Abstract
Given that numerous fashion brands constantly struggle to survive, it is important to learn how consumers evaluate and change their attitudes toward the downward extensions of mass-production fashion businesses, particularly those that originate in Hong Kong. Through capitalizing on the parent brand’s equity earned through enhancing consumer preferences and building loyalty, companies’ brand extension strategies can lead to better profits and sales for fashion brands. Based on the categorization theory and the theory of perceived fit, this study examines how consumers’ familiarity, trust, perceptions of quality, and perceptions of the brand name of the parent brands influence them when evaluating a business’s downward extension. This study also investigates how the effect of the consistency, similarities in product features, and pricing of the extension’s brand concept influences consumers’ purchase intentions toward produces from the downward extension. To achieve the objectives of this study, snowball sampling was used to gather a total of 203 data sets for analysis through methods such as t-tests and stepwise regressions. The results indicated that familiarity with and trust in parent brands, along with the perceived quality of the parent brands’ products, were positive influences on consumers’ evaluations of downward extensions. The extensions’ consistency with the brand concept, product substitutability, product transferability, and pricing positively influenced higher purchase intentions. Consequently, this study highlights that perceptions of the quality of the parent brands contributes most strongly to positive evaluations, and the extension’s pricing contributes most significantly to purchase intentions.
Highlights
Fashion is a major industry in Hong Kong, a country that has continued to develop into an international fashion center which offers “one of the largest global trade shows, Hong Kong Fashion Week, concurrently with the World Boutique trade show” (HKTDC.com 2018; Kunz et al 2016, p. 367)
Given that many fashion brands in Hong Kong pursue extension strategies to survive in an uncertain environment and to meet the volatile demands of consumers, this study investigated how downward extensions could be successfully launched and expanded to reach different age groups and target consumers
Based on the categorization theory and perceived fit as a research framework, this study examined how associations with parent brands could influence consumers’ evaluations of their extensions, and how the perceived fit of these extended brands could lead to purchase intentions
Summary
Fashion is a major industry in Hong Kong, a country that has continued to develop into an international fashion center which offers “one of the largest global trade shows, Hong Kong Fashion Week, concurrently with the World Boutique trade show” (HKTDC.com 2018; Kunz et al 2016, p. 367). Zeng et al Fash Text (2019) 6:29 product lifecycles, large demand volatility, and weak demand predictability (Businessoffashion.com 2019; Choi 2014). This has led fashion brands to struggle with stagnant sales, in addition to contending with various competitors such as Amazon and e-commerce businesses that are changing the fashion industry (Kim and Sullivan 2019). Since brand extensions help to increase the scope of a company’s market and reach more consumer groups, brand extension strategies can increase the probability of trial and purchase by consumers, which can lead to increased sales (Choi et al 2010; Liu and Choi 2009)
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