Potential points of brand leverage: consumers’ emergent attributes
| Pages | 198-212 |
| Published date | 01 July 2002 |
| Date | 01 July 2002 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/10610420210435416 |
| Author | Terry Bristol |
| Subject Matter | Marketing |
Potential points of brand
leverage: consumers' emergent
attributes
Terry Bristol
Assistant Professor of Marketing, School of Management, Arizona
State University West, Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Keywords Brands, Leverage, Consumer behaviour
Abstract This paper presents a conceptualization of brand extension attributes that
emerge when consumers evaluate brand extensions. These emergent attributes are unique
in the extension product category and thus represent potential points of leverage for the
brand. An empirical study was conducted to show the utility of these attributes in
influencing consumers' responses. Consumers were allowed to write their thoughts as
they evaluated fictitious extensions of four actual brands. The results indicate that when
emergent attributes are formed, they appear to influence consumers' attitudes toward
brand extensions. Unlike previous findings that have suggested that good fit is necessary
to ensure extension success, the results indicate that the influence of emergent attributes
on consumer attitudes increases as the brand's fit with the extension decreases.
Introduction
Given the likelihood of new product failure, marketing managers are
interested in strategies that help ensure success. Thus, brand extension ±
which involves using an established brand to help gain a presence in
additional product categories ± continues to be a popular branding strategy
for new products. Tauber (1988) suggested that a brand can be successfully
extended into product categories new to the brand when it has both fit and
leverage. Consumers perceive good fit when their prior knowledge and
expectations of the existing brand fit their perceptions of the extension.
Although past research has suggested the level of fit required for extension
success, leverage has remained relatively unexplored. Leverage refers to the
unique and/or superior attributes that consumers believe the brand extension
brings to the new product category. For these attributes to be useful as brand
leverage points they must favorably influence consumers' brand extension
attitudes and/or purchase behavior.
The focus of much of the brand extension research to date has been on the
associations that are transferred from the brand to the extension. These brand
associations include overall liking or attitude toward the brand, as well as
brand-specific attributes and benefits that characterize the brand's offerings
(Keller, 1993). Yet, since customer-based brand equity is some function of
how unique the associations are (Keller, 1993), brand liking and brand-
specific attributes may represent inadequate points of leverage for the brand.
For example, a stream of studies has found that brand liking or attitudes
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The author thanks Roseanne Foti, Noreen Klein, Kent Monroe, and Ruth Ann Smith
for their help with early stages of this research, and Ed Fern, Sheri Bridges, David
Boush, Carolyn Simmons, Dhruv Grewal, Goutam Chakraborty, and Tammy
Mangleburg for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Popular branding strategy
Transferred associations
198 JOURNAL OF PRODUCT & BRAND MANAGEMENT, VOL. 11 NO. 4 2002, pp. 198-212, #MCB UP LIMITED, 1061-0421, DOI 10.1108/10610420210435416
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