From Streaming to Evoking That Extra Feeling

Abstract: This study aims to investigate how brand extensions within streaming services affect consumers’ attitudes and emotional attachment to the parent brand. Beyond fit and quality, we provide an explanation of the connection between brand extensions, emotional attachment, and consumer attitude. This research adopts a critical realist ontology, interpretivism epistemology, and abductive approach through a qualitative research design by collecting data from semi-structured interviews where participants shared their perceptions and opinions of the brand extensions of Netflix and HBO Max towards mobile games and podcasts respectively, which were chosen as the empirical context. This study contributes to the identified research gap regarding the effect that brand extensions have towards the parent brand, as past studies have concentrated on the reverse effect through fit and quality, as well as contributing to research regarding streaming services that pushes for more studies on marketing and consumer behaviour rather than the technical aspects of the industry. We discovered through empirical and theoretical analysis that brand extensions have a positive impact on the parent brand by acting as experience enhancers; they foster a connection between content and the self, which in turn fosters an attachment to the parent brand; and they have a positive impact on consumers’ attitudes toward the parent brand, providing more opportunities than risks for the latter. As a result, the study adds to the body of knowledge regarding how brand extensions have an effect on their parent brands in industries with high levels of emotional involvement, as well as to that of brand extensions and emotional attachment (not just to the parent brand but also to the product), and to the empirical research field of streaming services. By staying true to the brand’s core, the practical implications offer marketers and brand managers insightful information on how to employ brand extensions as a strategy to harness emotional connections with consumers and gain a competitive advantage.