Brand‐Situation Congruity: The Roles of Self‐Construal and Brand Commitment

The present research examines the moderating roles of self‐construal and brand commitment in brand‐situation congruity effects in persuasion. Self‐construal refers to how individuals perceive themselves in the context of relationships with others (Singelis, 1994). Individuals with independent self‐construal, who emphasize autonomy and assertiveness, value consistency regardless of social contexts, whereas people with interdependent self‐construal value their relationships with others and adapt with flexibility to social situations. Commitment is a psychological state that globally represents the experience of dependence on a relationship and denotes a long‐term orientation, including a feeling of attachment to a relational partner and a desire to maintain a relationship (Rusbult, 1983). In the same vein, brand commitment refers to emotional or psychological attachment to and dependence on a brand (Beatty & Kahle, 1988x). Experiment 1 demonstrated that brand‐situation congruity, for which brand preference increases when the brand personality is congruent (vs. incongruent) with social situational cues, was stronger for interdependent (vs. independent) self‐construal individuals. Experiment 2 provided further support for the moderating role of self‐construal, when primed, in situation congruity effects as well as evidence for another moderator, brand commitment. That is, the moderating effect of self‐construal on brand‐situation congruity was stronger when consumers held weak (vs. strong) commitment to the target brand.     

What you touch,touches you: The influence of haptic attributes on consumer product impressions

The present research builds upon the touch literature to show that the salience of haptic product attributes related to product surface texture (smooth, rough) and weight (light weight, heavy weight) influence consumer product impressions. We propose that haptic cue congruity across texture and weight drive consumer product impressions depending on a consumer's need for touch (NFT). We show that high autotelic‐NFT consumers who touch for sensory pleasure enjoyed the incongruity between smooth texture and heavy weight haptic cues, and consequently showed favorable evaluations towards exciting brands. In contrast, low autotelic‐NFT consumers prefer the anticipated match between smooth texture and light weight haptic cues, which conformed to their expectation about the nature of a sophisticated brand personality. Further, we show how the interactive effect of haptic attributes and a consumer's autotelic‐NFT on willingness to purchase is mediated by product personality. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Brand alliance and customer‐based brand‐equity effects

This research examines brand alliances, a specific marketing strategy designed to transfer the positive brand equity of two or more partner brands to the newly created joint brand. The study explores how customer‐based brand equity (that is, brand equity as seen from the customer's perspective) of partner brands affects consumer evaluations of an alliance brand; how the brand equity of one partner brand affects the other; how customer‐based brand equity of the partner brands affects consumers' evaluations of the search, experience, and credence attribute performance of the alliance brand; and how product trial influences such evaluations. Results suggest that merely the act of pairing with another brand elevates consumers' evaluations of the partner brands' customer‐based brand equity, and high‐equity partners enhance pretrial evaluation of experience and credence attributes that are relevant to the high‐equity partner. As hypothesized, product trial moderates the equity value of the alliance partner for experience attributes, and brand equity of the partner brands influences consumer perceptions of the alliance brand's equity. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

From a commodity to an experience: The moderating role of thematic positioning on congruity‐based product judgment

Research in positioning strategy suggests that a product schema, when presented in a moderately incongruent fashion, can evoke a greater degree of positive evaluation than if presented congruently with consumer expectations. This phenomenon has been coined the schema congruity effect. To date, one of the limitations of the phenomenon is that it has been applied almost exclusively to taxonomic stimuli, with little reference to thematic, eventlike stimuli. Two experiments verified that taxonomic and thematic product categories differ with respect to their unique characteristics. Consequently, despite successful replication of the schema congruity effect during taxonomic interpretation, when pushed thematically, the schema congruity effect failed to manifest. Furthermore, both experiments confirmed that, unlike taxonomic product categories that benefit from abstract and moderately incongruent positioning, thematic product categories benefit from concrete and congruent positioning. Implications for understanding the moderating role of thematic positioning on congruity‐based product evaluation as well as the differences between taxonomic and thematic stimuli are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Consumers' response to other consumers' participation in new product development

In this paper, we investigate how consumers react to information that the brand has involved other consumers in the development of its new product. More specifically, we investigate how the participation of other consumers in either the ideation, where consumers come up with product ideas, or selection, where consumers select which out of many products the brand should produce and market, impacts on consumers' evaluations of the product and perceptions of the brand. Drawing from the literatures on brand schema and congruity, we hypothesize that by way of its effects on perceived brand uniqueness and brand attribution, consumer participation in new product ideation (selection) impacts more favorably on product and brand ratings when the product is incongruent (congruent) with the brand. An experimental study with 386 consumers supports the hypotheses.     

The interplay of culture and situational cues in consumers' brand evaluation

This research examines the effects of situational cues in consumers' brand evaluation; more importantly, this relationship is explored across the US and Korean cultures. The findings suggest that consumers prefer brands with personality traits that are congruent with the social situations. Furthermore, as predicted, this brand‐situation congruity, for which brand preference increases when the social situational cues are congruent vs. incongruent with the brand personality, is stronger among Korean vs. American subjects.     

What if something unexpected happens to my brand? Spillover effects from positive and negative events in a co‐branding partnership

Brands sometimes enter into co‐branding agreements and major events can occur to one of the brands which can have either negative or positive consequences for the brands involved in the partnership. The current study investigates as yet unanswered research questions regarding whether and how positive and negative events happening to one brand in a co‐branding partnership affect the brand equities of the other brands in the partnership. The authors provide and test a new integrated attribution‐diagnosticity framework to explain the process that underlies the magnitude of these spillover effects. Findings show that while positive and negative event‐related spillover effects occur between the co‐brand and both parent brands, they were surprisingly absent between the parent brands. Further, the (a)symmetry of parent brand equity before the event influences the magnitude of event‐related spillover the parent brands receive from the co‐brand. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

An Extended Search for Generic Consumer–Brand Relationships

Relatively few empirical studies address the question of generic relationships between consumers and brands. But a relationship‐oriented brand communication seems to have become increasingly important to companies. In this article, the authors present details of a study on generic consumer–brand relationships conducted in Germany. Based on the data of more than 900 consumers, four different types of consumer–brand relationships emerge, characterized as “best friendship,” “unemotional purpose‐based relationship,” “loose contact,” and “happy partnership.” An extended analysis of the data using advanced statistical methods supports these findings to a high degree. Furthermore, as the results of the extended analysis also suggest, numerous well‐known brands often appear within less favorable relationships like “unemotional purpose‐based relationship” and “loose contact.” These findings indicate important shortcomings of relationship‐oriented brand management in many companies and suggest the need for further work in this area.     

Condoms and bananas: Shock advertising explained through congruence theory

This research examines the impact of shock advertising on consumer brand evaluations, for both socially acceptable and controversial product categories. The intervening roles of brand familiarity, perceived incongruity and disgust are also investigated. Utilizing two experiments and drawing upon congruence theory, this research offers empirical evidence to demonstrate that: (1) when familiar brands are advertised using a shock advertisement, consumers will show less favorable evaluations towards brands in a socially acceptable product category as compared to controversial products, and (2) for familiar brands, the differences in consumer evaluations between a socially accepted versus controversial product categories is mediated by perceived incongruity and disgust (a serial mediation). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Consumer evaluations of brand extension: The roles of case‐based reminding on brand‐to‐brand similarity

Utilizing the case‐based reminding theory in analogical reasoning, this research proposes that the evaluation of a brand extension can be improved by reminding consumers of a similar brand in the extension category. This effect is derived from a brand‐to‐brand similarity, in addition to the product‐to‐product and brand‐to‐product similarity identified in prior literature. Experiment 1 explores the idea that the effect of similar case reminders is most pronounced in moderately similar extensions than in highly similar or highly dissimilar extensions due to schema congruity. Experiments 2 and 3 distinguish the levels of similarity (i.e., product‐to‐product, brand‐to‐product, and brand‐to‐brand similarity) as a source of consumers' evaluations on a brand extension and further eliminate an alternative explanation of instantaneous learning in the advertisement setup of Experiment 1. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Gay Consumers and Brand Usage: The Gender‐Flexing Role of Gay Identity

Prior research suggests that gender identity congruity between an individual and product brand will yield positive responses in terms of consumer behavior, However, gender atypicality has been observed among gay males and lesbians, which may confound previous research conducted under a heteronormative gaze. Drawing on research in psychology that considers gay identity as a cognitive construct and a component of self‐concept, the findings of this study indicate that an individual's strength of gay identity and involvement in the gay community appear to invert effects of “typical” gender schema congruity on brand usage for both gay males and lesbians.     

Effects of co‐creation claim on consumer brand perceptions and behavioural intentions

Increasingly often, companies ‘co‐create’ with consumers in open innovation practices to develop new products more effectively. Little is known about how co‐creation affects consumer brand perceptions in the mass market. We hypothesize that co‐creative brands – as opposed to non–co‐creative brands – are perceived as more authentic and sincere, and are associated with relatively positive behavioural intentions. A between‐subjects experiment was conducted to test these hypotheses in an online panel of consumers who did not take part in co‐creation. The experiment had a 3 (control vs. co‐creation vs. co‐creation supported with some visual proof) × 2 (well‐known existing brand vs. fictitious brand) design. Quantitative data analyses (n = 530) confirmed that for both brands, co‐creation affects brand personality perceptions directly and behavioural intentions indirectly. This study shows that co‐creating with consumers can be a strategic method to positively influence product perceptions and behavioural intentions.     

Product difficulty incongruity and consumer evaluations of brand extensions

Ever since the appearance of Aaker and Keller's (1990) seminal article, the brand extension research stream has intensively investigated factors that impact consumer evaluations of brand extensions. However, the main effect of product difficulty and the interactions between the parent brand quality and fit variables have not been consistent across studies. We conjecture that this inconclusiveness of findings is due to an equivocal conceptualization and operationalization of the key concepts – product difficulty and product difficulty incongruity. The existing studies mainly focus on product difficulty, i.e., the perceived difficulty level of designing and making the extension, whereas the latter refers to the difference between consumers’ perceptions of the difficulty of designing and making the parent product and the difficulty in designing and making the extension product. We specifically propose that product difficulty incongruity will negatively impact consumer evaluation of brand extensions, and this negative effect is stronger for high parent brand quality and consumers with high levels of need for cognition. The findings from two empirical studies well support our predictions.     

Picture–Text Incongruency in Print Advertisements among Low‐ and High‐Literacy Consumers

While low‐literacy consumers rely heavily on pictorial information when making market‐based decisions, they also do attempt to read relevant information. When the advertisement picture and text are aligned, so too should be the conclusions low‐literacy consumers draw. We ask what happens when the pictures and accompanying text are incongruent. Results of an experiment indicate that low‐literacy consumers misinterpreted an advertisement with text–picture incongruity more regularly than did high‐literacy consumers. Furthermore, low‐literacy consumers demonstrated errors in comprehension that reflect picture‐based processing. However, despite comprehension differences between low‐ and high‐literacy consumers, attitudes toward the advertisement did not differ.     

The role of product type and country‐of‐origin in decisions about choice of endorser ethnicity in advertising

Two experiments examine the effects of endorser ethnicity and product country of origin on consumer responses toward ad and brand, and investigate the moderating role of utilitarian versus hedonic product type. In Experiment 1, for utilitarian products, participants showed more favorable responses when the endorser's ethnicity was incongruent with the product's country of origin compared to when it was congruent, supporting an attribution‐theory explanation. For hedonic products, however, participants preferred ads that featured an endorser whose ethnicity matched their own, irrespective of the product's country of origin. In Experiment 2, building on the attribution explanation, two endorsers of different ethnicities generated more favorable responses than two of the same ethnicity. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Interactive Role of Consumer Discrimination and Branding against Counterfeiting: A Study of Multinational Managers’ Perception of Global Brands in China

Prior research has examined consumer intentions to purchase fakes, branding strategies and anti-counterfeiting actions, but little attention seems to have been paid to the role of consumers’ ability to discern fakes and branding strategies against counterfeiting. This article, thus, based on a study of 128 multinational managers’ experience in China, examines these inter-relationships. As a result, we address how knowledgeable and experienced managers in branding, consumer consumption and anti-counterfeiting effort perceive consumers’ ability to discriminate fakes from originals interacts with branding strategies, and how such relationship influences the effectiveness of anti-counterfeiting effort. Our findings suggest that consumer discrimination itself has no significant effect on anti-counterfeiting success. However, it significantly interacts with branding strategies to predict a means to mitigate brand damage. That is, consumers’ ability to discriminate fakes from originals appears to undermine efforts to mitigate brand damage from counterfeiting, at least in China when branding is based on improving product features or advertising and promotion. However, if branding emphasises after sales service, consumers’ ability to discriminate was found to enhance firms’ ability to limit counterfeiting damage to brands. Such interactions, however, did not help stop counterfeiting, except that branding based on reliability appears to have such a positive effect.     

Gender identity and brand incongruence: when in doubt,pursue masculinity

Gender identity is the extent to which an individual identifies with masculine or feminine personality traits. Sex roles in Western societies continue to evolve, so this research examines the developing relationship between gender identity and consumer responses to gendered branding. Grounded in self-congruency theory [Sirgy, M. J. (1982). Self-concept in consumer behavior: A critical review. Journal of Consumer Research, 9, 287–300], the present research reports an experiment that supports a congruence relationship between gender identity and brand response. Masculine consumers prefer masculine brands. The results also show incongruent brand rejection where masculine consumers react negatively to feminine brands although feminine consumers are more accepting of masculine brands. Further, the results suggest that gender identity is a more effective dimension for customer segmentation than biological sex. Overall, the results suggest that masculine brands are more effective than other gendered brand profiles for masculine, feminine, and androgynous consumers.     

Can a Celebrity Serve as an Issue‐Relevant Argument in the Elaboration Likelihood Model?

While celebrity endorsement has been traditionally perceived as a peripheral cue in the elaboration likelihood model, several conceptual studies suggest otherwise that it may play a significant role in delivering issue‐relevant information when celebrity–product congruence exists. The current study provides empirical evidence that a celebrity indeed serves as an issue‐relevant argument by investigating the interaction effects between endorser–product congruence and product involvement on consumer responses in two different match‐up conditions. Moderated regression analysis results indicated that product involvement strengthened the effect of expertise‐based endorser–product congruence on consumer responses. However, the relationship between attractiveness‐based endorser–product congruence and consumer responses generated insignificant results. Research findings entail that a celebrity persuades consumers through the central route when the expert image in particular fits well with the endorsed product. Further analyses indicated that attitude toward the brand mediated the relationship between attitude toward the advertisement and purchase intention in both match‐up environments.     

Trust,Commitment, and Older Women: Exploring Brand Attachment Differences in the Elderly Segment

Understanding older adults’ product consumption behavior is of high importance to consumer and marketing research. Prior studies have mainly focused on older adults’ cognitive decline and compared their behavior to that of younger consumers. A neglected area of research has been older consumers’ brand attachment that is associated with potential differences between consumers in their fifties and in their seventies. In this article, the authors provide insights into the under‐researched field of elderly women's brand attachment. Drawing on socioemotional selectivity theory, a shift toward emotional aspects in brand relationships is proposed. A model involving trust and commitment processes is developed and empirically tested in a survey among 341 older women. Moderator analyses reveal significant differences between the “younger elderly” and the “older elderly” in relationships among self‐concept connection, partner quality, trust, and commitment. For the younger elderly, how a brand is (based on trust judgments) seems to be more important. For the older elderly, what a brand does in its role as relationship partner becomes more relevant.     

Schema strength,processing opportunity,and the rewarding nature of incongruity resolution in advertising

Extant literature calls for more research to identify the boundary conditions as well as the process underlying the effects of ad messages that violate specific brand beliefs. This paper examines different levels of ad–brand incongruity, considering brand schema strength and processing opportunity as factors that influence the perception and the resolution of incongruity. Moreover, it provides empirical evidence for the process mediating attitudinal responses to ad–brand incongruity. Experiment 1 shows superiority for moderately incongruent ads over congruent and extremely incongruent ads which is eliminated when participants have a weak, as opposed to a strong, brand schema. Experiment 2 replicates the nonmonotonic pattern for strong, real brands but further shows that low processing opportunity favors congruent ads. Mediation analysis reveals that the psychological satisfaction experienced during the ad interpretation process has an asymmetric mediating effect, such that moderate levels of ad–brand incongruity generate highest levels of satisfaction which then leads to more positive responses.