Loyalty to a Brand and its Extension in High Involvement Purchases

This study compares the attitude of consumer loyalty and its antecedents towards the mother brand and its extension, in high involvement purchase context. The significant contribution of this research is that it provides insights about attitudinal drivers of loyalty towards the brand extension and not just perceived loyalty. Data was collected from a total of 1038 respondents using a questionnaire and independent samples t-tests were conducted to compare the mean scores between the attitudinal antecedents for consumers of the mother brand customers and its extensions. Results indicated that loyalty for brand extension was significantly different for the construct of brand loyalty and dealer loyalty, while no such difference was observed for antecedents like trust, satisfaction, brand image and perceived service quality. In high involvement purchase situations, where the intermediary was the point of contact with the consumers, the loyalty behaviour is significantly related to the attitude towards the intermediary.