In this paper, neural features influenced by brand familiarity and category were investigated in a brand extension experiment by using conventional event-related potentials (ERPs) and time-frequency analysis. Twenty-four participants were required to decide whether to accept the extension of one brand (stimulus 1) to a certain product category (stimulus 2) in a 2 familiarity x 2 category paradigm. Stimulus 1 consisted of household appliance brands that had different degrees of familiarity (high familiarity vs. low familiarity) to a certain participant, and stimulus 2 consisted of two categories of products (high conflict vs. low conflict). Twenty-two sets of valid data were used for data analysis. We found greater N270 amplitudes in the low-familiarity brand condition and in the high-conflict product category condition, which meant that the participants had to devote more cognitive resources when the brand was less familiar and felt more conflict when the brand was extended to the high-conflict product category. According to the time-frequency analysis results, brand familiarity and product category were found to have a significant effect on the amplitude of theta-band power (4–7.5 Hz) at frontal electrodes in the time period of 270−340 ms. This result indicated that the activity of individual nodes of the language processing networks increased when the extension product category was mismatched with respect to the brand name and that the related memory of the brand was activated and the long-term memory was extracted when the participants faced the high-familiarity brand extension. The study provides an insightful view of how brand familiarity and category influence consumers’ cognitive processes regarding brand extension.

在本文中，通过使用传统的事件相关电位（ERP）和时频分析，在品牌延伸实验中研究了受品牌熟悉度和类别影响的神经特征。24 名参与者被要求决定是否接受在 2 熟悉度 x 2 类别范式中将一个品牌（刺激 1）扩展到某个产品类别（刺激 2）。刺激1由对某个参与者具有不同熟悉程度（高熟悉vs.低熟悉）的家电品牌组成，刺激2由两类产品（高冲突vs低冲突）组成。22组有效数据用于数据分析。我们发现在低熟悉度品牌条件和高冲突产品类别条件下 N270 振幅更大，这意味着当品牌不太熟悉时，参与者必须投入更多的认知资源，而当品牌扩展到高冲突产品类别时，他们会感到更多的冲突。根据时频分析结果，发现品牌熟悉度和产品类别对 270-340 ms 时间段内额电极的 theta 波段功率（4-7.5 Hz）的幅度有显着影响。该结果表明，当扩展产品类别与品牌名称不匹配时，语言处理网络的各个节点的活动增加，并且当参与者面对时，品牌的相关记忆被激活并提取了长期记忆。高知名度的品牌延伸。