Source Texts
Text
Sony's introduction of the PlayStation console in 1994 is an instance of brand extension- the company leveraged its brand recognition as a television and radio manufacturer to enter a product category where it had not previously competed. To determine if perceived category similarity predicts consumers' likelihood of purchasing brand extensions, Alicia Grasby et al. identified 30 extended-brand pairs (e.g., the same brand of hiking shoes and sleeping bag) in 52 weeks of purchases by approximately 60,000 households; for each pair, Grasby et al. had consumers rate the similarity of the product categories and calculated the change in probability of a brand in one category being purchased if the same brand was purchased in the other category.