Purpose
This study aims to investigate the relationships between customer perceptions of luxury companies’ brand pages (i.e. brand page value and self-expressive brands) and customers’ affective ...(i.e. brand page satisfaction and brand love) and behavioral (i.e. word-of-mouth WOM and attitudinal loyalty intentions) responses.
Design/methodology/approach
Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data of 290 social media users in the USA who followed at least one luxury brand on social media.
Findings
The results demonstrated that consumers’ brand page satisfaction, influenced by the brand page’s information and entertainment value, was related to brand love and WOM intentions. Meanwhile, brand love – defined as emotional devotion to a brand – was influenced by self-expressive brands and was positively related to both WOM and attitudinal loyalty intentions.
Originality/value
This study identifies a set of customer perceptions that drive consumers’ affective and behavioral responses and that can be used to guide luxury brands to best use their brand pages on social media. By developing and testing a dual-impact model consisting of brand page satisfaction and brand love, this study provides practical directions for luxury brand managers and marketers who wish to transform their followers into both brand advocates who elevate the brand through WOM communications and loyal customers who are committed to affiliating with and supporting the brand.
This paper reviews within the marketing field the concept of brand personality, its different available measures and its main limitations. Hence, the study proposes to make a distinction between ...macro and micro approaches of brand personality. Then a quantitative study in the field of print media brands is performed on 780 respondents and 24 publications. The results show, firstly, the advantages of the micro approach for studying a specific sector. Secondly, the findings indicate the operational validity of the approach pursued in this research, particularly concerning the capacity of the brand personality concept to predict consumers' self-identification to the brands.
The growing sales of private labels (PLs) pose significant challenges for national brands (NBs) around the world. A major question is whether consumers continue to be willing to pay a price premium ...for NBs over PLs. Using consumer survey data from 22,623 respondents from 23 countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas across, on average, 63 consumer packaged goods categories per country, this article studies how marketing and manufacturing factors affect the price premium a consumer is willing to pay for an NB over a PL. These effects are mediated by consumer perceptions of the quality of NBs in relation to PLs. Although the results do not bode well for NBs in the sense that willingness to pay decreases as PLs mature, the authors offer several managerial recommendations to counter this trend. In countries in which PLs are more mature, the route to success is to go back to manufacturing basics. In PL development countries, there is a stronger role for marketing to enhance the willingness to pay for NBs.
Three-tiered private-label (PL) portfolio strategies (low-quality tier: economy PLs, mid-quality tier: standard PLs, and top-quality tier: premium PLs) are gaining interest around the world. Drawing ...on the context-effects literature, the authors postulate how the introduction of economy and premium PLs may affect the choice of mainstream-quality and premium-quality national brands (NBs) and the choice of the retailer's existing PL offering. The authors use the natural experiment offered by Asda's and Sainsbury's introduction of economy and premium PL tiers in the corn flakes and canned soup categories in the United Kingdom to test their framework. Using brand choice models that accommodate context (compromise, similarity, and attraction) effects, the authors find that both economy and premium PLs cannibalize incumbent PLs. Economy PL introductions benefit mainstream-quality NBs because these NBs become a compromise or middle option in terms of quality in the retailer's assortment. The effects of premium PL introductions on premium-quality NBs are mixed: Their share improves in two of four cases but decreases in the other two cases.
Nowadays, rejuvenation of Chinese time-honored brands, a symbol of Chinese traditional culture, is manifested in their co-branding with new brands. With focus on sincerity and excitement, two ...fundamental dimensions of brand personality, the authors explore this co-branding strategy which remains unexplored by the extant literature. Based on the integration of brand personality and Stereotype Content Model, a new mechanism is constructed from the perspective of consumers, with brand admiration being the underlying mechanism, as well as product category—hedonic vs. utilitarian—being a boundary condition. Through three experimental studies, the results show that the exciting (vs. sincere) personality of new brands increases consumers’ admiration for both allied brands, which in turn enhances co-branding evaluations, and that the advantage of the exciting personality holds for the hedonic co-branded product, but disappears for the utilitarian one. The research contributes to the co-branding literature and provides implications for brand partner selection and co-branded product design.
Brands have come under the spotlight for unethical behaviour, resulting in decreased brand trust. Breakdowns in trust occur when the actions of brands differ from the promises and values communicated ...by them. Brand authenticity is considered to have a positive effect on brand trust. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of brand authenticity in the development of brand trust. The target population for the study was customers of airline brands in South Africa with a sample size of 355 responses. Our results show the brand authenticity dimensions. Brand authenticity does have a direct impact on brand trust, and warmth and competence partially mediate the relationship between brand authenticity and brand trust. These findings have important implications for managers. To succeed, consumers have to trust their brands, and brands that are viewed by them as such are likely to be more successful than those that are not.
•Significant multiple linear regressions are conducted based on 164 Facebook posts.•Posts with images and videos are more prone to be liked.•Posts with images published during business hours are more ...prone to be commented.•The use of links in a post negatively influences the number of comments.•Images help to increase brand post popularity. Videos are only relevant for likes.
Social media is achieving an increasing importance as a channel for gathering information about products and services. Brands are developing its presence in social networking sites to meet brand awareness, engagement and word of mouth. In this context, the analysis of the factors that are conditioning consumer interaction with branded content becomes a matter of interest. This paper aims to shed light on those factors that are expected to impact on Facebook branded post popularity. A conceptual model is developed to reflect the influence of the content's richness and time frame on the number of comments and likes. An empirical analysis using multiple linear regressions is conducted based on 164 Facebook posts gathered from the fan pages of 5 Spanish travel agencies. Results suggest that the richness of the content (inclusions of images and videos) raises the impact of the post in terms of likes. On the other hand, using images and a proper publication time are significantly influencing the number of comments, whereas the use of links may decrease this metric.
This study empirically contributes to the existing literature on the management of marketing strategies for consumer engagement in social networking sites.
Are service brands constrained in launching new service offerings? Both research evidence and managerial wisdom suggest brands should extend to similar categories. However, in five studies using ...real-life brands - four experiments and one large-sample survey - we provide evidence that similarity is less of a constraint for service brands extending to other service categories (service-to-service extensions), compared to cases involving parent brands or extension categories of a product nature. Importantly, we demonstrate that such an effect occurs because service brands possess associations relevant across the spectrum of service categories. Our results suggest that service brand managers have the opportunity to stretch their brands to dissimilar service offerings; yet, they need to ensure the marketing execution does not make the brands’ service associations inaccessible to consumers. The findings suggest that even product brands can build service associations by adding service components to their offering, thus becoming “servitized” and better able to extend to dissimilar service categories. Overall, our work contributes to the academic debate documenting that the principles governing the management of product vs. service brands are not identical.
This research explores the topics of perceived brand globalness (PBG) and perceived brand localness (PBL) in the B2B context—specifically in terms of how brand localness and globalness factor into ...B2B buyers' decision making. It does so by examining co-branding relationships that involve alliances between well-known global and local B2B brands with unknown B2B brands in order to tease out the specific influence of brand globalness and localness on buyers' quality evaluations of the unknown brand. In other words, it considers the potential spillover effects of well-known PBG and PBL ally brands on lesser-known focal brands in brand alliances. Notably, we analyze data collected from a sample of Brazilian and U.S. based purchase decision-makers and uncover a number of robust findings likely to benefit both academics and practitioners.
•This research explores perceived brand globalness and localness in the B2B context.•A co-branding perspective involving perceived local and global B2B brands is used.•Positive spillover effects linked to B2B brands perceived as local are identified.•Brands perceived as local help buyers perceive lower risk in the U.S.A. and Brazil.•The role of perceived global brands needs to be further investigated.
Purpose
This study aims to contribute to research into narrative brands by investigating if the lack of closure in the ambiguous season two’s ending of the Australian television series, Wanted, ...constituted a brand transgression.
Design/methodology/approach
Comments on posts about Wanted from social media accounts associated with the series were downloaded and analysed using thematic analysis informed by non-participatory netnography.
Findings
Audiences found the ambiguous ending of Wanted season two disappointing and it did not fulfil implied promises and their expectations, which fits the description of a brand transgression, and so they engaged in behaviours indicative of a brand transgression such as spreading negative word of mouth online. The ambiguous ending could have been a cliff-hanger to lead into a third season that was not guaranteed when the final episode aired, or the ending for the entire series. Although a third season was eventually made and positively received by audiences, viewer numbers declined by nearly a third, illustrating the importance of brand management for narrative brands.
Practical implications
This research has implications for the creators of television series, particularly if they do not know if it will be renewed. Not providing audiences with their expected closure can constitute a brand transgression and damage the narrative brand’s residual brand equity and potential earnings from streaming or a revival at a later date.
Originality/value
Prior research has focused on audiences’ responses to definitive endings, rather than ambiguous endings, which is the focus of this research. Furthermore, narrative brands are still an under-researched context.
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