The Study On The Effects Of Brand Association Types, Involvement On Brand Extension In Different Distances

ObjectiveAcademic circles carried out a lot of studies on the influencing factors of brand extension effect and found that whether the brand extension can be successful or not depends on consumers' attitudes and evaluations. Further more, brand associations play a decisive role in consumers'evaluation of the extended products in many cases. The objective of this study is exploring the effect of the different types of brand association on brand extension in different distances, and what does involvement do in the same time.MethodThis study carried out two multivariate mixed designs to explore the effect of the different types of brand association on brand extension in different distances, and what does involvement do in the same time. The innovation of this study is using advertising images to evoke different types of brand association in the experiments.Results(1) The main effect of brand association type is significant (F=3.620, p=0.035), and the interaction between brand association type and extension distance is very significant (F=5.316, p=0.009)(2) The main effect of brand association is significant (F=3.925, p=0.023). The main effect of extension distance is very significant (F=18.677, p=0.000). The main effect of involvement is very significant (F=11.326, p=0.001). The interaction between association type and extension distance is very significant (F=13.880, p=0.000). The interaction between association type and involvement is very significant (F=22.399, p=0.000). The interaction between extension distance and involvement is very significant (F=22.886, p=0.000). The interaction among association type, extension distance and involvement is significant (F=3.158, p=0.048)ConclusionsFirst, during the near extension, the hard association often exerts a negative impact on brand extension effect; during the far extension, the soft association will improve the brand extension effect effectively. Under normal circumstances, attaching importance to evoke consumer's soft association will be more beneficial to the consumer to make a good evaluation of the extended product.Second, during the brand extension of low involved product, the soft association will exerts an active effect on consumer's evaluation towards extended product; during the brand extension of high involved product, attaching importance to evoke hard association will be more beneficial to the consumer to make a good evaluation of extended product. Third, there is an interaction among brand association types, extension distances and involvement. The three independent variables exert their influences on brand extension effect together.Fourth, best combinations of brand associations, brand extension distances and involvement on brand extension are: high involvement+near extension+hard association, high involvement+far extension+hard/soft association, low involvement+near/far extension+soft association.