Identifier

etd-07072017-160116

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Textiles, Apparel and Merchandising Design

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

Brand extension and lifestyle branding have been the most commonly used marketing strategies. Unlike other consumer goods, fashion products, or other lifestyle products contains strong meaning of the user’s identity, thus, once done well, the parent non-fashion brands could benefit from not only the profit generated by the extension, but also creating a closer and stronger relationship with customers. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to examine how fashion product attributes affect consumers’ behavioral intention towards the fashion extension, to examine how perceived fit and brand extension authenticity affect consumers behavioral intention towards the fashion extensions, to explore the important parent brand factors and examine how these factors affect consumers’ behavioral intentions of fashion extensions; and to test the influence of ownership status and consumer characteristics on consumers’ behavioral intension of the fashion extensions. Data was collected through Qualtrics with a national sample. A total of 453 valid responses were collected. Structural equation modeling, factor analysis and MANOVA were used to test the hypotheses. Results show that compared to parent band affect, the other independent factor, brand extension attribute evaluation, contributes a larger portion on brand extension behavioral intention through the mediating effects of fit, brand extension authenticity, and brand extension attitude. Brand extension behavioral intention is directly affected by attitude toward the extension, perceived, and parent brand affect. The results of sub-model testing show that parent brand affect is impacted by other parent brand factors, including parent brand trust, consumer-brand identification, parent brand identity expressiveness, parent brand prestige image, and parent brand quality. Among these factors, parent brand identity expressiveness and consumer-brand identification contributes the largest portion to the parent brand affect, which consequently leads to a favorable brand extension behavioral intention. Parent brand ownership status and consumer characteristics, including brand engagement, product knowledge, and need for self-expression moderate the effects on brand extension behavioral intention. These results provide some suggestions to both brand managers and manufacturers who intend to be licensees of the brands. Future research may focus on emerging market and the impact of cultural differences on consumers’ perception of fashion extensions, and explore co-branding strategies.

Date

2017

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Liu, Chuanlan

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.4342

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