Cultural Differences in Brand Extension Evaluation: The Influence of Analytic versus Holistic Thinking

Consumers evaluate brand extensions by judging how well they fit with the parent brand. We examine this process across cultures. We predict that consumers from Eastern cultures, characterized by holistic thinking, perceive higher brand extension fit and evaluate brand extensions more favorably than do Western consumers, characterized by analytic thinking. Study 1 supports the existence of these cultural differences, with study 2 providing support for styles of thinking (analytic vs. holistic) as the drivers of cultural differences in brand extension evaluations. (c) 2007 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..