Comparing consumer evaluations of services-to-services brand extensions with services-to-goods
Marketing Intelligence & Planning
ISSN: 0263-4503
Article publication date: 13 September 2017
Issue publication date: 25 September 2017
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of parent brand characteristics and brand-extension fit on attitude towards the extension in the context of services-to-goods (SG) brand extension compared with services-to-services (SS) brand extension.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey design was used to collect data from 626 individual respondents. The respondents were selected using probability sampling from two cities in India. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM).
Findings
The study indicated that context (SS or SG) moderated the influence of factors on attitude toward brand extension. A favorable attitude towards the parent brand had a greater positive influence on SS brand extension compared with SG brand extension. Quality variance among service types under the parent brand had a higher negative impact on attitude towards SG brand extension than on attitude towards SS brand extension.
Practical implications
Managers may prefer extending a service brand to another service rather than a good when consumers have a favorable attitude towards the brand. Furthermore, when the perceived quality of service types under a service brand varies substantially, extension of the brand to a good requires greater concern than extension to a service.
Originality/value
The unique contribution of this study is the examination of the moderating influence of the characteristics of an offering (SS vis-à-vis SG) on the link between brand extension attitude and its influencing factors.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The funding received from Reckitt & Benckiser India Limited towards the field work for this study is gratefully acknowledged. The first author would like to faithfully acknowledge the following academics for their inputs during various stages of this study: Keyoor Purani, Unnikrishnan K. Nair, Shubhasis Dey, Kausik Gangopadhyay, Suram Balasubrahmanyam, Sridhar Guda, Ashok Pratap Arora, and one anonymous dissertation examiner.
Citation
Ramanathan, J. and Velayudhan, S.K. (2017), "Comparing consumer evaluations of services-to-services brand extensions with services-to-goods", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 35 No. 7, pp. 877-891. https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-02-2017-0026
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited