HCBE Faculty Articles
The Effect of Vertical Brand Extensions on Consumer-Brand Relationships in South Africa
ORCID
Rusell Abratt0000-0002-5385-0936
Document Type
Article
Publication Title
South African Journal of Business Management
ISSN
2078-5585
Publication Date
3-2017
Abstract/Excerpt
The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of the introduction of vertical brand extensions on Consumer-Brand Relationships (CBRs) in the mobile phone market. In particular, we aim at exploring the effect vertical brand extensions that luxury and functional brands have on consumers’ perceptions, as well as the effect the extensions will have on CBRs. This study pursues a quantitative approach, developing and testing four hypotheses on the influence vertical brand extensions have on four CBR-related constructs, namely brand attachment, brand trust, brand commitment and brand identification. The elicited context is the South African market and the selected brands are Apple, to represent luxury brands, and Samsung, representative of functional brands. Results only partially confirm previous research on vertical brand extension. Supporting previous studies, a vertical step-down extension has been found to have a stronger negative impact on brand commitment for the luxury brand than for the functional one. However, findings disconfirm the literature in revealing a stronger negative impact on the functional brand than the luxury brand and a positive effect on the brand attachment of both brands, especially the functional brand.
Volume
48
Issue
1
First Page
1
Last Page
10
NSUWorks Citation
Muroyiwa, O.; Abratt, Russell; and Mingione, M., "The Effect of Vertical Brand Extensions on Consumer-Brand Relationships in South Africa" (2017). HCBE Faculty Articles. 904.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/hcbe_facarticles/904
