Purpose
This study aims to examine how brand gender (masculine/feminine brand personality FBP traits) stimulates brand engagement (cognitive processing, affection and activation) inside online brand ...communities (OBCs). The authors also explore the mediation of this effect through brand identification and brand personality appeal (BPA). The moderating role of consumers’ biological sex is also investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
The theoretical model has been tested with the data collected from OBC members through the structural equation modelling technique. Bootstrapping is used for mediation analysis and multiple group analysis for testing the moderating effects.
Findings
Results show that masculine brand personality (MBP) influences brand engagement directly, as well as through brand identification and BPA. However, FBP elicits brand engagement only through the mediation of brand identification and BPA. Consumers’ biological sex moderates the effect of FBP on brand engagement, but no moderation was traced for the effect of MBP on brand engagement.
Research limitations/implications
The context of the research poses a limitation on the broader replication of study findings. Other limitations include the absence of community-based variables and the focused use of gender centric brands in this study. This research will help researchers to understand the nuances in the underlying relationship between brand gender and brand engagement inside OBCs.
Practical implications
The managers can emphasize MBP but should not downplay the importance of FBP inside OBCs. To achieve brand engagement, the marketers should curate FBP in a way to affecting consumers’ brand identification and brand appeal. To achieve consumer brand engagement, MBP can be targeted at both male and female consumers, whereas FBP holds more importance among female consumers. Therefore, classifying members as per their biological sex is recommended for better brand engagement from brand gender inside OBCs.
Originality/value
This study explores finer mechanisms in the relationship between brand gender and brand engagement inside OBCs by charting out the powerful mediating role played by brand identification and BPA. The moderating role of consumers’ biological sex is an important dimension to these relationships, not explored hitherto.
Brand personality is a key concept in marketing that can be used to create competitive differentiation. Two of the most relevant dimensions of brand personality for academics and practitioners are ...responsible and active. However, only few studies examine these two personalities, particularly their relationship with prominent marketing constructs. This paper attempts to identify which dimensions of brand experience (i.e., sensory, affective, behavioral, and intellectual) lead to higher consumers' perception of responsible and active brands and in predicting key relationship constructs (i.e., satisfaction, trust and brand loyalty). Based on a survey of 339 Spanish respondents, the results suggest that not all dimensions of brand experience predict brand personality. The findings also suggest that being responsible leads to higher satisfaction and trust compared to being active. On the other hand, being active leads to higher loyalty compared to being responsible.
•This study proposes a framework linking brand experience, brand personality, and important relationship constructs (i.e. satisfaction, trust, and loyalty).•It examines two important dimensions of brand personality, namely responsible and active personality.•The results show which brand experience is important in building either responsible or active personality.•The findings also show which brand personality is a better predictor of the relationship constructs.
Destinations ‘talk’ about themselves via online media to build strong brand personalities. However, previous research points to the influence of other associations linked to the destination in ...determining the credibility of the aforementioned personality. This research aims to identify the potential of certain types of functional associations ―attractions― in strengthening projected personality through discourse. With this aim in mind, we analyze the content of twelve official European urban destination websites. The results expand on previous research by identifying how different aspects of what a destination has to offer help portray personality traits. There is huge potential to use attractions to better project desired personality traits, which leads to a better fit between the personality and the overall projected image. The findings have significant implications both for brand managers to enable them to optimize their communication, and for future research. The projected personality of destinations should not be studied independently from the functional dimension of brand image.
•Official destination websites contribute to the projected personality through the content of both brands and attractions.•Projected brand personality is not an isolated type of association; it is conditioned by functional associations.•Different information about attractions promotes different personality traits.•Information related to gastronomy, shopping, accommodation, and heritage is richer in personality-related vocabulary.•Using the appropriate vocabulary in the content of attractions is useful to better project the desired personality.
•Death awareness can have a uniquely negative impact on exciting brands’ evaluations.•Exciting (vs. other) brands are more closely associated with the notion of change.•Mortality salience can ...increase consumers’ tendency to avoid change.•Reducing the association between exciting brands and change can mitigate the effect.•The effect holds across 27 product/service categories.
From deadly disease outbreaks to crimes and terrorism, consumers often experience mortality salience (MS). This research examines how MS-inducing events impact brand evaluations. We propose that under MS, consumers avoid experiencing change. Because consumers perceive brands with an exciting personality to be more closely associated with the notion of change than brands with other types of personality, the onset of MS is more likely to hurt the evaluations of exciting brands than those of other brands. Study 1, a large-scale secondary data study, showed that the 9/11 terror attacks degraded consumers’ evaluations of exciting brands but not of other types of brands. Subsequent studies demonstrated causality and the underlying mechanism. In Study 2, experimentally inducing MS decreased evaluations of an exciting brand but not of a control brand. Using a process-by-moderation approach, Study 3 showed that manipulating consumers’ perception of the extent to which an exciting brand was associated with the notion of change moderated the negative impact of MS on brand evaluations. Studies 4a-4b demonstrated that consumers’ tendency to avoid experiencing change mediated the detrimental effect of MS on the evaluations of an exciting brand but not of a control brand. These findings add to the literature on branding and offer practical insights for brand management during crises.
We review a growing body of research in consumer behavior that has examined when consumers humanize brands by perceiving them as like, part of, or in a relationship with themselves. One research ...stream shows that sometimes consumers perceive brands as having human-like forms, minds, and personality characteristics. A second stream identifies ways that a consumer perceives a brand as being congruent with or connected to the self. Finally, a third highlights that consumers can view brands in ways that are analogous to the types of relationships they have with people. We review research in these three areas and point out connections among these research streams. In part, we accomplish this by showing that factors associated with the SEEK model, which are designed to explain anthropomorphic tendencies, are also relevant to other ways of humanizing brands. We identify major propositions derived from this research and several areas for which additional research is needed. We conclude with recommendations for the many opportunities for expanding our conceptual and empirical understanding of this domain.
This research aims to empirically investigate positive and negative reciprocal effects of extensions on brand personality by varying levels of congruency and typicality, while controlling for the ...effects of motivation processing. A 2 (incongruent, congruent) × 2 (high typicality, low typicality) × 2 (high motivation, low motivation) research design was employed using two extension categories, namely watches and kidswear of the HUGO BOSS brand. The findings revealed brand personality dilution effects only. Specifically, brand personality dilution occurred in response to incongruent and congruent information. Further, contrary to schema theory, brand personality evaluations neither strictly followed the bookkeeping model in high-motivation conditions nor the subtyping model in low-motivation conditions in response to in-congruent information.
This research aims to explore the role of brand personality self‐congruity (BPC) in affecting consumers' purchase behavior in a particular setting: video‐based social media (i.e., TikTok). Moreover, ...we test the moderating role of consumers' emotional attachment to the influencer and the mediating role of brand engagement in affecting purchase intention. Finally, we delve into the antecedents of influencer effectiveness and their relationship with consumers' actual purchases. To do so, we leverage two quantitative studies (n1 = 248; n3 = 247) and a qualitative one. Results from Study 1 indicate that the lower consumers perceive the gap between the brand personality and self‐image, the more they are inclined to engage with and purchase a brand. Moreover, we find that the emotional attachment to the influencer does not play a role in influencing purchase intention, positing that emotional attachment and BPC have different emotion dynamics with different purchase outcomes. Building on Study 1, Study 2 leverages a focus group to identify the antecedents of influencer effectiveness. Results highlight that a sense of indulgence appears in the minds of consumers when confronted with brands that have a lower congruity with their self. This sense of indulgence, in the case of low BPC, hinders the ability of the influencer to create an engagement between the brand and the consumer. Finally, Study 3 quantitatively tests the antecedents of influencer effectiveness under two conditions (entertaining vs. informative content type) highlighting the different influence of the antecedents on individuals with high (vs. low) BPC.
Branding beyond the gender binary Cooke, Angelica; Russell‐Bennett, Rebekah; Wang, Di ...
Psychology & marketing,
August 2022, Letnik:
39, Številka:
8
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Gender is a fundamental pillar of personal identity, and as such, gendered brand personality is an equally important aspect of brand identity, as it enables consumers to express their gender identity ...through consumption. However, as gender attitudes and identities change to reflect the broader culture, marketers must continuously re‐evaluate how changing gender attitudes and identities will impact consumers' responses to gendered brands. This paper examines the effect of congruence between Gendered Brand Personality and consumer psychological gender on brand outcomes using two online experiments with USA and UK samples. Our findings indicate that congruence between brand gender and psychological gender increases brand equity and purchase intention in brand gender communication contexts including through logo, model, and usage setting. This congruence effect is driven by consumer self‐referencing. A follow‐up qualitative study using a focus group adds additional insights for the congruence effect in terms of potential boundary conditions and alternative underlying mechanisms beyond self‐referencing. These findings suggest that marketers should design their own brand personality to be in line with target consumers' psychological gender.
PurposeDespite the growing interest by scholars, practitioners and public policymakers, there are still divergent and fragmented conceptualizations of nation branding as the field is still ...developing. In response, the purpose of this paper is to review and synthesize nation branding research and to provide directions for future research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors review peer-reviewed theoretical and empirical journal articles published during the last two decades – from 1998 to 2018. Selected journal articles on nation branding were subsequently synthesized for further insights.FindingsThe field of nation branding is fragmented and has developed in the course of the last two decades in different directions. This paper identifies key publication outlets and articles, major theoretical and methodological approaches and primary variables of interest that exist in the nation branding literature. The findings also highlight several research themes for future research.Originality/valueThis research fills a need to summaries the current state of the nation branding literature and identifies research issues that need to be addressed in the future.
The purpose of this study is to examine how potential applicants' exposure to an organization's social media page relates to their subsequent organizational attractiveness perceptions and ...word-of-mouth intentions. Based on signaling theory and the theory of symbolic attraction, we propose that potential applicants rely on perceived communication characteristics of the social media page (social presence and informativeness) as signals of the organization's employer brand personality (warmth and competence), which in turn relate to organizational attractiveness and word-of-mouth. Data were gathered in a simulated job search process in which final-year students looked for an actual job posting and later visited an actual organization's social media page. In line with our hypotheses, results show that the perceived social presence of a social media page was indirectly positively related to attractiveness and word-of-mouth through its positive association with perceived organizational warmth. Perceived informativeness was indirectly positively related to these outcomes through its positive association with perceived organizational competence. In addition, we found that social presence was also directly positively related to organizational attractiveness. These findings suggest that organizations can use social media pages to manage key recruitment outcomes by signaling their employer brand personality.
•A social media page can influence attraction and word-of-mouth intentions.•Inferences of employer brand personality are an underlying mechanism.•Social media page social presence relates positively to organizational warmth.•Social media page informativeness relates positively to organizational competence.•Warmth and competence relate positively to attraction and word-of-mouth intentions.
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