Cause-related marketing influence on consumer responses: The moderating effect of cause–brand fit

The traditional focus on the study of cause–brand fit in cause-related marketing (CrM) is that it is a mediator variable between consumer perceptions and subsequent responses. However, the literature is not conclusive on this point. This study adopts a new perspective, considering cause–brand fit as a moderator variable rather than a direct antecedent to consumer evaluations of CrM. Thus, the main objective of this research is to examine the moderator role of cause–brand fit in the influence of two corporate associations elicited in CrM (corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate ability (CA) associations) on brand attitude and two behavioural consumer responses (purchase intent and support to non-profit organisation (NPO)). For this, a theoretical model is proposed, and it is estimated with a sample of 595 Spanish consumers of insurance and personal hygiene and toiletries products. Results show that when consumers perceive high social cause–brand fit, the positive influence of CSR associations on the formation of brand attitude is amplified. However, when cause–brand fit is low, brand attitude is formed via CA associations. Finally, consumer behavioural responses in favour of the brand (i.e. purchase intent) and social cause (i.e. support to NPO) are reinforced in a context of high cause–brand perceived fit.     

Modeling the Effects of Green Advertising on Brand Image: Investigating the Moderating Effects of Product Involvement Using Structural Equation

ABSTRACT

?This experimental study examined consumers’ response to green advertising for high- and low-involvement products by measuring its effect on consumers’ intention to purchase such brands. The present study enhances our understanding of the moderating role of product involvement and extends the structural equation tests of the four causal models. A dataset of 169 respondents is used to examine the role of brand image and brand attitude in the context of green advertisements. Consistent with earlier findings, the suggested model provides a good fit of the data and results indicate that positive attitude toward green advertisements, brand image, and attitude toward the brand enhances the chances of consumers’ purchase intention of such brands. The study also verifies that product involvement moderates the positive relationship between attitude toward green advertisements and brand image such that at higher levels of product involvement, attitude toward green advertisements has a stronger effect on brand image.     

Investigating the Advertising Antecedents to and Consequences of Brand Experience

Brand experience may contribute more to promotional efficacy than concepts such as brand personality/associations/equity/value/attitudes. Yet, little is known about whether managed advertising efforts might evoke more desirable brand experiences and promotional outcomes as a consequence of consumers’ brand experiences. This study examines antecedents and consequences that may be associated with brand experiences. Attitude toward brand name, connectedness to celebrity endorser, message fit, and visual imaging were investigated as antecedents. Brand attitude and brand distinctiveness were examined as consequences. The resulting insights add managerial rigor to advertising processes that currently are often managed more by gut than by reason.     

Does poor fit always lead to negative evaluations? Extension advertising and perceived brand quality

This article investigates the moderating roles of advertising strategy (relational vs. elaborational) and perceived parent brand quality on the influence that parent brand–extension fit exerts on consumer evaluations of both extensions and the parent brand. Two studies manipulate fit in terms of either brand concept consistency or product feature similarity. Lower fit results in negative consumer responses, yet an elaborational advertising strategy mitigates the negative effects of lower fit on extension evaluations. This mitigating effect is stronger for high quality than for average quality brands. The results also indicate extension feedback effects for the parent brand, suggesting that elaborational advertising strategies may reduce the impact of fit on parent brand feedback effects. This latter link is not moderated by parent brand quality.     

Celebrity endorsement: How celebrity–brand–user personality congruence affects brand attitude and purchase intention

The present study provides and tests a conceptual framework aimed at comparing the relative effectiveness of celebrity–user, brand–celebrity, and user–brand personality congruence on brand attitude and brand purchase intention (BPI) thereafter. The data collection was done via an online survey of a representative group of consumers (n = 431) located across India. Hypotheses were tested using regression analysis with mediation approach. The results indicate that while user–brand and brand–celebrity personality congruence have a significant impact on brand attitude and purchase intention, celebrity–user congruence does not. Further, brand attitude is found to be a partial mediator on the relationship between the pair-wise personality congruence on BPI. The findings have major implications for marketers in understanding the significance of personality congruence among celebrity–brand–user in the formation of brand attitude and purchase intention that can be used in positioning and in increasing the advertising effectiveness of brands using celebrity endorsement. The present study is a pioneer in contributing to the celebrity endorsement literature by investigating the relative impact of three pairs of personality congruence: celebrity–brand, brand–user, and celebrity–user, on brand attitude and BPI, thereby supporting the applicability of McCracken's Meaning Transfer Model [McCracken (1989), The Journal of Consumer Research, 16 (3) 310–321) and the Hierarchy-of-effects model (Lavidge and Steiner (1961), Journal of Marketing, 25 (6) 59–62].     

Building consumer–brand relationship: A cross‐cultural experiential view

This research aims to develop a framework of consumer–brand relationship by taking an experiential view. In this article, the authors report a cross‐cultural comparative study that was conducted on a sample of real consumers at coffee chain stores in Shanghai, China, and Taipei, Taiwan. The findings reveal that individual as well as shared experiences work through brand association, brand personality, brand attitude, and brand image to shape a consumer–brand relationship. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Impact of Food Brand Controversy on Consumers’ Attitude Toward Brand and Company

It is critical to understand the impact of controversy on the consumer. There is a scarcity of research measuring post-controversy consumer attitude on both product and corporate brand during a controversy. The study is based on a recent brand controversy linked with instant noodle brand “Maggi” in India. The study examines impact on brand perceived quality, credibility, trust and loyalty, and attitude about brand and company. Data have been collected during July–October 2015 when the brand Maggi was banned in India due to quality-related controversy. Results indicate that respondents, with higher post-controversy brand loyalty, hold positive attitudes about brand. The interaction effect reveals that the relationship is significant and positive. During controversy, consumers’ attitude about brand and company is not identical. For a strong brand, consumers may have positive attitude but they become quite negative about company.     

Advertising Ethics: The Use of Sexual Appeal in Chinese Advertising

With increasing social awareness of unethical advertisements in today's advertising, this study explores consumers' ethical judgements about the use of sexual appeals in advertising in a Chinese context by replicating LaTour and Henthorne's study. It specifically focuses upon responses on the Reidenbach-Robin multidimensional ethical scale, attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand and purchase intentions. The results show that sexual appeal was evaluated as the most frequent use in Hong Kong print advertising and they were also perceived as the most attractive instrument. Similar to LeTour and Henthorne's findings, regardless of respondent's gender, the use of a strong overt sexual appeal was not well received by Chinese consumers and resulted in less favorable attitude toward the ad itself and the purchase intention than using mild sexual themes. However, the degree of sexual content used in advertising has no direct influence on brand attitudes. Due to the conservative nature of Chinese culture, the advertisers should be careful in the use of sexual appeal for Chinese consumers.     

Exploring Brand Personality–Celebrity Endorser Personality Congruence in Celebrity Endorsements in the Indian Context

The objective of the research reported in this paper was to develop and test a model of brand personality–celebrity endorser personality congruence and its impact on consumers’ attitudes and intentions. In particular, the study drew on social adaptation and attribution theories to develop hypotheses related to the impact of this congruence on consumers’ perceptions of endorser credibility and suitability, and the subsequent impact of these perceptions on consumers’ attitudes and intentions. The study was motivated by recent attention being paid to the importance of personality in choosing celebrities for product endorsements and the fact that the brand personality–celebrity endorser personality congruence has not been explored before. The model was tested based on data obtained from a sample of participants in India. Results from path analyses indicated a positive and significant impact of personality‐based congruence on endorser credibility and suitability, which, in turn, positively and significantly impacted ad believability. Ad believability in turn significantly impacted attitude toward the ad, which had a significant impact on brand attitude and purchase intentions. Research and managerial implications are discussed, as are directions for future research.     

Brand personality appeal,brand relationship quality and WOM transmission: a study of consumer markets in Vietnam

This study investigates the impact of brand personality appeal on both brand relationship quality and word-of-mouth (WOM) transmission in Vietnam. It also examines the role of consumer attitudes towards advertising and public relations on brand personality appeal as well as brand relationship quality. An empirical test with a sample of 477 consumers by means of structural equation modelling reveals that brand personality appeal has a positive impact on both brand relationship quality and WOM transmission and that brand relationship quality has a positive effect on WOM transmission. Furthermore, attitudes towards public relations have positive impacts on both brand personality appeal and brand relationship quality. Finally, attitudes towards advertising have a positive impact on brand personality appeal but not on brand relationship quality.     

Modeling the brand extensions' influence on brand image

Brand-extension strategies enhance success chances of new products, even though they expose brand image to dilution risks. The present work analyzes how brand-extension evaluation can affect the current brand image and proposes a theoretical model formed by five main factors related to brand associations, extension congruency and extension attitude. The model estimation includes structural equation analysis using data from 699 surveys developed under market conditions. The results verify that extension attitude influences brand image, whereas initial brand associations and perceived fit between the new product and either the remaining products (category fit) or the brand image (image fit) are able to strengthen consumer attitude. The study also explains the role of consumer innovativeness as a moderating factor, suggesting that the characteristics of consumer personality could be more important than expected.     

Elements of destination brand equity and destination familiarity regarding travel intention

In a highly competitive market, marketing staff are always looking for solutions to strengthen what can be called their destination values (unique place, services, and human resources, etc.). They do this by concentrating on vital factors which can enhance their brand equity. Nevertheless, there is a shortage of studies about how destination brand evaluations are related to visitor appraisals. Using the opinions of 531 foreign tourists visiting a destination in Vietnam and a partial least squares (PLS) approach, this study examines four elements of destination brand equity (perceived quality, loyalty, awareness, image) regarding travel intentions and the moderating effect of destination familiarity. Results revealed that brand equity is positively related to travel intentions. Additionally, destination familiarity has positive moderating effects on destination awareness and perceived quality of travel intentions. This study offers some managerial insights into the effective building of destination brand equity.     

The trustworthy brand: effects of conclusion explicitness and persuasion awareness on consumer judgments

Two studies examine how a consumer’s awareness of marketing tactics influences the effectiveness of conclusion explicitness advertising (implicit, open-ended or explicit, closed-ended conclusions). Study 1 shows that persuasion awareness and conclusion explicitness influence brand evaluations. Persuasion aware consumers prefer implicit conclusions in comparative advertising that allow them to decide which brand is superior, rather than explicit conclusions which state the superior brand. Persuasion unaware consumers show no difference for conclusion explicitness. Brand trust mediates the results. Study 2 demonstrates the robustness of these effects. Research contributions include persuasion awareness as a moderator of conclusion explicitness effects and the role of trust as a mediator. For managers, results show how implicit conclusions can improve the brand evaluations of persuasion aware consumers.     

Brand followers

Both the advertising industry and academia have given increasing attention to the importance of consumer relationship building on social networking sites. By surveying 400 brand followers on Twitter, this study provides a baseline understanding of both motivations and relationships between identified motivations and key consumer–brand relationship variables (i.e. brand identification, brand community commitment, relationship continuance intention, and brand recommendation intention). In addition, we examined what factors affected attitudes towards brand communications on Twitter, based on the consumer socialisation framework. Our findings suggest consumers follow brands on Twitter because of four primary motivations: incentive seeking, social-interaction seeking, brand usage/likeability, and information seeking. The latter three were found to be significant predictors of the consumer–brand relationship variables. Also, individuals who communicate frequently with peers about brands and generally hold more favourable attitudes towards advertising are more likely to have positive attitudes towards brand communications via Twitter.     

Effects of underdog (vs. top dog) positioning advertising

The study investigates individual differences in attitudes towards brands being positioned as underdogs in advertising from an emotional perspective. We argue that the personality trait of empathic concern moderates the underdog effect on brand attitude and that the moderating effect is mediated by empathic response to the advertisement. We conducted three experiments with ads using top-dog and underdog appeals. Those who have stronger empathic concern showed more favourable attitudes towards the brand advertised through underdog positioning, and the effect of empathic concern was mediated by the empathic response to the underdog positioning advertisement. For managers, targeting consumers who have high levels of empathic concern could result in more favourable attitudes towards underdog businesses when using underdog appeals.     

The Effects of Humor on Ad Processing: Mediating Role of Brand Familiarity

The effect of humorous advertisement on memory and attitude has been an important topic among advertising scholars. However, scholars have used fake brands to test the effects of humor. Since the possibility for consumers to be exposed to the commercial for a completely new brand is very low, using a fake brand to test humor effects is not realistic. Hence, this study examined the role of brand familiarity on the effects of humor on memory and attitude by using existing brands in a laboratory experiment. This study suggests a different structural model for familiar and unfamiliar brands based on the previous studies in consumer behavior. Results revealed different effects of humorous advertisements for the familiar or unfamiliar brands. The structural model proposed for this study revealed a mediating role of brand familiarity on humor effects. Humorous ads worked better for the unfamiliar brands. For the familiar brands, the effects were mediated by the subjects’ brand familiarity and prior brand attitude.     

Creating Online Brand Personality: The Role of Personal Difference

This study explores the concept of online brand personality, creation of online brand personality, and the role of personal difference in terms of advertising effectiveness – memory and attitude. The primary research question is whether individual's matching personality to online brand creates different responses toward online brand in terms of advertising effectiveness, such as memory, attitude and behavior. The results found that: first, website structure is an important factor on subjects' attitude toward the website; second, individual's personality is an important moderator on the effects of website structure; and third, individual's personality and brand personality have a significant interaction effect on attitude and behavioral intention.     

Does Social Media Matter? Investigating the Effect of Social Media Features on Consumer Attitudes

The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of social media's features (i.e., entertainment, usefulness, informativeness and irritation) toward consumers’ attitude toward the brand. Subsequently, this study explores the impact of this attitude toward consumers’ brand loyalty, brand awareness and purchase intention. Data for this study was collected through a large public university in Australia. Paper surveys were distributed to students, their friends and members of their immediate families (N = 724). The findings show that entertainment feature has the strongest impact on consumers’ attitude toward the brand's social media use, followed by informativeness, usefulness and finally, irritation. Consumers’ attitude toward a brand's social media strongly influences consumer loyalty, awareness and purchase intention. The findings of this research provide some insights into the impact of different features of social media which will be useful for practitioners and academics interested in social media.     

The effects of ad heuristic and systematic cues on consumer brand awareness and purchase intention: Investigating the bias effect of heuristic information processing

With growing numbers of digital users, social media advertising becomes a vital marketing channel for attracting and sustaining consumers. Drawing on the heuristic-systematic model, this research investigates the effects of advertisement systematic cues including ad informativeness and ad persuasiveness, and ad heuristic cue which is ad poster category on the consumer brand awareness, and the sequential effect on consumer purchase intention. An experimental design featuring two categories of ad poster, namely, firm and influencer, is created for empirical evidence collection. Results show that ad informativeness and ad persuasiveness contribute to greater consumer brand awareness and purchase intention. The poster category can positively bias the influence of ad informativeness, and firm poster outperforms the influencer poster when controlling the advertisement content the same. The findings demonstrate the co-occurrence of heuristic and systematic information processing in the social media advertising context. This research deepens current understanding of social media advertising and provides practical implications for marketers to capitalize on different ad posters according to advertisement informativeness and persuasiveness feature.