TY - JOUR
T1 - Online Information Product Design
T2 - The Influence of Product Integration on Brand Extension
AU - Song, Peijian
AU - Zhang, Cheng
AU - Zhang, Ping
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge useful and constructive comments by editor and three anonymous referees. This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (project # 71002029 , 70801017 and 70832001 ).
Copyright:
Copyright 2013 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2013/1
Y1 - 2013/1
N2 - With users placing an increasing demand on cross-product integration in electronic markets, the success of new information products becomes increasingly dependent on its integration design with existing products. Consequently, many online vendors have been incorporating branding into information product designs. This approach reflects a critical marketing strategy called "brand extension." In contrast to the popularity of this strategy by online vendors, however, there is little theoretical work or empirical evaluation in the information systems (IS) literature on the relationship between information product integration design under the same brand umbrella and consumers' usage of the newly introduced information products. Addressing this gap, this study investigates the antecedents of online brand extension evaluation with an emphasis on the influence of product integration. Based on the stimulus-organism-response paradigm and the categorization theory, this study proposes and validates a research model using a scenario-based experiment that involves a search engine and its extension to an e-commerce website and an online encyclopedia. The findings confirm that integration level influences perceived fit and perceived tie between focal and newly extended products. Perceived fit and perceived tie positively impact users' evaluations of online brand extension, and consequently influence users' intention to use the extended products. User expertise moderates the effect of product integration on perceived tie: the greater the users' expertise in focal product, the stronger perceived tie is affected by online product integration. This study contributes to both research and practice by advancing the overall understanding of exploiting online branding values and by providing insights into online information product design and promotion.
AB - With users placing an increasing demand on cross-product integration in electronic markets, the success of new information products becomes increasingly dependent on its integration design with existing products. Consequently, many online vendors have been incorporating branding into information product designs. This approach reflects a critical marketing strategy called "brand extension." In contrast to the popularity of this strategy by online vendors, however, there is little theoretical work or empirical evaluation in the information systems (IS) literature on the relationship between information product integration design under the same brand umbrella and consumers' usage of the newly introduced information products. Addressing this gap, this study investigates the antecedents of online brand extension evaluation with an emphasis on the influence of product integration. Based on the stimulus-organism-response paradigm and the categorization theory, this study proposes and validates a research model using a scenario-based experiment that involves a search engine and its extension to an e-commerce website and an online encyclopedia. The findings confirm that integration level influences perceived fit and perceived tie between focal and newly extended products. Perceived fit and perceived tie positively impact users' evaluations of online brand extension, and consequently influence users' intention to use the extended products. User expertise moderates the effect of product integration on perceived tie: the greater the users' expertise in focal product, the stronger perceived tie is affected by online product integration. This study contributes to both research and practice by advancing the overall understanding of exploiting online branding values and by providing insights into online information product design and promotion.
KW - Brand extension
KW - Information products
KW - Online promotion
KW - Perceived fit
KW - Perceived tie
KW - Product design
KW - Product integration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84871714345&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84871714345&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.dss.2012.09.008
DO - 10.1016/j.dss.2012.09.008
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84871714345
VL - 54
SP - 826
EP - 837
JO - Decision Support Systems
JF - Decision Support Systems
SN - 0167-9236
IS - 2
ER -