Conclusiones

Companies invest substantial resources to build strong brands, and they do so with good reason. Strong brands result in more favorable consumer responses to a wide variety of firm activities, including price increases, advertising appeals, and product modifications.

Moreover, one of the most important strategic benefits of owning a strong brand is that this strength can be leveraged into new categories. This insight has resulted in a prolifer-ation of brand extensions in many industries, ranging from packaged food products (for example, Heinz baby food) to consumer electronics (for example, the Apple iPod) and commercial airlines (for example, Virgin airlines). The popularity of the brand extension strategy has resulted in a large body of research aimed at understanding how consumers react to such a new brand initiative.

A common finding in empirical studies of consumers’ response to brand extensions is that consumers evaluate extensions more favorably when there is a better fit between the parent brand and the extension category. The concept of fit (or similarity) has surfaced as a critical factor early on in the literature on brand extension evaluations (Fry, 1967;

Neuhaus and Taylor, 1972; Tauber, 1988), but it was first rigorously defined by Aaker and Keller (1990), who focused on the fit between the host category and the extension cate-gory. Two product categories are said to have a higher fit when the product classes are viewed as complements or substitutes and when the two products are perceived as requir-ing similar manufacturrequir-ing abilities. Whereas some later studies similarly focused on the fit between product categories (for example, Boush and Loken, 1991), others have illustrated that extension evaluations also depend on the consistency of the extension category with the brand concept (Park et al., 1991) or, more generally, the fit between the extension cat-egory and any type of brand-specific association (Broniarczyk and Alba, 1994).

For instance, Tide’s recent extension to stain removal pens (Tide to Go) fits the Tide brand because producing an effective stain removal pen requires similar abilities to those required when producing an effective laundry detergent. Likewise, Mr Clean Windshield Wash is a good fit with the Mr Clean brand given the similarity between wiper fluid and all-purpose cleaner. In contrast, Iams pet insurance may seem like quite a stretch given the difference in capabilities required for providing insurance versus producing food. However, pet insurance is very consistent with Iams’ brand-specific association of caring about pets’ health, and therefore fits the brand reasonably well. Conversely, some examples of recent extensions that are a poor fit with the parent brand image include

Harley-Davidson cake decoration kits and the failed extensions of Hooters Air and Reebok Fitness Water.

The manner in which perceived fit influences consumers’ extension evaluations has been the topic of considerable debate. Boush and Loken (1991) distinguish between two processes. On the one hand, extensions that either fit very well or very poorly are evalu-ated using a categorization-based affect transfer mechanism (Fiske and Pavelchak, 1986);

the positive attitude associated with the parent brand will transfer to the brand extension when the extension is very typical for the brand, but not when the extension is clearly atyp-ical. Thus, the Tide to Go pen benefits from consumers’ positive attitude towards Tide because of its high fit. In contrast, the positive attitude towards Reebok does not trans-fer to Reebok Fitness Water due to the atypicality of the extension, resulting in negative evaluations of this extension.

On the other hand, extensions that fit moderately well are evaluated using a piecemeal, analytical assessment process (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975); the attitude towards the exten-sion is computed as a weighted combination of attribute values. Broniarczyk and Alba (1994) formulate a specific version of this latter process. They argue that consumers simply use the brand’s benefit associations to infer whether the brand extension will deliver the critical benefit that is typically sought in the extension category. By producing healthy pet food, Iams has demonstrated that it cares about pets’ health and it can there-fore be expected to show the same concern in its pet insurance business.

This conceptualization of two separate routes to brand extension evaluations (affect transfer versus piecemeal processing) can indeed account for many findings in the brand extension literature. However, this framework is overly restrictive in its consideration of possible evaluation processes and, furthermore, at odds with our current understanding of judgment and decision making. In particular, in recent decision research, effortless processes such as affect transfer are usually conceptualized as a necessary precursor for the more effortful, analytical decision processes. We therefore propose a slightly altered conceptual framework based on Kahneman and Frederick’s (2002) distinction between automatic, effortless System I cognitive processes and conscious, more effortful System II processes. As illustrated in Figure 2.1, we propose that consumers first generate an initial, intuitive response to the new brand extension using automatic, effortless System I processes. Consumers could engage in categorization-based affect transfer, as proposed by Boush and Loken (1991), but they could also rely on other automatic processes, such as inferring their liking of the extension from the ease with which they can process the extension (for example, Winkielman and Cacioppo, 2001). Consumers next assess their intuitive confidence in this initial response to the brand extension (Simmons and Nelson, 2006). If their intuitive confidence is high, as would be the case when the extension fits the brand very well or very poorly, consumers will be satisfied with this initial response and not engage in any additional, more effortful processing. However, if their intuitive confidence in this response is low, they will engage in additional, System II processing to arrive at a more reliable evaluation of the extension – provided they have the motivation and ability to do so. This additional, effortful processing could consist of the piecemeal construction of an attitude towards the extension or a conscious assessment of the likeli-hood that this extension will deliver a specific desired benefit.

For instance, when presented with a Tide to Go stain removal pen, consumers may automatically generate a confident, positive response that does not trigger any additional

System I (effortless) Brand attitude

Brand-extension fit Brand-specific

associations

Automatic processing

• Affect transfer

• Benefit transfer

• Ease of processing

Intuitive consumer response

Intuitive confidence

Low High

System II (effortful) Analytical processing

• Piecemeal attitude construction

• Benefit inference Motivation

& capacity

High Low

Extension evaluation Extension evaluation

Extension evaluation

Figure 2.1 A two-system model of brand extension evaluations

processing. Conversely, being informed about Hooters Air may automatically elicit a confident, negative response that similarly precludes additional processing (and hence any opportunity for this enterprise to redeem itself with favorable attribute information). In contrast, Iams pet insurance will also automatically trigger an intuitive response, but because of the modest fit of this extension, the initial response will be rather ambiguous and not inspire much confidence. Consequently, consumers will feel the need to activate the effortful System II processes, which may result in the conscious inference that Iams may provide good pet insurance since this is a company that has clearly demonstrated that it cares about pets’ health.