How the strength of parent brand associations influence the interaction effects of brand breadth and product similarity with brand extension evaluations

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore how the strength of brand associations, different brand breadths, and the similarity between a parent brand's product categories and its extension product categories influence consumers' attitudes toward brand extensions. Design/methodology/approach - An experimental research design was applied to testing the set of hypotheses. A total of 384 respondents participated in the main study. This study analyzed experimental results using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Findings - The paper finds that when a brand is extended to similar product categories, only when the association is strong (trust or affect) will consumers prefer the extension of the narrow brand to that of the broad brand. Conversely, when a brand is extended to dissimilar product categories, regardless of the brand associations (trust or affect), consumers prefer the extension of the favorable broad brand to that of the narrow brand. Practical implications - For corporations that operate within a narrow brand, brand extension strategies must be based on parent brand associations (trust or affect) that are very strong. In addition, the extension must only be to extremely similar product categories. In contrast, for corporations operating a broad brand, although the chance of brand extension success is better, favorability of consumer brand association (trust or affect) must never be ignored. Originality/value - The study results reemphasize the importance of brand breadth effects when launching category extensions. Also, the research provides new insight into the strength of parent brand associations when evaluating consumers' brand attitude on brand extension.