| Brand extension is defined as applying existing brand to the product of different class or category. (such as Wahaha yogurt extended to purified water or mixed congee). Brand extension is a frequently adopted strategy when a company promotes new products in the market and it is an important approach to make use of brand equity as well. In 1990, Aaker and Keller initiated a systematic research on customer's evaluation toward brand extension and established a brand extension evaluation model. This model reveals the relationship between customer's evaluation on the extension product and three factors, namely, the overall quality of original brand, fix between original and extension products and difficulties in manufacturing extension products. Thereafter, many scholars in various countries replicated Aaker and Keller's research, but no unanimous result is reached. In order to test the model in China with practical market environment, we undertake the same research in China. In our research, we choose Chinese brand as stimuli and use Main Effects' regress ional model. The result is analyzed and compared with the similar researches. We probe the brand extension possibilities and directions in Chinese market. Our research provides a theoretical guidance for Chinese companies while stipulating their brand strategy..After the replication of Aaker and Keller's research, we come to the following conclusion:a. Except the Aaker and Keller's research for lack of sufficient data, our and others' researches reach an agreement that consumer's attitudes towards a brand extension mainly depend on both the quality of the parent brand and the degree of fit, measured in terms of transfer, complement and substitute.b. Regarding the third factor, manufacturing difficulties of extension product, none of the researches except Fu Guoqun's find the conspicuous connection between brand extension evaluation and this factor (the Beta coefficient is less than 0.1). In our opinion, although easily making product may not affect the customer's evaluation temporarily, the negative effect will appear in a long run. To a certain extent, it will possibly affect the brand reputation and value.c. As to which of the three main factors has a greater influence toward the evaluation, our and Sunde & Brodie's research show that the overall quality of the original product is the key factor with Beta Coefficient above 0.35. It seems to reveal a fact that when customers evaluate the brand extension, the first thing to consider is the quality of the parent product. Given a high quality brand, customers tend to favor its extension product as well, and vise versa. However, brand extension is not without boundary. It is also determined by the fit between two product categories.d. About the fit between the parent and extension product, all the researches acknowledge the importance of three factors of fit (i.e. transfer, complement and substitute) to the brand extension evaluation, but they are of different magnitude. Our research suggests that transfer and substitute are almost equally important (Beta coefficients are 0.28 both), and the complement takes the third place (Beta coefficient is 0.16). the others stress on transfer and complement with substitute in the last. Complement means two products satisfy customer's same demand simultaneously. In common sense, two complement products usually have different shape, quality of material, function and technique. They may trigger the association of each other only in the situation of usage. On the contrary, substitute means both of the two products satisfy the same demand. The association can be easily established because they sometimes share the same shape, quality, function or technique.Three suggestions on brand extension have been put forward for Chinese companies based on our research result and the practical situation in China.a. To maintain and develop current brand and to enhance the brand competitiveness.Our research indicates that Cognition to the original brand ex...
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