A comparative study of creation of self-brand connection amongst well-liked, new, and unfavorable brands
Introduction
A self-brand connection serves as an important element of the brand relationship as it refers to the way consumers establish a sense of oneness with a brand (Park, MacInnis, Priester, Eisingerich, & Iacobucci, 2010). Until recently, research on the self-brand connection has centered on well-liked brands (Dennis, Papagiannidis, Alamanos, & Bourlakis, 2016; Merchant & Rose, 2013) and unfavorable brands (Ferraro, Kirmani, & Matherly, 2013). There is limited research on the linkage between the creation of self-brand connection and consumers' favorability toward the brand. To this end, Chatzipanagiotou, Veloutsou, and Christodoulides (2016) called for research focusing on a comparison between the well-liked and unfavorable brands to extend an understanding of a holistic brand relationship. In this study, we explore such a brand relationship in the context of the self-brand connection amongst well-liked, new, and unfavorable brands using theories from customer-based brand equity and self-presentation by brand (SPB).
Customer-based brand equity (CBBE) is defined as “the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand” (Keller, 1993, p. 8). Research on CBBE is essential in order to capture the self-brand connection, as consumer attitude toward the favorability, strength, and uniqueness of the brand moderates the creation of self-brand connection. Such favorable (unfavorable) consumer attitudes, in turn, establish a sense of oneness (discord) with a brand that is positively (negatively) linked to building the brand relationship (Escalas, 2004; Park et al., 2010). Given the importance of CBBE in understanding the brand relationship with the consumer, Keller (2016) called for an investigation of consumers' brand association with newly introduced brands with which consumers have little or no interest. Such an investigation will provide a comparative understanding of the brand relationship amongst a well-liked brand, an unfavorable brand, and a new brand.
A well-liked brand is defined as a brand that consumers have a positive feeling about or that they have had a positive experience with (Keller, 1993). An unfavorable brand1 is viewed as a brand that consumers have a negative attitude toward, which results from dissatisfaction or fairness violations (Grégoire & Fisher, 2008). A new brand2 relates to a brand that consumers are not familiar with and thus have little knowledge with which to form either a favorable or an unfavorable association (Keller, 1993). As consumers have a certain level of familiarity and a favorable attitude toward a well-liked brand, then they become the drivers of the self-brand connection (Schmitt, 2012). However, the development of self-brand connection might be nonexistent in the case of a new brand to which consumers have limited exposure (Park et al., 2010). If a brand is viewed unfavorably, consumers associate the brand with their negative attitude, making it irrelevant to try to develop a self-brand connection. In addition, a love-becomes-hate effect may exist when consumers start forming a negative attitude toward a familiar brand (Grégoire, Tripp, & Legoux, 2009), and this effect may dilute the self-brand connection. For these reasons, it is essential to investigate the predictive value of brand attitude and brand familiarity regarding the self-brand connection with well-liked, new, and unfavorable brands.
SPB has been an important driver of self-brand connection, in addition to brand attitude and brand familiarity (Tan, Salo, Juntunen, & Kumar, 2017). The critical role of SPB is due to the fact that when consumers perceive a brand as an identity signal, the brand functions as a means of maintaining a positive impression in front of others and such symbolic benefits allow consumers to connect themselves with the brand. The literature on the relationship between SPB and self-brand connection is very scant. Therefore, in this study, we address the following research questions: How do well-liked, new, and unfavorable brands moderate the relationships of brand attitude, brand familiarity, SPB, and self-brand connection?
To address our research questions, we develop a conceptual framework for moderating the effects of well-liked, new, and unfavorable brands on brand attitude, brand familiarity, SPB, and self-brand connection. We empirically test our framework using clothing and consumer electronics product brands. Our findings reveal that brand attitude, brand familiarity, and SPB are relatively vital to the creation of self-brand connection for well-liked brands. However, if the brand is viewed unfavorably or if it is new, only SPB is found to have a positive effect on the self-brand connection. The current study contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, we address the calls of Chatzipanagiotou et al. (2016) and Keller (2016) to extend research on the creation of self-brand connection by comparing new, unfavorable, and well-liked brands. Second, we integrated the consumer psychology model of brands (Schmitt, 2012) with SPB by testing its predictive ability for the self-brand connection. In the next section, we review the relevant literature used in developing our conceptual framework, followed by presenting two studies that test the hypotheses, and finally conclude with the current research's contributions, managerial implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research.
Section snippets
The consumer psychology model of brands
We draw from the literature on the consumer psychology model of brands (CPMB; Schmitt, 2012) to build our framework. The CPMB provides a theoretical underpinning for explaining a comprehensive framework for the psychology of brands. This framework focuses on the different levels of consumers' psychological engagement with brands and the underlying processes that drive consumers to relate themselves to the brand. We adopted the CPMB as it discusses the constructs of our framework within the
Methodology
We used Qualtrics to design a self-administrated online questionnaire as it randomly assigns respondents to a different condition and allows them to insert a brand name input, which appears throughout the questionnaire. Clothing and consumer electronics products were selected because of their relation to self-presentation (Eastman, Goldsmith, & Flynn, 1999). We used a non-probability convenience sampling method as the conceptual framework is derived from theoretical background (Calder, Philips,
Study 1
Two hundred seventy-nine respondents were recruited from a large public university. They were asked to respond about either their well-liked brands or a new brand. In the well-liked brand condition, respondents were asked to list a fashion brand with which they have had a positive feeling and a positive experience. In the new brand condition, respondents were given a fictitious Zeemiata clothing brand. We included a Zeemiata logo and a brief description to present the basic concepts of the
Study 2
Four hundred respondents were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk to respond about either well-liked or unfavorable brands of consumer electronics products. In the well-liked brand condition, respondents were asked to list an electronics brand with which they have had a positive feeling and they were satisfied with it. In the unfavorable brand condition, respondents were asked to list an electronics brand that they used before but had stopped using due to dissatisfaction with the brand.
Theoretical implications
This research provides a two-fold contribution. First, our study addresses the importance of examining moderating effects by comparing structural models with different groups as the consumers' perceptions and preferences can be varied, depending upon their favorability toward a brand (Chatzipanagiotou et al., 2016; Keller, 2016). In the current study, consumers are considered to have a favorable association with the well-liked brand, a negative relationship with the unfavorable brand, and
Acknowledgment
This paper is based on a part of the first author's dissertation, under the guidance of the second and third authors. The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from a four-year funded position as part of the University of Oulu Graduate School doctoral programme awarded to Teck Ming. The authors would like to thank Jari Juga, Mari Juntunen, Waqar Nadeem, Timo Pohjosenperä, and Robert Wilken for their invaluable comments and feedback on this article. Finally, the authors are
Teck Ming Tan, ([email protected]) holds D.Sc. (Marketing) from the University of Oulu, Finland. He is an assistant professor at the Oulu Business School. His research interests include brand equity, self-presentation, self-congruence, construal-level theory, and brand betrayal. His paper has been published in the European Journal of Marketing, Electronic Commerce Research, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, and NA–Advances in Consumer Research.
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Teck Ming Tan, ([email protected]) holds D.Sc. (Marketing) from the University of Oulu, Finland. He is an assistant professor at the Oulu Business School. His research interests include brand equity, self-presentation, self-congruence, construal-level theory, and brand betrayal. His paper has been published in the European Journal of Marketing, Electronic Commerce Research, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, and NA–Advances in Consumer Research.
Jari Salo, ([email protected]) holds D.Sc. (Econ. & Bus.Adm.) from the University of Oulu, Oulu Business School (AACSB), Finland. He is Professor of Marketing at the University of Helsinki. He has over 160 scientific publications including books. Research topics include amongst others digital marketing (including social media and mobile marketing) industrial marketing, branding, consumer behavior, innovation, commercialization of innovation, sports marketing and project marketing.
Jouni Juntunen, ([email protected]) is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Oulu, Faculty of Technology, Finland. He works as an Associate Professor (senior research fellow) in the Department of Marketing, University of Oulu/Oulu Business School, Finland. His research interests include for example machine learning, supply chain management, strategic management, efficient industry structures in logistics service markets, and outsourcing. He also studies logistics issues in cooperating with the Finnish Transport and Logistics Association (SKAL) and The Finnish Defence Forces. His papers have been published for example in the Journal of Business Research and International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management.
Ashish Kumar, ([email protected]) is an assistant professor at the Department of Marketing, Aalto University School of Business. His research interests include digital marketing, social media marketing, multichannel retailing and health marketing. He received his PhD in marketing from the School of Management and an MA in economics from the College of Arts and Sciences, respectively, from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He also has an undergraduate degree in computer science from India. His research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Marketing, Information Systems Research, and Journal of Retailing.