Involvement of bilateral insula in brand extension evaluation: an fMRI study

The present study aims to investigate functional involvement of brain areas in consumers’ evaluation of brand extension that refers to the use of well-established brand for launching new offerings. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning, participants viewed a beverage brand name followed by an extension goods name selected from the beverage or household appliance categories. They responded acceptability to given brand extension. Both acceptability responses and reaction time revealed a noticeable pattern that participants responded to acceptable stimuli more carefully. General linear model (GLM) analyses revealed the involvement of insular activity in brand extension evaluation. Especially, insular activity was lateralized according to valence. Furthermore, its activity could explain behavioral response in parametric modulation model. According to these results, we speculate that insula activity is relevant to emotional processing. Finally, we divided neural activities during brand extension into separated clusters using a hierarchical clustering-based connectivity analysis. Excluding two of them related to sensorimotor functions for behavioral responses, the remaining cluster, including bilateral insula, was likely to reflect brand extension assessment. Hence, we speculate that consumers’ brand extension evaluation may involve emotional processes, shown as insular activity.