ABSTRACT
The increasing popularity of brand extensions over the last decade has ignited interest in understanding how consumers evaluate brand extensions. A number of factors have been identified that influence whether consumers will evaluate brand extensions in a favorable manner. Key among them is the degree to which a brand extension “fits” with the parent brand, which consumers judge in a variety of ways, including whether the extension is in a product category similar to other products produced by the parent brand, whether an attribute associated with the parent brand could be beneficial in the extension product category, whether prestige associated with the parent brand could transfer to the extension product category, and whether the parent brand has the requisite expertise to produce a product in the extension category (see Keller 2002). Brand extensions that are higher in perceived fit are typically evaluated more favorably than are those that are viewed as poor fits.
