Consumer evaluations of brand extensions in isolated and comparative contexts
Lee, Sungho
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Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/20433
Description
Title
Consumer evaluations of brand extensions in isolated and comparative contexts
Author(s)
Lee, Sungho
Issue Date
1996
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Monroe, Kent B.
Department of Study
Business Administration
Discipline
Business Administration
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Business Administration, Marketing
Language
eng
Abstract
What factors lead to favorable consumer evaluations of extensions has been the important research issue in the area of brand extensions. Prior research findings of brand extensions imply that it is important to consider whether a brand has prior associations by which consumers perceive a fit with an extension product category. A firm, however, can also provide specific product information. How consumers form evaluations in this situation (given prior brand associations as well as incoming product information) was neither asked nor answered. Further, although this issue of consumer evaluations per se may be important, many important research issues beyond consumers' extension evaluations in an isolated context have not been explored. Specifically, what would be consumer extension evaluations in a comparative context with other existing brands in the extension product category? What factors affect comparative extension evaluations in what manner? These questions were neither asked nor answered.
To extend previous consumer research and provide new insights on brand extensions, this research examined how prior brand attitudes and attribute information affect consumer evaluations in isolated and comparative contexts. Further, the effect of consumer motivation was incorporated since a main theme of this research was to examine how information processing occurs and affects evaluations. Then, the heuristic-systematic framework of information processing, the accessibility-diagnosticity framework of information use, and memory literature on prototypicality of brands and retrieval/encoding mechanisms were relied upon to derive the hypotheses. The research instruments were developed through seven pre-tests, the main experiment was conducted, and the results were analyzed.
The results of this research showed: (1) the effects of prior brand attitudes and attribute information on consumers' extension evaluations in an isolated context were dependent upon consumer motivation and/or attribute congruity, and (2) consumers' comparative extension evaluations were dependent upon prior attitudes of extension and prototypical brands and/or attribute congruity. The results of this research implied not only the utility of the conceptual frameworks used in examining consumer extension evaluations, but also the important directions in which the conceptual frameworks need to be developed further. Finally, in relation to this research, managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions were suggested.
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