The Effect of the Parent Brand's Concept, the Extension Product's Concept and Congruity between Parent Brand's Image and Consumers' Self-Image on Attitude toward the Extension Brand

Abstract

Prior research on brand extensions has shown that consumers’ attitude toward the extension brand depends on the similarity of its concept with that of the original brand(Park, Jaworski, and MacInnis, 1986). However, particularly among consumers with diverse needs, successful brand extension products’ concepts do not always match the parent brand’s concept(Bhat, and Reddy, 1998; McEnally, and De Chernatony, 1999). This paper takes up this lacuna and proves that despite concept inconsistency between parent brand and extension product, the extension brand can succeed in markets if the parent brand’s image and consumer self-image are congruent with one another. Observed findings showed a pronounced three-way interaction effect of the parent brand concept, the extension product concept, and congruity between parent brand image and self-image on consumers’ attitude toward the extension brand.