Strategie di Brand Extension nelle Commodities a Confronto: il ruolo della categoria di origine del Parent Brand

This article aims at exploring whether and how brand extensions are a suitable strategy for branding commodities. The extant literature has almost exclusively focused on line and brand extensions for differenti- ated products, without providing rewarding results on the use of brand extensions for commodities. The results of two empirical studies, both carried out in the context of agricultural products, are presented and overall support the notion that brand extensions influence consumers’ perceptions and willingness to pay also for commodities, which would be otherwise commercialized in an undifferentiated way. Findings show that the creation of a new brand is preferable in case of scarce category fit between the parent brand image and the commodity product (Study 1), and that brand extension is a viable strategy for commodity product differentiation only if the parent brand is originally from a commodity, distant product category (Study 2). Thus, the results highlight the po- tential of brand extensions for creating value for commodities and ad- dress a few managerial implications.