Art and the brand: The role of visual art in enhancing brand extendibility

We investigate a tool, namely visual art, which enables firms to increase the extendibility of their brands. Extant research proposes that successful brand extensions depend on favorable brand image and high perceived fit between the brand and the extension category. We propose that the presence of art has a positive influence on brand image (via a transfer of luxury perceptions from art onto the brand) and enhances perceived fit (via increased cognitive flexibility), resulting in more favorable brand extension evaluations. A pilot study and two experiments demonstrate that the presence of visual art favorably influences brand image perceptions and enhances perceptions of category fit. Mediation analysis reveals that together these factors explain the influence of visual art on brand extendibility. © 2008 Society for Consumer Psychology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Art and the brand: the role of visual art in enhancing brand extendibility Understanding consumers' evaluation of brand extensions is of critical importance to marketing practitioners and academics alike. Consequently, a great deal of research in marketing has been conducted to enhance this understanding. Much of the extant literature focuses on how consumers evaluate brand extensions and the product categories to which a given brand may successfully extend (Aaker & Keller, 1990; Hou, 2003). Other research has focused on how a firm can improve its ability to successfully introduce brand extensions in general, within any desired category (Barone, Miniard, & Romeo, 2000). The current research contributes to this ongoing stream by demonstrating the influence of visual art on the extendibility of a brand. Prior research has found that consumer evaluations of brand extensions are based on two key factors: 1) the perceived ⁎ Corresponding author. 132 Brooks Hall, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (H. Hagtvedt), [email protected] (V.M. Patrick). 1 Both authors contributed equally to this research. They would like to thank Nicole Patrick and Colin Heacock for their help in creating some of the stimuli used in this paper, the editor and reviewers for thoughtful guidance, and John Mowen, Piyush Kumar, and Srinivas Reddy for their comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper. 2 127 Brooks Hall, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, Athens,