When are Broader Brands Stronger Brands? An Accessibility Perspective on the Formation of Brand Equity

It is common for brands to extend into additional product categories. It has been argued that narrow brands (i.e., brands offering a portfolio of similar product categories) have an advantage over broad brands (i.e., brands offering a portfolio of diverse product categories) when extending to a product category that is similar to at least one of the categories in the existing brand portfolio. We argue that the validity of this claim depends on the process consumers use to evaluate brand extensions. If consumers use a categorization-based inference process, they will indeed prefer an extension by a narrow brand to an extension by a broad brand. However, if consumers try to infer the benefits they can expect from the extension by retrieving the most accessible and diagnostic brand associations, they will prefer an extension by a broad brand to an extension by a narrow brand. We present three experiments to distinguish between these two perspectives and discuss the consequences for the construction of brand equity. 1 A fundamental goal of brand extension research has been to understand how to evaluate the attractiveness of a brand extension opportunity (Aaker and Keller 1990; Boush and Loken 1991; Tauber 1981). As the research stream has matured, the emphasis has shifted from examining individual extensions to studying the effect of each additional extension on the image of the parent brand (e. Keller and Aaker 1992). In other words, research is now focused on the broader goal of brand portfolio management. This long-term perspective is apparently being shared by marketing practitioners, since many firms develop explicit strategic plans for extending their brands Although there is agreement that portfolio management is an important objective, there is considerable debate about how this control is to be executed. On one hand, many researchers have expressed concern that extending a brand to a diverse set of product categories will dilute As a brand name is extended into a wider variety of product categories, the attributes and benefits associated with the brand will become more diffuse and the brand runs the risk of losing its distinct identity brands may have an advantage over narrow brands in extensions to less similar product categories (e.g., Boush and Loken 1991). Because of their more diverse category associations, broad brands are more flexible, making them more acceptable in product categories that are dissimilar to the brand's existing products (e. Sheinin and Schmitt 1994). Given these …