The Differential Impact of Goal Congruency on Attitudes, Intentions, and the Transfer of Brand Equity

Abstract

The authors gratefully acknowledge the comments and suggestions of Brigitte Braig and Niraj Dawar.Various theories suggest that the perceived similarity of objects facilitates the transfer of knowledge, affect, and intentions from one object to the other. However, there is disagreement as to the meaning of similarity and how it should be operationalized among these various theories, and no effort to relate these various measures to one another exists in the literature. In an empirical study, the authors examine the relationships among measures of product similarity in three different contexts: (1) goalcongruent products, (2) moderately goal-incongruent products, and (3) extremely goal-incongruent products. The results of exploratory factor analyses revealed that perceived similarity is a multidimensional construct and that the number and structure of these dimensions of similarity are different when products differ in their degrees of goal congruency. Structural equation analyses of the measures based on a second sample confirmed the structure obtained in the earlier exploratory analyses and demonstrated that brand attitudes and purchase intention exhibit different relationships to the underlying dimensions of similarity in the goal-congruent and goal-incongruent conditions, consistent with expectations based on the theory of goal-derived categorization. The authors discuss implications of these findings for theory and practice.

The role of perceived value in vertical brand extensions of luxury and premium brands

“…The few researchers who have considered this issue suggest a direct impact of the extension attitude on consumer behaviour toward the extension, including purchase intention (e.g. Czellar, 2003;Hansen & Hem, 2004;Martin & Stewart, 2001). Therefore we hypothesise:…”

Birds of a feather flock together…definition, role and measure of congruence: An application to sponsorship

“…Recognizing that "some things go differentiate between sources of similarity (e.g., feature, brand, usage similarity) and reserved the term congruence for the description of compatible and complementary goals and objectives (Martin & Stewart, 2001).…”

How Consumers' Assessments of the Difficulty of Manufacturing a Product Influence Quality Perceptions

“…Respondents then answered three questions about the similarity of the benefits the products provided, namely, whether the products were similar in what they were used for, whether they satisfied similar needs or goals, and whether they were used in similar situations (Martin and Stewart 2001). These three items were rated on 9-point scales, from 1 (not at all) to 9 (very much) (α=.94).…”

“…Product similarity is another cue of a firm's ability to make a high-quality product (e.g., Martin and Stewart 2001). Aaker and Keller (1990) examined the effects of overall perceived similarity between a parent and an extension on attitudes toward the extension.…”