The Effect of Expected Variability of Product Quality and Attribute Uniqueness on Family Brand Evaluations

Abstract

This research investigates the processes by which consumers evaluate a family brand on the basis of information about its products. Findings from three experiments suggest that the expected variability of individual product quality within the brand and attribute uniqueness systematically influence information processing and family brand evaluations. On-line (vs. memory-based) processing of information to form family brand judgments is more likely when expected variability is low (vs. high) and when the attributes are shared (vs. unique) within the family brand. These different processes lead to differences in family brand evaluations due to primacy (on-line processing) and recency (memory-based processing) effects.