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The aim of this study is to investigate interaction effects between branding strategy (new brand versus established brand), advertising execution strategies (informational, positive emotional and negative emotional) and product category involvement (low and high) on consumers’ attitudes towards the product, purchase intention and the (parent) brand. Two analyses are performed in which involvement is manipulated at product category and at individual level. The results show that in general, line extensions of established brands are preferred over new brands. Furthermore, advertising strategy has little impact on consumer responses to line extensions of familiar brands. The type of advertising strategy used does have a significant impact on product and brand attitude and purchase intention for new brands, where negative emotional appeals lead to significantly more negative responses. The results are further moderated by product category involvement. Informational appeals score especially well in high-involvement situations, whereas positive emotional appeals perform better in low-involvement situations. Interestingly, the differences between advertising appeals in both low- and high-involvement conditions are greater for new brands than for extensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: New brand entry strategies, such as brand extensions and new-name brands, are increasingly being used by firms to facilitate strategic growth. Whilst the issue of new brand entry is of great strategic importance, particularly to marketing practitioners, most new brand entry research has taken a strong consumer behavior stance, with much less research being directed towards the strategic, firm-specific and market-specific drivers of new brand entry decisions and their performance. This paper takes an exploratory first step in providing a strategic management view of new brand entry by developing and introducing a conceptual framework of firm- and market-specific antecedents and moderators of two key new brand entry strategies, brand extensions and new-name brands. Specifically, this paper first explores the direct effect of a firm’s resources and strategic orientation on the choice of a brand extension or a new-name brand strategy, before going onto investigate the effect of the two new brand entry strategies on performance under different environmental conditions, namely dynamism, complexity, and hostility. The paper puts forth a number of propositions and finishes off with a discussion of future research avenues. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]