The current research investigates the differential effects of a brand counterextension between adults and children. Also we examine whether the timing of exposures to an explicit cue that can trigger similarity judgments between a parent and an extended brand influences children's evaluations of the brand counterextension. To test our predictions, we conducted a laboratory experiment by using eight different hypothetical scenarios related to brand (counter)extensions. The results demonstrates that adult participants are more favorable towards the brand conterextension when it follows a successful previous brand extension than when the previous brand extension is a failure. However, this difference disappears among children. As expected, the timing of exposures to an explicit cue influences children's brand counterextension evaluations. Specifically, when the explicit cue for similarity judgments between the parent and extended brands is exposed prior to the evaluation of the brand conterextension, child participants are more favorable towards the brand counterextension followed by a successful previous brand extension than the one by a brand extension failure. In contrast, when the cue is exposed after the evaluation of the brand counterextension, children's evaluations for the brand counterextension were not different depending on whether the previous extension was successful or not.