How willing are consumers to accept brand extensions that aren’t a close fit with the brand’s previous products? It depends on the consumers’ state of mind, according to three researchers.
Specifically, according to a February 2008 working paper titled Beyond Survival of the Fittest: The Influence of Consumers’ Mindset on Brand Extension Evaluations, consumers who have an “abstract” state of mind at the time they consider a product might react differently when presented with brand extensions than those with a “concrete” mind-set. What’s more, the research indicates, consumers’ mind-sets can change. Some prior research has concluded that consumers react less favorably to extensions that are perceived as a poor fit with the existing brand, even when the brand itself is strong. However, the authors of the working paper suggest, consumers whose states of mind are made more concrete might consider brand fit differently from those responding to hypothetical product extensions from an abstract perspective.
Tom Meyvis, associate professor of marketing at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business and one of the authors of the working paper, explains the difference between abstract and concrete mind-sets in a consumer who is thinking about brand extensions: “People make completely different decisions depending on whether they are in an abstract or concrete mind-set. If you are in an abstract mind-set, you focus on theories or lay beliefs.... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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