Investigation of the Relationship between the Consumer's Innovativeness, Brand Knowledge, Brand Trust and Acceptance of Core Brand Extension

Today, the creation, preservation and extension of brand is one of the most important issues of consideration in any business. The present study investigates the relationship between the consumer’s innovativeness and the acceptance of brand extension (horizontal and vertical) and also the moderating effect of two variables (product knowledge and parent brand trust) on this relationship. The statistical population of this research includes the consumers of Ramak Dairy Co. products in Shiraz. Using appropriate statistical methods, 385 individuals were chosen as the sample. The presented model and the related hypotheses were tested by subgroup method. The results demonstrate that the innovativeness of consumers has a positive effect on the acceptance of horizontal and vertical brand extension. From the two investigated moderator variables, the moderating effect of product knowledge was not supported and based on the findings it became manifest that parent brand trust has a moderating effect on the relationship between the consumer’s innovativeness and the acceptance of brand extension.