ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of brands and brand extensions from a social psychological perspective. It discusses how and when a new product is assimilated toward the implications of an existing brand. The chapter also addresses the somewhat counter-intuitive notion of contrast effects, that is, that a positive evaluated brand may impair evaluations of a new product. It explicitly point to the bidirectional relation between influences on brand and product then it turn to product-to-product influences. The assumption that the successful transfer of a brand image to a new product depends on the similarity between the brand and the product has been the focus of a stellar series of empirical research endeavours. The social psychological research on social judgment can be usefully applied to the domain of brand extensions. Consumer expertise is, not surprisingly, a central variable that is investigated in the domain of consumer psychology.
