Journal Article Category-based Applications and Extensions in Advertising: Motivating More Extensive Ad Processing Get access Ronald C. Goodstein Ronald C. Goodstein Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of Consumer Research, Volume 20, Issue 1, June 1993, Pages 87–99, https://doi.org/10.1086/209335 Published: 01 June 1993 Article history Received: 01 April 1991 Revision received: 01 September 1992 Published: 01 June 1993

Research supports the existence of a "moderate incongruity effect" such that an option that is moderately inconsistent with an evoked product category schema is sometimes preferred to a congruent option. We propose that perceived risk is an important situational factor that moderates the impact of congruity on evaluations. Three studies show that the positive evaluation of moderately incongruent products, relative to congruent ones, does not appear when there is risk associated with product selection. When consumers perceive high risk associated with a purchase, the moderate incongruity effect is reversed such that the congruent is preferred to the moderately incongruent product. Only in conditions where subjects perceived no real risk did the positive effect of moderate incongruity appear. The limiting effect of perceived risk appears to be due to consumers' "preferences for the norm" under high-risk conditions. The set of findings are discussed as they relate to and extend current thinking about the effects of moderate incongruity on evaluations.

Research indicates that reactions to brand extensions are influenced by the fit between the parent brand and the extension product category. The normative nature of this effect is limited because assessments of brand extensions are typically obtained in the absence of competition. The boundaries of prior research are investigated by testing whether the fit-extension relationship generalizes to scenarios that include relatively more or less familiar competitor brands. Support is found for this relationship in noncompetitive scenarios but is diminished by competitors’ relative brand familiarity. Perceived risk mediates the effects of fit in noncompetitive settings and competitor brand familiarity in competitive settings.

Attitude persistence research in consumer behavior has been predominantly associated with high- rather than low-involvement processing. Advertising, however, is most often processed as a low-involvement communication. We predict that different low-involvement cues lead to different degrees of attitude persistence. Consistent with this prediction, we find that under low-involvement conditions, when both related and unrelated peripheral cues evoke similar initial attitudes, only when the cue is related to the product category do attitudes persist over time. The results of two studies attest to the robustness of the phenomenon and add to current models of attitude persistence by showing that peripherally processed advertising cues (e.g., brand names and celebrity endorsers) may lead to persistence if they are related to the product being endorsed.

Building on past research, this article illustrates when a price-quality relationship holds in the presence of multiple extrinsic cues. When intrinsic information is scarce, the relationship is more pronounced when a positive price cue is paired with a positive second cue (e.g., strong warranty, positive country of origin, or strong brand). When the two cues are inconsistent, consumers find the negative cue more salient and overweight it in their evaluations. This interaction is moderated by the presence of abundant levels of intrinsic attribute information. Our predictions are replicated across five studies, and the underlying process is supported.