期望、体验和回忆: 当消费者不能从体验中学习

人们对消费体验的期望、回忆与真实体验时常发生分离, 而且人们很少从真实体验中得到学习。本研究认为原因之一是期望、体验和回忆三者基于不同的输入信息, 以及三者特殊的交互关系。本研究首先提出了一个关于消费者期望、体验和回忆的理论框架, 系统阐述了消费者何时不能从体验中学习以及如何能促进学习, 然后在一个消费情景中通过3×2混合实验设计考察了三者的关系。实验比较了在“预期(无体验)”、“体验后即时评价”和“体验后延迟评价”三种评价方式下被试对两种品牌火腿肠的口味评价和偏好选择。结果发现: 消费者对口味体验的期望和回忆相似, 但两者都和真实体验发生分离。最后, 本研究还讨论了这一理论框架在消费者行为中的应用、未来研究拓展等。     

Perceived brand authenticity: Examining the effects of inferred dedication and anticipated quality on consumers' purchase intentions and actual choices

This research investigates both the downstream effect of perceived brand authenticity on consumers' actual, consequential choice and the important role of inferred brand dedication in the relationship between perceived brand authenticity, anticipated quality, and purchase intentions. We also investigate the interactive effect of two source-related factors—intrinsic motivation and congruity—on consumers' brand authenticity perceptions. We present findings from three studies using different product categories (utilitarian/consumable: hand sanitizer; hedonic/consumable: chocolate; hedonic/non-consumable: sunglasses). Study 1 shows that consumers use information regarding the intrinsic motivation of those behind the brand and congruity between the brand's actions and what it represents to consumers when forming brand authenticity perceptions and that intrinsic motivation and congruity interact to increase authenticity perceptions. We anticipate that consumers' positivity toward brands perceived as authentic will extend to actual choice through anticipated quality. Study 2 demonstrates that consumers choose authentic brands over inauthentic brands above what chance would dictate and anticipated quality can forecast this choice. Next, we extend our collective process knowledge by exploring an underlying reason why consumers anticipate that brands presented through marketing communications as authentic will have higher quality. We suggest that when managers present brands as authentic, consumers infer greater dedication of those behind the brand and inferred dedication influences anticipated product quality. Study 3 provides support and uncovers a serial mediation process, highlighting the importance of inferred dedication. Specifically, perceived brand authenticity increases consumers' brand dedication inferences, which in turn increases anticipated product quality, and ultimately purchase intentions.     

Is Cinderella resurging? The impact of consumers' underdog disposition on brand preferences: Underdog brand biography and brand status as moderators

This research attempts to explore the moderating roles of underdog brand biography and brand status in the impact of consumers' underdog disposition on brand preferences. A total of 218 on‐the‐job graduate students were randomly assigned to a 2 (explicitness of underdog brand biography: implicit vs. explicit) × 2 (brand status: emerging brands vs. established brands) factorial design. Results show that consumers with strong underdog disposition are likely to generate stronger brand preferences for established brands accompanied with explicit underdog brand biographies than emerging brands accompanied with explicit underdog brand biographies; in contrast, consumers with strong underdog disposition are likely to engender no differential brand preferences for emerging brands accompanied with implicit underdog brand biographies over established brands accompanied with implicit underdog brand biographies. Moreover, consumers with a weak underdog disposition are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for established brands than emerging brands, regardless of the explicitness of underdog brand biography. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

社交媒体分享线索如何影响消费者的选择：印象管理与自主感缺失

随着社交媒体, 第三方消费点评网站及各类电商平台的蓬勃发展, 消费者能够越来越容易地与他人分享自己的消费和体验。为了适应这一迅猛的发展势头, 企业采取一系列措施加入社交媒体营销刺激消费者分享。如在产品界面添加分享按钮, 在各大社交平台添加主题标签, 或者直接使用带有分享刺激的广告口号。与以往研究关注消费者决策后的分享行为不同, 本研究提出社交媒体分享线索在消费者决策中发挥着重要作用, 影响消费者的判断与选择。具体来说, 本项目认为社交媒体分享线索一方面激发了消费者的印象管理动机, 另一方面也降低了自主感, 在此基础上探究了的两个行为决策结果：产品兴趣和决策终止。本项目具有重要的理论意义, 突破前人研究大多关注决策后分享的局限, 对现有社交媒体分享, 及数字环境如何影响消费行为是有益的补充。在实践上, 对企业如何更好地开展社会化媒体营销有着重要的指导意义。     

Images of Success and the Preference for Luxury Brands

This research examines the impact of media depictions of success (or failure) on consumers’ desire for luxury brands. In a pilot study and three additional studies, we demonstrate that reading a story about a similar/successful other, such as a business major from the same university, increases consumers’ expectations about their own future wealth, which in turn increases their desire for luxury brands. However, reading about a dissimilar successful other, such as a biology major, lowers consumers’ preferences for luxury brands. Furthermore, we examine the role of ease of imagining oneself in the narrative as a mediator of the relation between direction of comparison, similarity, and brand preference.     

Retail brand extension—perceived fit,risks and trust

• This study examines consumer fit perception, risks and trust in retail brand extension in financial services. Respondents (324) living in Sheffield were involved in the consumer survey, conducted on three major British supermarkets. Mean scores were compared between four groups of respondents. Discriminant analysis was used to determine the factor(s) distinguishing the retailers. Retailers A and B were perceived as trusted brands with respect to financial services. Retailer A was perceived as a trusted brand regardless of the product category. Retailer B was seen as a trusted brand when product performance and financial risks were low while Retailer C was perceived unfit and risky by non‐users and the non‐intend‐to‐buy groups. Age, gender and income influenced fit, risks and trust perception. When consumers knew the store or were store loyal, they tended to trust the store brand extension whereas when consumers did not know or were new to the store, fit and risks were perceived. Implications for corporate branding, brand extension decision‐making and implementations are sought.

Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Consumers' perceptions of the dimensions of brand personality

Brand personality (human‐like characteristics of a brand) has been a popular topic in the marketing literature for over 50 years. However, there is a lack of consumer‐focused studies investigating what factors shape perceptions of brand personality. To address this gap, the purpose of the current study is to understand how consumers form their perceptions of the different dimensions of brand personality identified in Aaker's scale (sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness), and what product or brand characteristics influence these perceptions. Sixty‐six interviews were conducted with graduate students, who were asked to discuss which brands reflected the specific dimensions of brand personality in Aaker's scale. As a result, we identify the kinds of brands consumers perceive as typical for each personality dimension, discover their common characteristics and explain the reasons why some brands are strongly associated with a particular dimension and some are not. Our findings indicate that specific brand personality dimensions are associated with particular product categories. However, brands mentioned as strong on respective personality dimensions share commonalities beyond just a product category. For instance, sincere brands share family‐related associations and high morals, exciting brands offer consumers the opportunity to experience exciting feelings and are related to special ‘exciting’ occasions, competent brands are mostly associated with expertise and quality, sophisticated brands are usually of feminine nature, whereas rugged brands are of masculine nature. Moreover, we find that brands which consumers perceive as lacking on a particular personality dimension also share common attributes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Did They Earn It? Observing Unearned Luxury Consumption Decreases Brand Attitude When Observers Value Fairness

People frequently observe others’ consumption, making inferences about both the consumer and the consumed brands. Although these observations are often beneficial for brands, this research demonstrates that observing luxury brand consumers whose consumption arose from unearned (vs. earned) financial resources reduces observers’ brand attitudes when observers place a high value on fairness. When fairness values are high, observers do not perceive luxury brand consumers who use unearned (vs. earned) consumption resources as prestigious, and in turn, lower prestige perceptions adversely affect observers’ brand evaluations for luxury brands. Consistent with our theorizing regarding the signaling of prestige, the joint effect of consumers’ consumption resources and observers’ fairness values on observers’ brand attitudes does not hold for nonluxury brands, which are not associated with prestige and thereby are not denigrated when the consumer is not perceived as prestigious. This research sheds light on the role of moral values in marketplace judgments of luxury consumption and brand attitude by considering the influence of consumption resources on observers’ judgments.     

How Brands Acquire Cultural Meaning

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.     

Consumer responses to brand elimination: An attributional perspective

While research on innovation and new product development abounds in the literature, studies on firms deleting brands from their portfolio are virtually non-existent. This paper provides a pioneering examination of how brand elimination might influence consumer evaluations of the firm. As compared to a widely-held belief that brand elimination would adversely affect firm image, we propose that in situations where brand elimination can be viewed as the firm's effort to improve performance, consumers will rate this action favorably, with concomitant outcomes relating to firm evaluation. These ideas are supported in three studies. Study 1 finds that elimination targeting a weak (vs. strong) brand is more likely to be associated with eliminate-to-improve attributions, and consequently, more favorable evaluations. Study 2 shows that explanations provided by the firm (as against explanations generated internally by the consumers) help consumers make positive attributions for elimination targeting a strong brand, but lower evaluations when a weak brand is being eliminated. Study 3 establishes that loyal consumers are more likely to assess the applicability of an ‘eliminate-to-improve’ attribution and give favorable evaluations only when the eliminated brand is weak. Non-loyal consumers in general respond favorably to the elimination, regardless of brand strength. Future directions for brand elimination research are discussed.     

萌萌哒还是古灵精怪?奢侈品品牌可爱风格对消费者偏好的影响

奢侈品品牌热衷于使用可爱风格与消费者进行互动。本文以理想自我理论为基础,通过4个实验探索奢侈品品牌可爱风格类型对消费者偏好的影响机制和边界条件。实验1表明奢侈品品牌的可爱风格(婴儿图式/古灵精怪)会显著地影响消费者的品牌偏好,验证了主效应的因果链模型。实验2进一步明确了主效应的边界,结果表明品牌可爱风格对消费者偏好的影响只在奢侈品品牌的情境下才存在。实验3探索了自我监控水平对主效应的调节作用,发现对于低自我监控的个体,奢侈品品牌的可爱风格难以有效地影响品牌偏好。实验4分析了个体发展阶段对主效应的调节作用,结果表明对于成年期个体,古灵精怪可爱风格比婴儿图式可爱风格更能提高个体的奢侈品品牌偏好,对于童年期个体,婴儿图式可爱风格比古灵精怪可爱风格更易获得青睐。     

萌萌哒还是古灵精怪?奢侈品品牌可爱风格对消费者偏好的影响

奢侈品品牌热衷于使用可爱风格与消费者进行互动。本文以理想自我理论为基础,通过4个实验探索奢侈品品牌可爱风格类型对消费者偏好的影响机制和边界条件。实验1表明奢侈品品牌的可爱风格(婴儿图式/古灵精怪)会显著地影响消费者的品牌偏好,验证了主效应的因果链模型。实验2进一步明确了主效应的边界,结果表明品牌可爱风格对消费者偏好的影响只在奢侈品品牌的情境下才存在。实验3探索了自我监控水平对主效应的调节作用,发现对于低自我监控的个体,奢侈品品牌的可爱风格难以有效地影响品牌偏好。实验4分析了个体发展阶段对主效应的调节作用,结果表明对于成年期个体,古灵精怪可爱风格比婴儿图式可爱风格更能提高个体的奢侈品品牌偏好,对于童年期个体,婴儿图式可爱风格比古灵精怪可爱风格更易获得青睐。     

Brands as intentional agents framework: How perceived intentions and ability can map brand perception

Building on the Stereotype Content Model, this paper introduces and tests the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework. A growing body of research suggests that consumers have relationships with brands that resemble relations between people. We propose that consumers perceive brands in the same way they perceive people. This approach allows us to explore how social perception theories and processes can predict brand purchase interest and loyalty. Brands as Intentional Agents Framework is based on a well-established social perception approach: the Stereotype Content Model. Two studies support the Brands as Intentional Agents Framework prediction that consumers assess a brand's perceived intentions and ability and that these perceptions elicit distinct emotions and drive differential brand behaviors. The research shows that human social interaction relationships translate to consumer–brand interactions in ways that are useful to inform brand positioning and brand communications.     

Salesperson–brand relationship: main dimensions and impact within the context of private brand retailing

Private branding is considered one of the most effective and efficient influencers of retailers’ return on investment in their fiercely competitive industry. However, no study to date has examined these brands’ impact on salespeople's motivation and commitment to their own employer. This study, based upon extensive qualitative and quantitative research, shows that salespeople's relationships with their private brands can be influential in increasing their selling motivation and organizational commitment. Toward this end, our study first identifies the three important dimensions of salesperson–brand relationship (affect, trust, perceived customer recognition due to the brand) and develops their measures. Second, the findings show that salesperson–brand relationships, which exist between the retail frontline employees and retailers’ private brand, strongly influence sales motivation and firm commitment with a moderating influence of role clarity regarding management's expectations from its salespeople.     

The Role of Consumption Emotions in the Satisfaction Response

We report 2 studies that served to clarify the role of consumption emotions in the satisfaction response. In the 1st study, we examined the role of consumption emotions within the expectancy‐disconfirmation model of consumer satisfaction and investigated whether consumption emotions are a result of product performance or disconfirmation. The findings show that both positive and negative emotions are primarily a function of product performance and influence satisfaction even when the effects of expectations, performance, and disconfirmation are controlled. In the 2nd study, we proposed and tested an alternative framework for understanding the role of consumption emotions in the satisfaction response for situations in which consumers use more of an experiential perspective to anticipate and experience consumption. According to this model, consumers form affective expectations about how consumption of the product will make them feel, experience positive or negative emotions as a result of these expectations and product consumption, and evaluate the discrepancy between experienced and anticipated emotions. All 3 variables, then, impact satisfaction. The results empirically support many of the relations in the new model of the experiential satisfaction response but also raise several interesting avenues for future research.     

Do ad metaphors enhance or dilute the consumers' brand preferences? Exploring the moderating role of goal orientation

This research aims to explore the impacts of ad metaphors and goal orientation on the relationship between brand commitment and attitudes toward the competitor brands. Results show that prevention‐focused consumers with high brand commitment do not exhibit differentially favorable attitudes toward the competitor brands, regardless of ad metaphors. In contrast, prevention‐focused consumers with low brand commitment exhibit more favorable attitudes toward competitor brands advocated by highly metaphorical ads than those advocated by low metaphorical ads. Moreover, promotion‐focused consumers exhibit more favorable attitudes toward competitor brands advocated by highly metaphorical ads than those advocated by low metaphorical ads, regardless of brand commitment.     

最心安处是吾乡：本体安全感威胁对家乡品牌偏好的影响

全球化进程的加快和贸易战的发生让人们处于一种本体不安全的状态中, 即人们的本体安全感受到了威胁。本文研究了消费者本体安全感威胁对家乡品牌偏好的影响。三项研究的结果表明, 相比本体安全感没有受到威胁的个体, 本体安全感受到威胁的个体对家乡品牌的偏好度更高, 其中家乡依恋起到了中介作用。具体而言, 本体安全感受到威胁的个体更倾向于依恋可以提供常规生活和构建个人身份的家乡, 以此寻求本体安全感恢复, 从而增加了对家乡品牌的偏好。实验结果还发现, 自然栖息地情境展露在本体安全感威胁对家乡品牌偏好的作用中起到调节作用。具体而言, 当展露于自然栖息地情境时, 本体安全感受到威胁的个体能够通过对自然栖息地这一更广泛的地点依恋来对抗本体安全感威胁, 不再需要寻求家乡依恋来缓解本体安全感威胁, 从而使其在对家乡品牌和非家乡品牌的偏好上不再呈现出差异。本研究的发现丰富了现有本体安全感和品牌偏好的相关研究, 为品牌提供了一种新的本土营销策略, 具有丰富的理论贡献和管理启示。     

空间距离与产品属性对消费者选择偏好的影响*

通过两个实验检验空间距离如何影响消费者选择偏好。实验一中,产品与消费者之间的空间距离不影响他们对不可匹配属性更优产品的偏好。实验二中,两种产品之间的空间距离与产品属性交互作用影响了消费者的选择偏好,使他们在两产品之间空间距离远时比近时更偏好不可匹配属性更优产品。两种不同类型的空间距离对消费者选择偏好的影响是不同的。强调两产品之间的空间距离远,会影响消费者在选择过程中对不可匹配属性的使用。     

Interference Effects of Contextual Cues in Advertisements on Memory for Ad Content

The effectiveness of advertisements has been an issue of great concern to marketers, especially with the rapid increase in the number of marketing communications that the average consumer receives every day. Prior research has examined the impact of verbal interference on consumers’ memory for different elements of the advertisement—that is, interference caused by similar verbal elements in advertisements for brands in the same product category. This study examined the impact of similar contextual or background stimuli on consumers’ memory for different elements of the advertisement. Consumers were exposed to print advertisements for products in different product categories. The similarity of contextual cues—that is, background scenes—was manipulated (similar vs. dissimilar). Using a 2 (contextual cues interference: low and high) x 2 (processing goal: ad and brand) x 3 (cues: brand name, ad photo, product class) between‐subjects design, it was found that exposure to ads with similar contextual elements reduced individuals’ ability to recall not only contextual or background elements but also brand name from a target advertisement.