Comparing consumer evaluations of services-to-services brand extensions with services-to-goods

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.