The effects of sub-brands and brand name structure on extension evaluation: An empirical study based on Chinese culture

摘要

To ensure the success of a newly launched product, marketers can leverage a sub-brand name and parent-brand name simultaneously. However, this raises a question: At what time is it appropriate to use one or the other of these branding strategies? In this article, we discuss the effects of brand name structure and perception of fit on customer evaluations of brand extensions. Results of our analyses indicate that consumers tend to be more sensitive to perception of fit when the extension employs parent-branding strategies, but does not affect extension evaluation when the extension uses sub-branding. Thus, when operating in a sub-brand mode, a brand can be extended to products for which consumers have poor perceptions of fit. The sub-brand mode presents the problem of how a sub-brand is named. Further, this article explores the relationship between different understandings of meanings for sub-brand names (based on Chinese culture) on consumer evaluations. By comparing the respective effects of different sub-brand name meanings on evaluations of extensions, we found that symbolic brands are more appropriate for sub-brands with symbolic semantic names, and functional brands are more suitable for sub-brands with functional semantic names.