The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of loyalty in consumers’ selection of brand extensions in the presence of familiar competitors. The findings show that fit may not have a linear relationship with the choice of an extension when loyalty and brand familiarity are considered. Loyal consumers’ likelihood to choose high-fit and moderate-fit extensions is not much lower than their likelihood to choose products from familiar competitors. We also find an inverted-U-shaped relationship between choice behavior and degree of perceived fit for loyal and moderately loyal consumers. Moreover, brand concepts can make a brand more elastic and extendable, increasing loyal and moderately loyal consumers’ likelihood to choose moderate- and even low-fit extensions. However, disloyal consumers are highly unlikely to choose extensions over products from familiar competitors regardless of fit and types of similarity. Finally, the effect of similarity on consumers’ choice of extensions is fully mediated by loyalty and perceived risks.

这项研究的目的是调查在存在熟悉竞争对手的情况下，忠诚度在消费者选择品牌延伸方面的作用。研究结果表明，在考虑忠诚度和品牌熟悉度时，契合度可能与扩展选项的选择没有线性关系。忠诚的消费者选择高适合度和中等适合度扩展的可能性并不比他们从熟悉的竞争对手那里选择产品的可能性低很多。我们还发现选择行为与忠诚和中度忠诚消费者的感知契合度之间呈倒U型关系。此外，品牌概念可以使品牌更具弹性和扩展性，从而增加忠实和中等忠诚度的消费者选择中度甚至低适应性扩展的可能性。然而，不忠实的消费者极不可能选择熟悉的竞争对手提供的产品扩展，无论其适合性和相似性类型如何。最后，相似性对消费者选择扩展名的影响完全由忠诚度和感知到的风险来介导。