31(2), 346–357.
Monga, A. B., & John, D. R. (2007). Cultural differences in brand extension evaluation: The influence of analytic versus holistic thinking. Journal of Consumer Research, 33(4), 529–536.
Murphy, G. L. (2004). The big book of concepts. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Park, C. W., Jaworski, B. J., & MacInnis, D. J. (1986). Strategic brand concept-image management. Journal of Marketing, 50(4), 135–145.
Park, C. W., Milberg, S., & Lawson, R. (1991). Evaluation of brand extensions: The role of product feature similarity and brand concept consistency. Journal of Consumer Research, 18(2), 185–193.
Ratneshwar, S., & Shocker, A. D. (1991). Substitution in use and the role of usage context in product category structures. Journal of Marketing Research, 28(3), 281–295.
Reber, R., Winkielman, P., & Schwarz, N. (1998). Effects of perceptual fluency on affective judgments. Psychological Science, 29(1), 45–48.
Reinholtz, N., Bartels, D. M., & Parker, J. R. (2015). On the mental accounting of restricted-use funds: How gift cards change what people purchase. Journal of Consumer Research, 42(4), 596–614.
Rosch, E., Mervis, C. B., Gray, W., Johnson, D., & Boyes-Braem, P. (1976). Basic objects in natural categories. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 382–439.
Seamon, J. G., Williams, P. C., Crowley, M. J., Kim, I. J., Langer, S. A., Orne, P. J., & Wishengrad, D. L. (1995). The mere exposure effect is based on implicit memory: Effects of stimulus type, encoding conditions, and number of exposures on recognition and affect judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21(3), 711–721.
Swaminathan, V. (2003). Sequential brand extensions and brand choice behavior. Journal of Business Research, 56(6), 431–442.
Völckner, F., & Sattler, H. (2006). Drivers of brand extension success. Journal of Marketing, 70(2), 18–34.
Winkielman, P., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2001). Mind at ease puts a smile on the face: Psychophysiological evidence that processing facilitation elicits positive affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(6), 989–1000.
Zhao, X., Lynch, J. G., & Chen, Q. (2010). Reconsidering Baron and Kenny: Myths and truths about mediation analysis. Journal of Consumer Research, 37(2), 197–206.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Vikas Mittal served as Area Editor for this article.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(DOCX 164 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Parker, J.R., Lehmann, D.R., Keller, K.L. et al. Building a multi-category brand: when should distant brand extensions be introduced?. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 46, 300–316 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-017-0552-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-017-0552-7