Examining Biased Assimilation of Brand-related Online Reviews

This paper examines the impact of pre-existing brand attitudes on consumer processing of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). This topic is particularly important for brands that simultaneously possess strongly pronounced proponents as well as opponents. Two experimental studies using univalent (study 1, N = 538) and mixed (study 2, N = 262) sets of online reviews find indications for biased assimilation effects of eWOM processing. Consumers perceive positive (negative) arguments in online reviews as more (less) persuasive when having a positive (negative) attitude towards the brand. Perceived persuasiveness in turn influences behavioral intentions and acts as a mediator on the relationship between attitude and behavioral intentions. We examine two moderators of this effect. When priming individuals to focus on other consumers (vs. a self-focus prime), the biased assimilation effect is weaker (study 3a, N = 131). In contrast, we show that biased assimilation becomes stronger under conditions of high (vs. low) cognitive impairment (study 3b, N = 124). Our findings contribute to the literature on the relationship between eWOM and brands and advance our understanding of potential outcomes of brand polarization.     

Exploring the effectiveness of foreign brand communication: Consumer culture ad imagery and brand schema incongruity

Drawing from international branding literature and schema incongruity research, the present study (a) assesses foreign brand communication effectiveness by juxtaposing three alternative advertising approaches based on local, foreign and global consumer culture imagery, and (b) investigates the mechanism underlying consumers' responses to foreign brand communication. In a 2 (foreign brand schema vs. control) × 3 (local vs. foreign vs. global ad type) full-factorial, between-subjects experiment with a consumer sample, we find that ads portraying global consumer culture imagery only moderately violate consumer perceptions of brand foreignness and lead to more favorable ad attitudes. Furthermore, moderated-mediation analysis shows that when the global ad imagery is meaningfully linked to the foreign brand, perceptions of credibility increase and positively influence ad attitude. However, if consumers cannot make sense of the ad, this effect is reversed and negatively influences subsequent responses. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are discussed and future research directions identified.     

How to Measure Alignment in Perceptions of Brand Personality Within Online Communities: Interdisciplinary Insights

Considerable research has been done on brand personality as a key factor in brand management, focusing mainly on how it is perceived by consumers, but without much attention to the managerial perspective. However, the latter is crucially important to ensure that the brand personality that consumers perceive actually corresponds to what a company intends to communicate. This study offers an innovative methodology to achieve this dual-perspective objective, integrating notions of marketing and linguistics to investigate brand personality alignment as it emerges from authentic and spontaneous digital environments. Textual data were collected from both company and consumer web communications across a sample of 100 + fashion brands, and then processed with software to extract sets of adjectives as the expression of brand personality. The adjectives were interrelated to calculate ratios that measure (a) the degree of alignment between company-defined vs. consumer-perceived brand personality, (b) similarity in personality between brands and (c) consumer perception of similarity in personality between brands. Varying degrees of alignment were identified, suggesting differences in how effectively the companies communicate their brand personality. The combination of the ratios derived from this research process can be utilized to evaluate the strength of brand differentiation and to redefine brand communication strategies.     

The Case for Compatibility: Product Attitudes and Purchase Intentions for Upper versus Lowercase Brand Names

Although retailers know that brand names are important conveyors of product benefits, little is known about how subtle characteristics of brand names affect consumer attitudes and purchase intentions. This research proposes and shows that the letter case of brand names affects product attitudes and purchase intentions but that these effects depend on congruity between brand case and the gender of consumption benefits. Studies 1 and 2 show that lowercase brand names are associated with feminine characteristics while uppercase brand names are associated with masculine characteristics, as measured through judgments of name gender, gendered brand personality traits, and overall brand gender perceptions. Three additional studies demonstrate that greater congruity between brand case and the gender of consumption benefits increases product evaluations and purchase intentions. Study 3 demonstrates that greater congruity between brand case and the gender of a female consumer’s consumption goal leads her to have more favorable product attitudes. Study 4 replicates these effects by manipulating the gender of product benefits, shows that effects on purchase intentions are moderated by the consumer’s biological sex, and identifies processing fluency as the underlying mechanism. Study 5 demonstrates that brand case, rather than letter shape, drives these results. This work advances understanding of how seemingly subtle brand name characteristics affect gender perceptions and consumer behavior, with implications for brand design and positioning in the retailing industry.     

Values associated with luxury brand consumption and the role of gender

We investigate the role of gender in the perceptions of and motives for luxury brand consumption. Based on the social structural theory of gender, we propose that differences in men's and women's luxury values result from asymmetries in social status. We conduct three studies with samples of frequent luxury brand buyers. Study 1 (N = 512) generates main values associated with luxury brand consumption. Study 2 (N = 640) identifies a four-factor model of luxury brand values, including refinement, heritage, exclusivity, and elitism, and shows that women give more importance to refinement, while men give more importance to exclusivity and elitism. Study 3 (N = 1024) demonstrates that public self-consciousness has a stronger positive influence on refinement for women rather than men. In contrast, consumer need for uniqueness and status consumption exert respectively a stronger positive influence on exclusivity and elitism for men rather than women.     

Leveraging consumer personality and social media marketing to improve a brand's social media equity

Consumer personality traits impact consumer actions, preferences, online behaviour and shopping motives. This study examines personality traits as drivers of social media equity by addressing the mechanisms under which consumer personality traits influence social media equity. We aim to combine consumer-level information with brand-level metrics to advance our understanding of consumers' associations with brands on social media and how specific consumer personality traits can be leveraged to improve a brand's social media equity. Using a self-administered survey, a total of 418 respondents from an online consumer panel participated in this study. The results from structural equation modelling revealed that while extraversion, openness to experience and neuroticism personality traits are positively associated with brand engagement and brand advocacy, agreeableness and conscientiousness are significantly associated with brand advocacy and not with brand engagement. This study advances theory by examining how consumer personality traits influence social media equity via brand engagement and brand advocacy as mediators. The findings provide rich practical insights into underlying mechanisms through which marketers can increase social media equity using consumer personality traits.     

“I can't get no satisfaction:” The impact of personality and emotion on postpurchase processes

Emerging theory and empirics in personality psychology have related enduring traits with transient affective experiences or states. The research reported in this article integrates these findings with recent consumer research models linking consumption-based emotions with consumer satisfaction and postpurchase behaviors (including complaints, recommendations, and repeat purchase intentions). Our results support a model relating broad, fundamental personality traits to specific consumer behaviors via mediating affective experiences. These findings may help identify consumer segments inclined toward satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and consequently, toward loyalty, word of mouth, and complaining. Further, they suggest a general approach for relating broad traits to specific behaviors by incorporating mediating processes. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Determinants of Participation and Response Effort in Web Panel Surveys

Web panels are widely employed to conduct marketing research surveys, yet little is known regarding why consumers join web panels or participate in web surveys. The present research investigated the effects of individuals' motivational traits on whether they joined web panels, participated in surveys upon joining, and the effort they put into their responses. A longitudinal study employing population profiling gathered personality measures from the entire population of potential panelists (N = 751) and invited them to join a web panel. Those accepting (N = 503) were sent a series of six marketing research surveys. Results revealed that consumers' need for cognition, curiosity, agreeableness and extraversion were significant predictors of joining the web panel. The first three traits also predicted survey participation, as did openness to experience. Among participants, response effort was affected the greatest by curiosity, extraversion, and conscientiousness. An additional experiment, conducted with 327 participants, ruled out a selection bias explanation for some results. These findings provide useful insights to researchers using web panels, and point out limitations with using strictly demographics-based weighting schemes when selecting web panels.     

The Moderating Role of Country of Origin on Brand Equity,Repeat Purchase Intentions,and Word of Mouth in Trinidad and Tobago

Brand equity has emerged as a critical aspect of marketing, but its effect on consumer behavioral intentions from a developing country perspective has not been sufficiently examined. This study proposes that country of origin and product type will moderate the relationships between brand equity, consumer repeat purchase intentions, and word of mouth. Data were collected from 157 customers and analyzed with regression analysis. Our results confirm the moderating role of COO such that favorable COO weakens the impact of brand equity on consumers' behavioral intentions. Product type was not significant. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are presented as well as the limitations, and future research opportunities are discussed.     

Consumers' cognitive and affective responses to brand origin misclassifications: Does confidence in brand origin identification matter?

Although research on country-of-origin (COO) effects in general is abundant, findings regarding the phenomenon of brand origin misclassification (i.e., consumers' association of a brand with the wrong COO) remain limited and inconclusive. This study fills this research gap by investigating how consumers' cognitive and affective responses upon learning the true origin of a previously misclassified brand drive the extent to which they revise their brand evaluation. Specifically, the authors explore the role of consumers' confidence in brand origin identification in this context. The results from an empirical study in South Korea (N = 259) suggest that consumers tend to adjust their brand evaluations only if the true COO is perceived more favorably; they tend not to take a worse COO into consideration. Moreover, negative emotions lead to greater losses in brand evaluation than positive emotions lead to gains in that respect.     

Aggregate consumer ratings and booking intention: the role of brand image

The very nature of tourist services implies that consumers consider all available cues when making hotel bookings. Information obtained via the Internet is an especially important cue, and the findings of numerous studies highlight the importance of peer-generated information—electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM)—in consumers’ decision-making processes. Along with eWOM, however, traditional marketing signals such as brand image and price still affect consumer behaviour. Thus, this study analyses the effect of eWOM (i.e. global hotel ratings) on purchase intention, considering the role of brand image. Two online scenario-based experiments designed using real information from TripAdvisor were conducted. The final sample comprised 260 participants. Variation in hotel ratings modified consumers’ purchase intentions, with brand image playing a significant role in this relationship. The effect of eWOM on consumer purchase intentions was higher (lower) for hotels with a poorer (better) brand image. The results of the analysis imply that price can potentially help to prevent the negative effect of poor ratings.     

Contrasting user generated videos versus brand generated videos in ecommerce

This empirical research (n = 177) compared the impact of user generated videos and brand generated videos on online shopper perceptions, attitudes and purchase intentions. The study was guided by the technology acceptance model. Source of videos was a between-subjects factor. The findings indicated that online shoppers did not differentiate between the two video sources when evaluating the perceived usefulness of the videos. Conversely, user generated videos had a significantly greater impact on attitude toward the ad and attitude toward the brand than brand generated videos. Further, there was no significant main effect of video source on shopper purchase intentions. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Consumer Fear of Online Identity Theft: Scale Development and Validation

One unwelcome side effect accompanying the rise of e-commerce concerns the increase in cyber-crime, which in turn contributes to consumer fear of online identity theft (FOIT). This research details the development and validation of a FOIT scale that measures individual differences in consumers' proneness to feel negative emotions in relation to shopping online, specifically, the fear that others may illicitly use their identifying details. Based on literature insights, findings from qualitative interviews (n = 43), and three quantitative studies in Germany (n = 345, n = 539, n = 1,150) conducted in various online contexts, the authors propose a two-dimensional FOIT scale. Comprehensive validation procedures which involve relating FOIT to antecedents and consequences suggest the usefulness of the FOIT scale. Suggestions for future research and managerial implications are discussed.     

Measuring the impact of brand-celebrity personality congruence on purchase intention

The present study aims to understand the impact of congruence between brand and celebrity personality on consumers attitude and purchase intentions. The data were collected from 382 business school students in India. Drawing from the theoretical frameworks of Attribution theory, Attitude theory, User imagery, Elaboration Likelihood Model, and match-up hypothesis, results reveals that congruence between celebrity and brand personality positively impacts the brand recall, brand associations, and reinforces the brand personality. Which favorably and significantly impacted attitude toward the advertisement and brand. Attitude toward brand has positively impacted purchase intention. ‘Brand personality self-image congruence’ and ‘involvement level with the brand’ were found to moderate the impact of brand association and brand personality reinforcement on attitude toward advertisements and brand. The paper provides practical implications for the advertisement agencies and media managers.     

The Roles of Modality Richness and Involvement in Shopping Behavior in 3D Virtual Stores

The rapid growth of e-commerce and consumers' increasing use of 3D virtual worlds to make purchases have rendered it important to understand how consumers develop their buying intentions in this novel context. Drawing from literature on modality richness, this study examined the effects of pre-experimental product involvement and the modality of marketing information presentation on consumers' product evaluations, buying intentions, and enjoyment of online shopping. The results of a 2 × 2 between-subjects experiment indicate significant interaction effects between modality richness and prior involvement. Consumers with low involvement are influenced by modality richness, whereas those with high involvement are not, thus confirming the moderating role of prior involvement for shopping behaviors inside 3D virtual environments. Managerial implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Power of Promoting Healthy Brands: Familiarity in Healthy Product Decision Making

This research investigates consumer decision making and brand commitment for brands promoted as “healthy.” The authors examine the relationship of brand familiarity to brand credibility, brand quality, purchase intentions, and brand commitment. The findings indicate that familiarity can help increase purchase intentions and brand commitment for healthy brands with low credibility. However, to go beyond a transactional exchange to one that is relational in nature, familiarity, credibility, and quality are all crucial for fostering brand commitment.     

“Regretting your brand-self?” The moderating role of consumer-brand identification on consumer responses to purchase regret

Extending the study of consumer-brand relationships in the post-purchase stages of consumer decision making and in situations involving unfavorable comparisons with foregone brands, this research investigates the role of consumer-brand identification on consumer responses to purchase regret. Drawing on regret theory and consumer-brand relationship literature, the authors argue that consumer-brand identification immunizes the brand from the negative consequences of purchase regret through the amplification of consumers' cognitive regret regulation and the attenuation of consumers' behavioral regret coping. An empirical study using scenario manipulation of regret for participants' favorite brands provides support to the protective role of consumer-brand identification. The results indicate that consumer-brand identification attenuates the negative effects of regret on satisfaction and behavioral intentions and strengthens the positive impact of satisfaction on brand repurchase/recommendation intent. The findings enrich regret and consumer-brand relationship theories and provide managerial insights for effective branding strategy development under conditions of intense competitive pressure.     

Effects of Prominence,Involvement, and Persuasion Knowledge on Children's Cognitive and Affective Responses to Advergames

The integrated and highly involving nature of advergames has led to criticism and concern among academics and caretakers. It is assumed that children are highly susceptible to persuasion via advergames, but empirical evidence is scarce. Therefore, this study examined the effects of three factors typically associated with advergames: brand prominence, game involvement, and (limited) persuasion knowledge on cognitive and affective responses. An experiment among 7 to 12 year old children (N = 105) showed that brand prominence and game involvement influenced children's responses, while persuasion knowledge did not. Brand prominence led to increased brand recall and recognition, whereas game involvement led to more positive brand attitudes. The effect of game involvement was mediated by game attitude, indicating that children are susceptible to affective mechanisms induced by the game. Crucially, our results demonstrate that brand prominence evokes cognitive responses, while game involvement leads to affective responses. Finally, our study revealed that persuasion knowledge (i.e. knowledge of the commercial source of the game and its persuasive intent) did not influence cognitive or affective responses to the brand or game. This implies that even if children understand the game's commercial and persuasive nature, they do not use this knowledge as a defense against the advergame's effects. This study has important theoretical and practical implications regarding the influence of new marketing techniques on children.     

How Consumer Ethnocentrism (CET), Ethnocentric Marketing,and Consumer Individualism Affect Ethnocentric Behavior in China

This study investigates how the value of consumer ethnocentrism (CET) and ethnocentric marketing affect consumers' purchase intentions for domestic and foreign brands in China. In predicting ethnocentric consumer behavior, past research has tended to focus on consumers' ethnocentric values rather than ethnocentric marketing stimuli. In addition, this study examines how the consumer value of individualism and collectivism (IC) affects ethnocentric choice behavior. An experimental study was conducted on 220 Chinese millennials, using fictitious advertisements. The study found that the CET value has moderate effects on consumer purchase intentions for foreign brands, while it strongly influences consumer purchases of domestic brands. In addition, the findings suggest that ethnocentric advertising may not encourage purchases of domestic brands, but can discourage foreign brand purchases. More significantly, individualistic consumers were found to show a greater preference for foreign brands and also their brand choices were less affected by the CET value and ethnocentric advertising.