The dialogue between social perception and consumer–brand relationship theories opens new opportunities for studying brands. To advance branding research in the spirit of interdisciplinary inquiry, ...we propose to (1) investigate the process of anthropomorphism through which brands are imbued with intentional agency; (2) integrate the role of consumers not only as perceivers but also as relationship agents; (3) consider important defining dimensions of consumer–brand relationships beyond warmth and competence, including power and excitement; and (4) articulate the dynamics governing warmth (intentions) and competency (ability) judgments to yield prescriptive guidance for developing popular and admired brands.
Relating badly to brands Fournier, Susan; Alvarez, Claudio
Journal of consumer psychology,
April 2013, Letnik:
23, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Our commentary focuses on the negative pole of Park et al.'s Attachment–Aversion continuum. We argue that the distinction between positively- and negatively-valenced relationships matters, and open ...opportunities to further our knowledge about what makes a brand relationship “bad.” Two theoretical extensions are offered: (1) additional negativity dimensions beyond brand–self distance including pathology, power, and self- versus brand-focused emotionality; and (2) distinctions between neutrality and variations of emotional ambivalence “in the middle” of the Attachment–Aversion spectrum. Our call is for a science of negative relationships concerning the negative outcomes, processes, states, and attributes of consumers' relationships with brands.
This article provides insight into the management of brands that are also people by unpacking the interdependencies that exist between people and brands and focusing on the qualities that make ...person-brands human rather than on the qualities that make them brands. Using the extended case method to examine 20 years of public data about the Martha Stewart brand, the authors highlight the interdependent relationship between the person and the brand—in particular, consistency and balance—and identify four aspects of the person that can upset these interdependencies: mortality, hubris, unpredictability, and social embeddedness. Mortality and hubris can cause imbalance, but with the right skills and structures, these factors can be proactively managed. Inconsistency in the meanings of the person versus the brand can derive from the person's unpredictability and social embeddedness and compromise brand value, but it may also enhance brand value by adding needed intimacy and authenticity. This two-bodied conceptualization suggests renewed management principles and contributes to branding theory through identification of the doppelgänger within, new brand strength facets, and emphasis on risk versus returns.
Although technological products are unavoidable in contemporary life, studies focusing on them in the consumer behavior field have been few and narrow. In this article, we investigate consumers' ...perspectives, meanings, and experiences in relation to a range of technological products, emphasizing lengthy and repeated interviews with 29 households, including a set of first‐time owners. We draw on literatures spanning from technology, paradox, and postmodernism to clinical and social psychology, and combine them with data collection and analysis in the spirit of grounded theory. The outcome is a new conceptual framework on the paradoxes of technological products and their influences on emotional reactions and behavioral coping strategies. We discuss the findings in terms of implications for theories of technology, innovation diffusion, and human coping, and an expanded role for the paradox construct in consumer research.
The uninvited brand Fournier, Susan; Avery, Jill
Business horizons,
05/2011, Letnik:
54, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Brands rushed into social media, viewing social networks, video sharing, online communities, and microblogging sites as the panacea to diminishing returns for traditional brand building routes. But ...as more branding activity moves to the Web, marketers are confronted with the stark realization that social media was made for people, not for brands. In this article, we explore the emergent cultural landscape of open source branding, and identify marketing strategies directed at the hunt for consumer engagement on the People's Web. These strategies present a paradox, for to gain coveted resonance, the brand must relinquish control. We discuss how Web-based power struggles between marketers and consumer brand authors challenge accepted branding truths and paradigms: where short-term brands can trump long-term icons; where marketing looks more like public relations; where brand building gives way to brand protection; and brand value is driven by risk, not returns.
How Brands Acquire Cultural Meaning Fournier, Susan; Alvarez, Claudio
Journal of consumer psychology,
July 2019, 2019-07-00, Letnik:
29, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article endeavors to advance research on the cultural resonance of brands by building bridges between branding scholarship in the consumer psychology tradition and interpretive research ...regarding brands and their meaning makers. We adopt a cognitivist conceptualization of cultural meaning and focus on the application of interpretive insights to well‐established constructs in the consumer psychology of brands: brand associations, product category associations, social identity, and self‐identity. This integrative exercise highlights the value of cultural models in explaining the processes whereby brands acquire meaning, and suggests several themes that are under‐valued when considering this process problem through a psychological lens: the motivational underpinnings of myths and other cultural meaning models, the relative value of shared cultural and brand meanings versus idiosyncratic meanings, the power and primacy of category‐level meaning making over brand‐level meaning making, the complex processes whereby brands gain and lose legitimacy, and the influence of lay theories about brands and branding on how consumers co‐create meaning for brands.
This article is part of a Research Dialogue: Krishna (2019): https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1120 Batra (2019): https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1122 Price & Coulter (2019): https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1121 MacInnis et al. (2019): https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1118
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