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This article reviews and discusses issues in the translation of international brand names to Chinese, and provides a framework for international brand managers who want to expand into China. Linguistic differences between Chinese and English are wide and deep, making translation of brand names difficult. Cultural context, pronunciation, written vs. oral language, and the meaning of characters are just a few examples of such difficulties. We discuss four global product‐naming strategic alternatives available to country/brand managers, along with their usage. The four approaches include (1) dual extension, (2) brand meaning extension, (3) brand feeling extension, and (4) dual adaptation. We also provide examples of brands utilizing the different approaches.

Consumers' evaluations of brand extensions have gained considerable attention in the marketing literature. The purpose of this study is to investigate how a brand's perceived global or local origin impacts evaluations of brand extensions and creates transfer effects of brand meaning. The paper conceptually characterizes the transference process and empirically tests the nature and extent of spillover effects of origin associations across multiple parent brands and extensions.

For the empirical testing of the conceptual model of transfer effects of origin associations we undertook a cross‐sectional consumer survey amongst a sample of 267 Norwegian respondents. Structural equation modelling was used to investigate the causal relationships between the latent exogenous and endogenous variables in the conceptual model.

The present study indicates that the global and local origin framework, first introduced by Steenkamp et al. in 2003, can explain the occurrence of reciprocal transfer of brand meaning across parent brands and extensions. The paper shows that global and local origin associations operate in a manner very similar to brand associations in the transference of perceptions. It finds that distinct origin associations influence the pre‐brand image and drive the forward effect on the attitude towards the extension as well as the subsequent backward effect upon the post‐brand image of the parent brand.

This paper reveals for the first time that distinct origin associations can initiate spillover effects across parent brands and extensions. This study is therefore an important step towards the generalizability of main brand extension studies to other contexts such as extensions of global brands.

The present study aims to examine how consumers evaluate the extended human brands of athlete celebrities beyond their unique brand personality associated with sports. Athlete celebrities' unique image in sports is used as a human brand, and attitude toward the athlete brand extensions is investigated when the athlete's name is included in a new non-sport brand. The concepts of brand extensions were employed to develop the ideas of human brand extensions.

In total, 198 participants answered online survey questions before and after being informed of athlete brand extensions. Partial least squares structural equation modeling is utilized to test the hypotheses.

The survey results indicated that athlete–product fit and image transfer positively influenced attitude toward the extension. In addition, attitude toward the athlete brand extensions was significantly influenced by consumers' pre-existing attitude toward the celebrity; however, not by celebrity's expertise.

The research findings imply that some brand extension concepts are applicable to human brands to understand the effectiveness of athlete brand extensions for non-sport products.

This study aims to fill in new evidence related to theoretical explanations on how perception of sincerity, excitement and sophistication relates to attitudes towards the different kinds of brand extensions, namely, horizontal extension and vertical extension.

Taking an established Chinese brand as a test object and a survey sample data from three cities in China, the strength of perception of brand personality and its effect on attitudes towards brand extension is tested. T‐test is used to analyze the data.

Results show that, a salient perception of personality “sincerity” is significantly favourable to downward extension, but has no significant effect on upward, near or far extension. A salient perception of personalities “excitement” and “sophistication” is significantly favourable to upward and far extension, but has no significant effect on downward or near extension.

Although the data used for testing the hypotheses in this article are taken from three cities in China, spanning four major age groups, this collection of data does not eliminate the possible errors introduced in the course of survey. Another limitation is that this survey takes one single established brand.

This study provides targeted strategies for the long‐term management of Chinese local brands, particularly established brands. Decision makers for enterprises of established brands are consequently faced with two alternative solution approaches. One is to undertake brand extension and develop and promote new products to improve brand personality. The second is to reform a brand's personality to make it conducive for reasonable market extension.

This study contributes to branding theories by pioneering research on attitudes towards a parent brand as an evaluation factor in research on the mechanism of brand extension, as well as by enriching research on matters related to brand personality traits.

The purpose of this paper is to examine current and prospective consumer perceptions, purchase intent and parent brand evaluation due to green brand – line and category extensions by marketers of established (non‐green) brands for products with high vs low perceived environmental impact.

The paper analyses responses to online surveys by 602 pet‐owners at social networking websites. The quasi‐experiment considered perceived environmental impact of core product, parent‐brand user status, and green extension strategy (line vs category). Brand extension evaluation, purchase intent, and parent brand evaluation were then measured.

Results suggest that consumers are more likely to purchase green extensions of products with high perceived environmental impact and that current consumers prefer green line extensions to green category extensions. Both have similar reciprocal impact on parent brand evaluation among current consumers.

The data have external validity but lack the control possible in laboratory experiments. Future research should replicate the study in other product categories.

Managers of established brands should consider brand extensions of products associated with high environmental impact only.

This paper examines managerial implications of line vs category extension strategies for green brand extensions of established brands.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the predicting roles of extension naming strategies and categorical fit on the transfer of brand personality from a parent brand to its extension brand. Extension naming strategies include direct and indirect naming, while categorical fit is the similarity between an extended product and its parent brand's cognitive category. Further, the interaction effect and the relative effectiveness of various combinations of the two predictors when determining brand personality transfer are also explored.

A 2×2 factorial between‐subject experimental design with one covariate is used to test the proposed hypotheses. The experiment involves 242 participants from a university in Taiwan.

The findings show that consumers perceive higher brand personality transfer when a direct naming strategy is applied or when the parent brand extends to a high perceived fit product. The former is the dominant predictor of brand personality transfer. There also exists an interaction effect between extension naming strategies and categorical fit. Specifically, consumers perceive the highest brand personality transfer when a direct naming strategy is applied for a high fit extended product. Moreover, the use of a direct naming strategy for an extended product with a low categorical fit still leads to a higher degree of parent brand personality than both the other cases in which an indirect naming strategy is applied for either high or low fit extended products. Furthermore, irrespective of the degree of categorical fit, the transfer of brand personality is low when an indirect naming strategy is applied.

The current research is pioneer work in identifying the determinants of brand personality transfer. It also notes the interaction effect and the relative effectiveness of the determinants.

The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of perceived fit, brand type and country's culture on the consumers' attitude towards brand extensions and on the parent brand equity.

Data were collected in three European countries: Spain, UK, and Norway. A series of analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to test the hypotheses.

Brand extensions with high fit receive more favourable consumer evaluations and decrease the negative feedback effects of extensions on parent brand equity. Results also reveal that parent brand equity dilution is higher when the brand used to launch the extension has high equity. Finally, findings indicate different consumers' responses to extensions and effects on parent brand equity across countries.

Important directions for future research would be to include other countries and carry out a more in‐depth analysis to understand the effect of culture.

Managers should launch extensions with high perceived fit. In addition, greater effort is needed to extend high equity brands, due to their greater dilution. Finally, managers need to understand that consumer evaluations and feedback effects of the same brand extensions can vary due to cultural differences between consumers. Therefore, standardised brand extension strategies should be carefully considered.

The study focuses, not only on consumer evaluations of extensions, but also on the effects of extensions on the parent brand equity. Furthermore, this paper is one of the first to empirically examine and show that consumer evaluations of extensions and feedback effects on parent brand equity differ across countries.

Low-fit brand extensions offer several potential benefits, yet their success is challenging. Building on construal level theory, this study aims to investigate how different advertising appeals can improve the evaluations of low-fit brand extensions through two different processes (cognitive and affective).

Two experiments were conducted with US consumers. Study 1 used a 2 (extension fit: high, low) × 2 (ad appeal: abstract, concrete) between-subjects design. Study 2 applied a 2 (brand associations: promotion, prevention) × 2 (ad appeal: promotion, prevention) between-subjects design. Multivariate analyses and follow-up means comparisons were used to analyse data.

Study 1 found that an abstract ad appeal is more effective for promoting low-fit brand extension because it improves the perception of fit. Study 2 showed promotion vs prevention ad appeals lead to better evaluation of low-fit brand extensions when matched with parent brand associations (promotion vs prevention) in terms of construal level. This matching effect is underpinned by processing fluency.

Ad appeals can influence low-fit brand extension evaluation by influencing the perception of fit (cognitive process) or processing fluency (affective process). Future research could consider different ad appeals and other construal related factors to generalise these findings.

Marketers can design different ad appeals to effectively advertise low-fit brand extensions. These findings can guide managers in the development of effective advertising strategies.

This research offers a new perspective on how ad appeals can enhance low-fit brand extension evaluation.

Focusing on symbolic brands, this paper aims to re-test whether perceived â€∼fit’ between the personality of the parent brand, and the brand extension causes consumers to the feel increased affect towards the brand extension. The contention is that high brand personality fit causes consumers to like the brand extension more because, like the parent brand, consumers can use the brand extension to maintain and project a desirable self-identity. This relationship is obscured because consumers process brand personality fit as part of the overall brand image fit; therefore, the potential mediating role of brand image is tested. Consumers differ in their self-monitoring disposition as well, which may explain differences in response to perceived personality fit. Therefore, the potential moderating role of self-monitoring is tested.

Using an experimental design, respondents viewed an advertisement for a brand extension that showed either congruent, moderately incongruent or incongruent personality fit with the parent brand. This was completed for four symbolic brands: two watch brands and two motor vehicle brands.

The results indicate that brand personality fit between the brand extension and the parent brand is causally related to affect felt towards the brand extension, but that this relationship is fully mediated by image fit for the BMW brand and partially mediated for Volkswagen Beetle, Omega and Swatch. For BMW and Swatch, the relationship between the independent variable personality fit and the mediator variable image fit is positively moderated by the self-monitoring disposition of the consumer.

The implication is that, while marketers can communicate a wide range of attributes when advertising brand extensions, marketers of symbolic brands should clearly demonstrate brand personality fit as an important component of brand image fit. This is even more important for consumers with a high self-monitoring disposition.

The study conclusively tests the importance of personality fit for symbolic brands, the mediating role of brand image and the interaction effect of self-monitoring on personality fit. These findings contribute to the research literature and help marketers to manage the level of personality fit that should be emphasized in their marketing communications.