Service Intensiveness and Brand Extension Evaluations

Abstract

The authors have performed an experimental study to assess whether an extension with relatively low service intensiveness compared to the parent product is evaluated differently from an extension with higher service intensiveness. The empirical evidence from this article indicates that the quality of an extension product will be evaluated more favorably when it involves lower service intensiveness than higher service intensiveness. Furthermore, the results reveal that the difference in extension evaluations, due to the varying levels of service intensiveness involved in the extension products, is positively affected by the perceived similarity between an extension and its parent product. Finally, it is also found that consumers have different postevaluations on the parent brand due to different degrees of service intensiveness involved in the extension products. Meanwhile, the perceived similarity will reinforce this difference in consumers’postevaluations.

Which category to extend to – Product or service?

“…The original scale of Aaker and Keller (1990) includes three fi t variables: compliment, transfer and substitute. It is a wellaccepted fact that the higher the fi t between the parent brand and the extension, the more favorable the brand extension is evaluated ( Aaker and Keller, 1990 ;Park et al , 1991 ;Sunde and Brodie, 1993 ;Bottomley and Doyle, 1996 ;Barrett et al , 1999 ;Lei et al , 2004 ;Olavarrieta et al , 2009 ). When the service extension does not fi t with the parent brand, the extension is evaluated less favorably ( Lee and Ulgado, 1993 ).…”

“…Most previous research on brand extensions focus on extending a physical product into new physical product categories. Although it is possible to see many examples of service brand extensions, only a limited number of studies have focused on service brand extensions ( Lee and Ulgado, 1993 ;van Riel et al , 2001 ;Lei et al , 2004 ;Lahiri and Gupta, 2005 ;Pina et al , 2006 ;d ' Astous et al , 2007 ;Thamaraiselvan and Raja, 2008 ). However, by transferring positive feelings and affect to the extension ( Aaker and Keller, 1990 ;Sunde and Brodie, 1993 ;Yeung and Wyer Jr, 2005 ;Kim and John, 2008 ); reduction of risk perceived by customers ( Aaker and Keller, 1990 ) even if the customer has no prior personal experience with brand ( DelVecchio, 2000 ); increasing the sales of the parent brand due to extensive advertising of the new product ( Tauber, 1981 ).…”

“…After residually centering the means, they found that the results were very as the diffi culty of producing the extension increases, the brand evaluation decreases. Lei et al (2004) tried to experimentally assess the effect of ' service intensiveness ' of the extension on evaluation of the brand extension and their results showed that when the extension was less service intensive the evaluation of the extension was more favorable. Their fi ndings also emphasize the importance of fi t on brand evaluations.…”

Avaliação de Extensões de Marca: uma pesquisa experimental no setor de serviços

“…Pesquisas têm apresentado, no entanto, diferentes efeitos dessas duas variáveis na avaliação de extensões de marcas em serviços. Alguns estudos encontraram efeitos altamente significantes da similaridade em extensões de marcas (RUYTER, WETZELS, 2000;LEI et al, 2004;MARTINEZ, PINA, 2005; VAN RIEL, OUWERSLOOT, 2005), ao passo que outros apontaram que a qualidade percebida da MM apresentou um efeito mais significante que o efeito da similaridade nas extensões de marcas em serviços (VÖLCKNER et al, 2010;HERNANDEZ et al, 2011).…”

“…Pesquisas têm apresentado, no entanto, resultados contraditórios sobre os efeitos dessas duas variáveis na avaliação de extensões de marcas em serviços. Ruyter e Wetzels (2000), Lei et al,(2004) (2011) apontaram que a qualidade percebida da MM apresentou um efeito mais significante que o efeito da similaridade nas extensões de marcas em serviços. Provavelmente, esses resultados contraditórios se justificam pela utilização de desenhos de pesquisa diferentes.…”