The differential impact of goal congruency on attitudes, intentions, and the transfer of brand equity

Various theories suggest that the perceived similarity of objects facilitat es the transfer of knowledge, affect, and intentions from one object to the other. However, there is disagreement as to the meaning of similarity and how it should be operationalized among these various theories, and no effor t to relate these various measures to one another exists in the literature. In an empirical study, the authors examine the relationships among measure s of product similarity in three different contexts: (1) goal-congruent pro ducts, (2) moderately goal-incongruent products, and (3) extremely goal-inc ongruent products. The results of exploratory factor analyses revealed that perceived similarity is a multidimensional construct and that the number a nd structure of these dimensions of similarity are different when products differ in their degrees of goal congruency. Structural equation analyses of the measures based on a second sample confirmed the structure obtained in the earlier exploratory analyses and demonstrated that brand attitudes and purchase intention exhibit different relationships to the underlying dimens ions of similarity in the goal-congruent and goal-incongruent conditions, c onsistent with expectations based on the theory of goal-derived categorizat ion. The authors discuss implications of these findings for theory and prac tice.