Brand Personality of Global Quick-Service Restaurants in Emerging and Developed Markets: A Comparative Study in Brazil and the U.S.

This study aimed to determine the dimensions of the personality of global quick-service restaurant brands perceived by young consumers in the U.S. and Brazil, and whether these dimensions showed similar configurations in both countries. A survey was carried out with two QSR brands (McDonald's and Subway). Data analysis utilized exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The study identified five personality dimensions for each of the brands studied in each country. Results support the proposition that global brands can carry a common meaning across nations, but also that certain local nuances of brand personalities can differ.     

本土认同如何驱动全球品牌全球本土化战略的有效性？——调节与中介效应机制研究

本土认同是理解全球品牌行为意向的关键构念,现有研究表明其负向影响消费者对全球品牌的评估。文章以融入中国元素的全球品牌为对象,从品牌本土象征价值的角度重新论证本土认同正向驱动全球品牌实现全球本土化战略成效的内在逻辑。研究表明,本土认同正向影响全球品牌行为意向,其中介机制为融入中国元素所带来的品牌本土象征价值。为验证中介机制的可靠性及其边界条件,文章分别从品牌层面和消费者层面引入尊重品牌遗产和全球认同两个调节变量。结果表明,品牌本土象征价值的中介效应主要体现在尊重品牌遗产低（有调节的中介）和全球认同低（有中介的调节）的情况下。文章的理论意义在于拓展了本土认同影响全球品牌行为意向的内在逻辑,并进一步深化了中国元素有效性的研究。     

老字号品牌广告采用流行文化对品牌真实性的影响——一个有中介的调节模型

真实性是中华老字号品牌特有的优势。在当前激烈的市场竞争环境下，老字号品牌更新变得尤为重要。在老字号品牌更新过程当中，更新策略是否会对老字号品牌固有的优势与属性造成负面影响？这一问题在理论与实际上均具有深入探讨的迫切性。本章依托组织合法性理论，探讨了老字号品牌采用流行文化的广告中，消费者感知文化差异对品牌真实性的影响机制。实证研究以三个老字号品牌广告为样本，共搜集到631份有效数据。数据分析结果显示，在老字号结合流行文化元素的品牌广告中，消费者感知传统文化与流行文化的差异性对广告合法性与品牌真实性均有显著负向影响；广告合法性在消费者感知广告中文化差异与品牌真实性之间发挥部分中介作用；而消费者流行文化卷入度显著降低了广告中感知文化差异对广告合法性的影响，以及流行文化卷入度在广告中感知文化差异与品牌真实性之间的调节效应完全通过广告合法性起作用。该研究结果丰富了品牌真实性与品牌合法性领域相关文献，具有一定的理论与实践意义。     

Factors influencing generation Y’s purchase intentions of prototypical versus me-too brands

The current study examines self-confidence, perceived quality, extrinsic attributes and perceived risk as drivers and inhibitors of Generation Y’s purchase intentions of prototypical and me-too brands. A survey of 348 respondents demonstrated that self-confidence and perceived quality produced significant positive effects on purchase intentions for the me-too brands. Extrinsic attributes produced a significant positive effect on purchase intentions for the prototypical brand. Perceived financial/performance risk produced a significant negative effect on purchase intentions for both the prototypical and me-too brands, while perceived psychological risk produced a significant negative effect on purchase intentions for the prototypical brand. Understanding the factors underlying Gen Y’s consumer behaviour is crucial, particularly due to their considerable consumption potential and the increasing sophistication of brand marketing in the marketplace.     

Examining Consumer Risk Perceptions of Prototypical Brands Versus Me-Too Brands

This study examines brand familiarity, extrinsic attributes, self-confidence, and perceived quality for their effects on perceived risk between prototypical and me-too brands. Factor analyses and path analysis were used in testing hypotheses. Brand familiarity produced a significant positive effect, while extrinsic attributes produced a significant negative effect on perceived equivalent quality for both the pioneer and me-too brands. Respectively, the perceived equivalent quality of the MP3 players produced significant positive and negative effects on perceived risks for pioneer and me-too brands. Managerial implications include strategic use of me-too brands and management of competitive advantages of pioneer brands with perceived prototypicality.     

Harsh voices,sound branding: How voiced consonants in a brand's name can alter its perceived attributes

This paper examines the sound-symbolic link between voiced obstruents (speech sounds created by obstructing the airflow) present in a brand name and the perceived product/brand attributes. In three studies (two using self-reported measures and one using an implicit reaction time paradigm), we tested the effect of voiced (b, d, g, z, v) versus voiceless obstruents (p, t, k, s, f) across 25 hypothetical brand names, on the perceived product attributes of harshness (vs. softness). Brand names with voiced (vs. voiceless) obstruents are perceived as harsh (vs. soft/mild). Results are described across two different product categories (e.g., toilet cleaner and skin conditioner), and also within the same product category (e.g., strong vs. light beer and strong vs. mild toilet cleaner). Since sound symbolism is culturally agnostic, brands expanding into international and linguistically different markets can use these insights to create brand names that will have international appeal, and can match the product and/or brand attributes that brands wish to convey to consumers.     

“Don't pretend to be my friend!” When an informal brand communication style backfires on social media

Social media are now essential platforms for marketing communications, and the volume of consumer-brand interactions on these platforms is exploding. Even so, it remains unclear how brands should communicate with consumers to foster relationships and, in particular, to gain their trust. A fundamental decision in this regard is the choice of a communication style, specifically, whether an informal or a formal style should be used in social media communications. In this paper, we investigate how adopting an informal (vs. formal) communication style affects brand trust and demonstrate that using an informal style can either have a positive or negative effect on brand trust, depending on whether consumers are familiar with the brand or not. We further show that these effects occur because consumers expect brands to behave according to social norms, such that the use of an informal style is perceived to be appropriate for familiar brands and inappropriate for unfamiliar ones.     

Looking more or less alike: Determinants of perceived visual similarity between copycat and leading brands

Copycat brands try to gain acceptance from consumers by imitating the trade dress of a leading, incumbent brand, and a crucial question thus is which conditions determine the perceived similarity between a copycat and a leading brand. Two experimental studies, across different product categories and countries, reveal that, as hypothesized, the copycat strategy (copying visual attributes versus themes) and the mindset of the consumer (featural versus relational focus) interact to determine perceived similarity. Consumers in a relational mindset perceive a theme-based copycat to be more similar to a leading brand than consumers in a featural mindset do. These findings have implications for similarity theory and branding practice.     

Brand addiction in the contexts of luxury and fast-fashion brands

Although research on consumer-brand relationship has gained increasing interest among scholars, little is known to date about its most intense form – brand addiction. This research explores the main motives and outcomes of this phenomenon in the two brand categories: luxury and fast-fashion brands. The authors conducted 21 in-depth interviews in the U.S. to tap into the respondents' addictive experiences with luxury and fast-fashion brands. Different themes emerged regarding the motivations for luxury and fast-fashion brand addiction. Self-expressiveness, status consumption and perceived quality are motivators for luxury fashion brand addiction while continuous update of fashion-led items, perceived value, and product assortments are motivators for fast-fashion brand addiction. As for the consequences, interpersonal relationships and financial issues emerged as common themes for addiction to certain luxury and fast-fashion brands while selectivity of style and motivation to work harder surfaced as themes for addiction to particular luxury brands. The results also show that brand addiction may cause both positive and negative effects on consumers’ well-being. This research provides important implications for consumer-brand relationships and ethical considerations for brand managers.     

When goliaths win and davids lose: The moderating role of perceived risk in brand biography effects

Brand biographies trace a brand's evolution to position it as an underdog (i.e., passion and determination that lead to success despite limited resources) or a topdog (i.e., success based on abundance of resources) brand. This study examines how consumers’ risk perceptions associated with brand choice influence brand biography effects. It demonstrates that when perceived risk associated with brand choice is low, consumers process brand biographies narratively, experience greater narrative transportation into underdog (vs. topdog) brand biographies, and evaluate the underdog brand more favorably. When perceived risk associated with brand choice is high, consumers respond more positively to topdog (vs. underdog) brand biographies, due to topdog brands’ greater perceived ability to reduce risk. The topdog effect observed at higher levels of perceived risk reverses, however, when consumers have the opportunity to process the brand biography before receiving high risk information, as this allows for narrative transportation into the brand biography. This study contributes to research on moderators of brand biography effects and suggests that perceived risk should play a role in marketers’ decision to emphasize underdog or topdog characteristics in brand biographies.     

How competitor brand names affect within-brand choices

This research shows that consumers’ intra-brand choices (e.g., Mercedes C330 vs. C340) can be affected by exposure to a competitor alphanumeric brand name that forms an incidental trend with the numbers in the focal brand names (e.g., BMW320i or BMW350i). We propose and test two mechanisms. First, when no attribute information is available, the competitor brand can make the numerical trends formed by brand names salient and meaningful, and increase the preference for higher brands (e.g., Mercedes C340). Second, when attribute values are negatively correlated with brands, exposure to the competitor brand name can trigger brand-attribute magnitude tradeoffs. In five experiments, we demonstrate that our predictions hold when there are no intrinsic brand-attribute associations, and even when the competitor brand is not available for choice. We identify competitive categorization as a boundary condition and demonstrate that the effect diminishes when consumers do not categorize the nonfocal option as a competitor.     

Are Consumer and Brand Personalities the Same?

Current discussions of brand personality refer to a personified brand image, that is, a brand image that can possess any attributes of consumers, rather than brand personality. From a conceptual and methodological critique of the literature, this paper applies the definition of personality to brand personality, and tests the idea using a peer‐rating methodology that focuses on each individual's perception of a brand (the brand × subject structure). The results reveal that consumers reflect their personalities by the brands they use, but the relationship between brand choice and symbolic dimensions (i.e., extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to experience) is much stronger than the relationship with functional dimensions (i.e., conscientiousness). Moreover, the pattern of this relationship remains consistent across symbolic and utilitarian products, which implies that consumers choose brands with similar personalities to theirs across various products. The study concludes that an abridged personality scale, based on the Big Five, can be applied to both brands and consumers. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Factors Influencing Successful Brand Extensions

Organisations frequently follow brand extension strategies. This paper investigates the impact of category similarity, brand reputation, perceived risk and consumer innovativeness on the success of brand extensions in FMCG, durable goods and services sectors. A set of hypotheses were developed and tested in a study amongst 701 consumers. The findings show that extensions into categories more similar to the original brand tend to be more readily accepted. Likewise, the reputation of the original brand is an important factor influencing the success of the extension. These findings are consistent across FMCG, durable goods and services brands. However, perceived risk about the extension category was only found to enhance acceptability of extensions for durable goods and services brands. Innovative consumers are more positively disposed towards service brand extensions than FMCG and durable goods brand extensions.     

A brand preference and repurchase intention model: the role of consumer experience

Consumer brand preference is an essential step towards understanding consumer choice behaviour, and has therefore always received great attention from marketers. However, the study of brand preference has been limited to traditional marketing focusing on functional attributes to maximise utility. But now the shift to experiential marketing broadens the role of the brand from a bundle of attributes to experiences. Technological advancements have helped to increase the similarities between brand attributes and product commoditisation. Consequently, consumers cannot shape their preferences among brands using rational attributes only. They seek out brands that create experiences; that intrigue them in a sensorial, emotional and creative way. This study seeks to develop a model that provides an understanding of how brand knowledge and brand experience determine brand preference and to investigate its impact on brand repurchase intention. Accordingly, exploratory focus group discussions are employed followed by a survey of mobile phone users in Egypt. The findings provide insights into the relative importance of consumer perceptions on different brand knowledge factors in shaping brand preferences. It also demonstrates the significance of consumers’ experiential responses towards brands in developing their brand preferences that in turn influence brand repurchase intention. The model therefore offers managers a new perspective for building strong brands able to gain consumer preferences.     

Brand and consumer engagement behaviors on Facebook brand pages: Let's have a (positive) conversation

This paper examines consumer-brand engagement on social media, focusing on the dynamic interplay between brands and consumers as well as among consumers themselves. In addition to liking and sharing behaviors, we look at what influences consumers to provide feedback to brands by commenting on brand posts, connect with other consumers by replying to their comments and agree with other consumers by liking their comments and replies. Drawing on a large longitudinal dataset from 2740 Facebook brand pages across 25 industries, a multilevel multivariate autoregressive zero-inflated negative binomial model is used to examine how brand post and response behaviors are related to specific consumer engagement behaviors. Results show that the amount of brand posts indirectly affects consumer comments through increased liking and sharing, but with diminishing returns. Liking is key as it increases positive and attenuates negative feedback, whereas sharing is associated with both positive and negative consumer-brand comments. Posting photos and videos encourages liking, with photos having increasing returns. Videos are the only format with a direct positive influence on consumer-brand comments, though with decreasing effect. Brand replies to consumer comments, even delayed ones, have little effect on negative conversations but prompt replies would be more beneficial as they bolster positive consumer comments. Moreover, our findings provide evidence for both a “positivity spiral” and “negativity spiral”, with the negativity spiral stronger than the positivity one. Taken together, these findings shed light on how marketers can stimulate positive conversations between brands and consumers on social media.     

Assessing Brand Origin Recognition Accuracy and its Antecedents in a Developing Country

The aim of the present study was to examine two main questions regarding Indonesian consumers. First, what are the brand origin recognition accuracy (BORA) scores for both foreign brands and local brands among Indonesian consumers? Second, are socio-economic characteristics (education and income/spending), international experience (international travel and foreign language expertise), and demographic factors (age and gender) related to consumers’ brand origin recognition accuracy? The present research follows BORA procedures in the selection of 88 brands (44 foreign and 44 local brands). Questionnaires were distributed both offline and online, with 138 respondents participating offline and 163 people responding online. The BORA scores for both foreign and local brands among Indonesian consumers were relatively low (28.79% and 53.85%, respectively). BORA was also related to socio-economic characteristics, international experience, and age. In addition, men demonstrated higher BORA levels for foreign brands than women did. Most consumers were unable to differentiate brand origins because of the use of foreign languages for the brand names. Therefore, the foreign branding strategy of using languages of other countries (e.g., English, Chinese, Japanese, and so forth) that have positive images for particular product categories could be effectively employed in Indonesia.     

Will they pitch or will they switch? Comparing Chinese and American consumers

This study compares the conditions for consumer satisfaction and word of mouth (WOM) between Chinese and American consumers. The authors utilize a between‐subjects factorial design experiment to investigate the effect of service experience (positive or negative) and consumption context (hedonic vs. utilitarian) across these two cultures. Results indicate that consumers perceive higher levels of satisfaction and switching costs, and provide higher WOM intention for positive than for negative service experiences. The relationship between service experience and perceived switching costs is further moderated by consumption context and culture. Of importance is the critical mediating role of consumer satisfaction in driving perceived switching costs and WOM intention. The comparison of Chinese and American consumers also reveals the distinct switching behaviors between the two groups of consumers, which can be explained from a cultural perspective. The study findings provide insights into provider‐switching and WOM‐spreading behaviors by Chinese and American consumers, under hedonic versus utilitarian consumption contexts.     

If all their products seem the same,all the parts within a product seem the same too: How brand homogeneity polarizes product experiences

Many different factors affect brand homogeneity, including the different products associated with a brand, how they are made, and how they are branded. How does the perceived homogeneity of a brand’s offered products, in turn, affect consumers’ experiences with those products? Nine experiments reveal that consumers have more polarized judgments of product experiences when the sampled products are perceived to belong to more homogeneous brands. When a consumption experience is positive, the consumer has an even more positive experience when they think the sampled product came from a homogeneous brand; however, when a consumption experience is negative, the consumer has an even more negative experience when they think the sampled product came from a homogeneous brand. This polarization occurs because the individual product inherits the brand-level quality of perceived internal consistency—when a brand seems homogeneous (i.e., consisting of homogeneous products), consumers also perceive any individual product from the brand as similarly consisting of homogeneous ingredients or parts. We suggest that brand homogeneity leads to selective processing of individual product experiences, which makes products seem more coherent, products rated faster, and ratings of different product ingredients or features more highly correlated. The perception that all of the parts within the individual sampled product are homogeneous in quality polarizes judgments of the product experience.     

Evaluating brand extensions,fit perceptions and post-extension brand image: does size matter?

Abstract

This study contributes to the scant literature considering brand extensions in a competitive context and investigates whether the correlation between consumers’ beliefs about a brand’s attributes and the number of its buyers described in previous research occurs with regard to fit perceptions of brand extensions, extension evaluation and post-extension brand image. In a scenario experiment with real brands and fictitious extensions, members of a commercial UK panel evaluated high and low-fit extensions and post-extension brand images of competing brands of pet food. The relative size of each brand in terms of the number of its buyers was used as a benchmark in the analysis. For all extensions, results reveal a positive correlation between post-extension brand images, extension evaluations, fit perceptions and the number of brand buyers. Results have implications for interpreting consumers’ perceptions of fit, evaluation of extensions and post-extension brand images of competing brands.     

The effects of product knowledge on the evaluation of warranteed brands

This study explores the effects of consumer knowledge on respondents' evaluations of both known and unknown brands that include either a 2-year or a 20-year warranty. Both experts and nonexperts evaluated warranty as more important than brand name in their product quality decision. Warranty length was positively correlated with product quality perceptions for both known and unknown brands. With the unknown brand, nonexperts perceived significant improvement in product quality when the warranty length was increased from 2 to 20 years. For the known brand, nonexperts perceived little difference in quality for the two warranty lengths. Experts indicated no significant differences in perceived quality, given the four brand/warranty-length conditions. The results indicate that warranty length is most heavily weighted as a cue to product quality when consumers are not highly knowledgeable, and the brand name is not well known. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.