When consumers evaluate a new product extended from a brand, they may compare the design and concept of the new product with the image of that brand in their minds. The difference between the new product concept and the brand’s original image is so-called the product incongruity (see Sheinin and Schmitt, 1994; Jhang, Grant, and Campbell, 2012). Product incongruity is defined as a function of the degree of match between a product and the activated product category (Mandler, 1982). Meyers-Levy and Tybout (1989) define moderate versus extreme incongruity in terms of levels within the product category hierarchy, and Jhang, Grant, and Campbell (2012) define the level of incongruity in terms of the type of associations the consumer must make to resolve the incongruity to understand a benefit of the new product.
Existing research suggests that the level of incongruity between an object and its
associated schema can influence a person’s evaluations of the object (Cohen & Basu, 1987; Meyers-Levy & Tybout, 1989; Srull, 1981; Sujan, 1985). More precisely, many studies suggest a positive effect of moderate incongruity. That is, consumers would evaluate moderately incongruent products more positively than congruent ones (e.g., Meyers-Levy & Tybout, 1989; Peracchio & Meyers-Levy, 1994). The reason why the moderate incongruity products is preferred is that congruent products just meet the original consumers’ expectations, resulting in mildly positive, familiarity-based evaluations, but congruent products do not bring the feeling of freshness. However, moderate incongruity is theorized to evoke arousal as the consumer elaborates in an attempt to resolve the incongruity (Jhang, Grant, & Campbell, 2012).
Even though moderate incongruity products can get more positive evaluation than the congruent ones, extreme incongruity can rather lead to negative affect because it requires individuals to develop an entirely new schema or dramatically alter an existing schema (Meyers-Levy and Tybout, 1989). For the extant consumers, they may easily get lost or even develop the feeling of betrayal when they encounter the extremely incongruent products, which are significantly away from the original brand position. Therefore, some studies indicated the relationship between the level of product schema incongruity and the product evaluation is an inverted U relationship. That is, moderate incongruity is
evaluated more positive than either congruity or extreme incongruity (e.g., Mandler, 1982;
Meyers-Levy & Tybout, 1989).
After discovering the relationship between the level of product incongruity and the product evaluation (Mandler, 1982), many experts, based on Mandler’s study, keep researching on the product incongruity issue (See Table 2). For example, Sheinin and Schmitt (1994) extend the Mandler (1982) and found that the level of incongruity, brand affect, and brand breadth impact the new product concept evaluation, and in different level of incongruity, the different extents of brand affect and brand breadth may result in different outcomes.
Some studies paid particular attention to what can interfere the inverted U relationship between the level of product incongruity and the product evaluation. For example, Campbell and Goodstein (2001) indicated that high perceived risk should lead to more conservative purchase decisions, so only when the perception of risk is low, consumers would enjoy the positive stimulation. Therefore, consumer evaluation of moderately incongruent products should depend upon the risk associated with the product. In addition, Noseworthy and Trudel (2011) demonstrated that the type of positioning (i.e., functional or experiential positioning) moderated how consumer evaluated new products with different levels of product-brand incongruity. They showed that when a product was
Table 2. Product Incongruity Findings
Insight The level of incongruity, brand affect, and brand breadth each impact the new product concept evaluation. Evaluations of moderately incongruent products are dependent upon the risk associated with the product. The moderate incongruity effect might be contingent on how a product is positioned. The schema congruity effect is subject to consumers’ state of arousal when they first encounter the incongruent product.The inverted U relation is only observed when task involvement is high. The favorable response to incongruity depends on consumers’ characteristics, need for cognitive and need for change.
Moderator - Perceived Risk Product Positioning Consumers’ state of arousal Involvement Need for Cognition Need for Change
Dependent Variable Brand Extension Evaluation Consumer Evaluation Product Evaluation Product Evaluation Evaluation of Brand Extension Attitude toward Brand Extension
Independent Variable Degree of Incongruity Brand Breadth Brand Affect Degree of Incongruity Degree of Incongruity Degree of Product Incongruity Degree of Incongruity Brand Extension Incongruity
Research Method Experiment Experiment Experiment Experiment Experiment Survey
Journal Journal of Business Research Journal of Consumer Research Journal of Marketing Research Journal of Consumer Research Journal of Consumer Psychology Journal of Marketing Management
Author Sheinin and Schmitt (1994) Campbell and Goodstein (2001) Noseworthy and Trudel (2011) Noseworthy , Di Muro, and Murray (2014) Maoz and Tybout (2002) Srivastava and Sharma (2011)
acquire or seek novel information and view novelty and innovation as intrinsically valuable (Wood & Swait, 2002), are moderators between the level of brand extension incongruity and the attitude toward the brand extension. That is, the favorable response to incongruity depends on consumers’ characteristics, need for cognitive and need for change, to process incongruent information.
Hypothesis
Brand extension means that a brand launches a new product in a new category that is different from the brand’s original product category, and most studies (e.g. Bottomley &
Holden, 2001; Müge Arslan & Korkut Altuna, 2010; Thompson & Strutton, 2012) about brand extension indicated that the deployment of brand extension strategy is usually for broadening the brand image and surviving in the market competition. Product incongruity is consistently defined as a function of the degree of match between a product and the activated product category (Mandler, 1982). Therefore, by the definition of brand extension and product incongruity, the research of product incongruity is usually related to the brand extension (e.g. Meyers-Levy & Tybout, 1989).
The difference between brand extension and corporate rebranding is that rebranding does not require a brand to develop products in a new product category. However, brand
extension and corporate rebranding have something in common. On the one hand, corporate rebranding is usually involved in the change of brand image so that brand can increase the brand relevance through the brand image change. On the other hand, brand extension usually focuses on extending to the new product category and bringing the new product concept to the brand. In essence, different product categories should also bring the different product concepts and different brand images to the consumers. Therefore, even the meaning of brand extension and corporate rebranding is quite different, both brand extension and corporate rebranding have the same association with brand image change.
According to my literature review, I find that the incongruity theory is suitable to predict the relationship between the extent of brand image change and market reaction. I assume that brand extension and corporate rebranding can be regarded as the different forms of brand image change, and product incongruity theory can explain how the difference between the new product concept and the original brand image affect the consumer reaction.
Besides, the success of both brand extension and corporate rebranding strategy depends on the market reaction, and the studies of incongruity theory use the product evaluation on consumers to represent the performance of the brand extension. Regarding the studies
of corporate rebranding and brand image change, measuring whether the corporate rebranding and brand image change strategy succeed usually depends on the consumers’
reactions when recognizing the change. In brief, in order to discuss the relationship between the extent of brand image change and market reaction, using the incongruity theory to predict is the most appropriate.
In previous research on brand-product incongruity, many studies focused on cases of brand extension (Mandler, 1982). The main finding of the incongruity theory literature is that moderate incongruent brand-product image can have better product evaluation than either congruent or extreme incongruent brand-product images.
Specifically, a new product having a congruent brand-product image means that it only conforms to the original product category and consumers will not receive the feeling of freshness. On the other hand, moderate incongruent brand-product image can attract consumer because new product category brings the new product concept that is slightly different from original product category to the brand, and new product concept can result in the appearance of the feeling of freshness on the brand itself to catch the consumers’
eyes.
In addition, even though the incongruent brand-product image can bring the feeling of
freshness, extreme incongruent brand-product image may contradict the original product concept, and thus dilute the product evaluation of the brand.
According to the similarity of brand extension and corporate rebranding, I predict that the incongruity theory of Mandler (1982) can analogize this phenomenon of the corporate rebranding. The moderate incongruent corporate rebranding can change the many features of the original brand for giving a sense of freshness and still maintain enough brand idiosyncrasy to attract extant consumers who prefer what they are familiar with. When the rebranding image is extremely incongruent with the old one, (i.e., the change of the brand image can be too far from the original one), this brand may risk their current market acceptance and customer loyalty. The extant consumers may feel a sense of betrayal when they find the brand features that they valued a lot were discarded (Grégoire & Fisher, 2008).
Thus, this research sets the hypothesis of the research is that:
Research Hypothesis: The extent of incongruity between old and new brand images will have a non-linear (inverted U) relationship with the consumer reaction toward corporate rebranding. That is, the moderately incongruent new brand image is better than either congruent or extremely incongruent new brand image.