Consumer Psyc 2 & 3 Flashcards
What is a brand?
“A type of product manufactured by a particular
company under a particular name: ‘a new brand of
soap powder’” (Oxford Dictionary, from
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/brand)
A “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature
that identifies one seller’s good or service as
distinct from those of other sellers” (American
Marketing Association, from
https://www.ama.org/resources/Pages/Dictionary.aspx?
dLetter=B)
◦ “branding” cattle
A brand is a category (Aaker, 1991)
◦ products are elements of the category
Why do brands matter?
Brands are ubiquitous
Brands influence our economic decisions
Brands influence our perceptions and
cognitions (e.g., information processing,
inferences, memory):
◦ informational value: heuristic for consumers
that reduces risk
◦ categorisation allows consumers to go beyond
the given information
Brand labels provide a powerful basis for inferences
What is the evidence for the effects of brand labels?
Peanut butter study (Hoyer & Brown, 1990):
◦ Participants were presented with three brands of
peanut butter
One was a known brand
◦ Manipulated quality: high quality peanut butter
was placed in the jar of the known brand or one
of the unknown brands
◦ Participants selected a brand and tasted the
peanut butter (5 trials)
◦ Results:
Strong tendency to select the jar of the known
brand, even when it contained an inferior quality
peanut butter
Chicken nugget study
Chicken nugget study with children
(Robinson et al., 2007):
◦ unlabelled white package vs. branded package
(McDonalds)
◦ reported that the nuggets tasted better when
in branded package
Coke vs. Pepsi fMRI study
(McClure et al.,
2004):
◦ unlabelled:
no difference in reported taste
preference correlated with ventromedial PFC activity
◦ labelled:
significant preference for sample labelled Coke
preferences correlated with dorsolateral PFC and
hippocampal activity
What makes us consume a
particular brand?
We are aware of the brand The brand satisfies our psychological needs ◦ self-definition, self-reflection and self-signalling ◦ uniqueness ◦ belonging ◦ effectance
We are aware of the brand
Brand awareness: familiarity with a brand Consists of two components: ◦ recognising the brand ◦ correctly associating it with a particular product/service Cultivating brand awareness: ◦ logos ◦ colours ◦ names
Logos
Symbols (including logos) are powerful because: ◦ they can be used to represent an infinite number of concepts ◦ we perceive them quickly and effortlessly “A picture is worth a thousand words” A strong logo can be a double-edged sword
Colours
We detect colour easily (pre-attentive
system)
Effectiveness of using colour depends on
context
◦ E.g., basic colours in cluttered vs. uncluttered
environments (Boynton & Smallman, 1990;
Jansson, Bristow, & Marlow, 2004)
Names
Sound symbolism
◦ marketers try to align sounds to their brand/
product e.g., hard vs. soft sounding names,
Blackberry vs. Strawberry
Fluency:
◦ The extent to which a name is easy to
pronounce
Janice Hart is fluent (pronounceable)
Aurelia Pucinski is disfluent (unpronounceable)
eg. Which would you choose… to run a kid’s birthday party? ◦ Zintec Inc., or ◦ Baloomba Inc.
Which shape is the maluma?
Fluency confers advantages
Stocks (Alter & Oppenheimer, 2006):
◦ Study 1 (fabricated stocks): participants
expected stocks with fluent names to
outperform stocks with disfluent names
◦ Study 2 (shares on the NYSE and AMEX):
fluent outperformed disfluent, but only in the
short term
effect not due to company size or industry
◦ Study 3: replicated Study 2 results using ticker
codes
If you were to invest $1000 in shares with fluent (vs. disfluent)
ticker codes, you’d be better off by $85.35 after 1 day of trading
Why are logos, colours, and names
important?
They provide marketers with multiple routes to increasing brand awareness ◦ mere exposure effect When used effectively, they give brands public visibility (Berger, 2013) ◦ provides social proof Thus, the brand advertises itself!
Brands and the self
James (1890) highlighted the link between consumption and the self-concept Brands have symbolic meanings ◦ values/purpose ◦ personality
Brand personality
“the set of human characteristics
associated with a brand” (Aaker, 1997, p.
347)
relatively stable over time, but influenced
by context (“malleable self”; Aaker, 1999)
creates differentiation between brands,
even when there are few objective
differences
◦ E.g., Absolut vodka vs. Stoli
What is the 5-factor structure of brand
personality? (Aaker, 1997)
- Sincerity
- Excitement
- Competence
- Sophistication
- Ruggedness
Symbolic quality of brands means that we
can use them to:
◦ reflect the self (“I buy a Prius because I see myself
as caring about the environment”)
◦ signal the self (“I buy a Prius to show others I
care about the environment”)
◦ define the self (“I care about the environment
because I bought a Jeep”)
From age 12, children understand that
brands can signal something about the self
(Chaplin & Roedder John, 2005)
◦ 8 year-olds treated brands as informational and
perceptual cues
Levels of the self (Brewer & Gardner, 1996):
individual: self as distinct from others
◦ relational: self in relation to close others
◦ collective: self in relation to group memberships
Domains of the self (Higgins, 1987):
◦ actual self: the way we are
◦ ought self: the way we think we should be
◦ ideal self: the way we aspire to be
Brands can influence, and are influenced by,
these different facets of the self
Self-brand connections
The extent to which a consumer has
incorporated a brand into their self-concept
(e.g., Escalas & Bettman, 2003)
◦ explicit measure (Escalas & Bettman, 2003)
“this brand reflects who I am”
“I think this brand helps me become the type of person I
want to be”
“I use this brand to communicate who I am to other
people”
◦ implicit measure (Brunel et al., 2004)
reaction time measure to assess strength of association between the brand and “Me”
Self-brand connections
Mac users show stronger associations with
their brand than PC users (Brunel et al.,
2004)
Stronger self-brand connections with
brands associated with the ingroup than
with brands associated with the outgroup
(Escalas & Bettman, 2005)
Brands and the self
We like brands whose personality is congruent
with our own (Aaker, 1999)
◦ if you consider excitement to central to your selfdefinition,
then you will like exciting brands (e.g.,
Virgin)
We avoid products or brands that represent
undesired identities or groups
◦ Men avoided a “ladies cut” steak, but not a “chef’s
cut” steak (White & Dahl, 2006)
◦ Canadians negatively evaluated products that
symbolically represent Americans, but not Belgians
(White & Dahl, 2007)
Brands and the need to belong
Humans have a fundamental need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) We use brands as a way to achieve membership in a group Brand communities, e.g., ◦ Harley Davidson ◦ Nike
Brands and the need to be unique
People also have a need to be unique (e.g.,
Snyder & Fromkin, 1980)
◦ Stronger in some cultures
Being too similar to others can elicit
negative affect
We use brands to differentiate ourselves
from other people
◦ People with a higher need for uniqueness prefer
products that are more distinct (e.g., Tian et al.,
2001)
Satisfying the need to belong
and the need to be unique
We can use different choice dimensions to satisfy both needs Participants assimilated to their ingroup on one dimension, but differentiated from their ingroup on another dimension (Chan et al., 2011), e.g., ◦ If ingroup members typically drive BMW sportscars, then choose a BMW SUV or a Lexus sportscar
Brands and the need for effectance
People have a need to successfully interact with the environment (White, 1959) Exerting control over objects and possessions can satisfy this need (e.g., Ahuvia, 2005) The “IKEA effect” (Norton et al., 2012) ◦ We overvalue self-made products ◦ Illustrates the importance of consumer involvement co-creation
