Essays In Branding: A Look At Brands Through The Consumers' Eyes
Open Access
- Author:
- Subba Rao, Puligadda Sanjay
- Graduate Program:
- Business Administration
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 23, 2007
- Committee Members:
- William T Ross, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Rajdeep Grewal, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Johann Baumgartner, Committee Member
Naomi S Altman, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Consumer
Brands - Abstract:
- Investigating a perceptual process in the first essay and evaluative processes in the second essay, this research examines the consumer-brand relationship from a dual perspective (inside-out and outside-in), showing how individual differences in consumers influence how they perceive and evaluate incoming brand information. In essay 1, it is argued that due to the unique nature of brand as an attribute, variety in brand influences perceived variety contingent on regulatory focus and the degree of brand differentiation. Experimentally studying assortments of ice cream, potato chips and yogurt, it is shown that a) flavor is a stronger determinant of perceived variety than brand and b) the role of brand as a determinant of perceived variety is contingent on the degree of brand differentiation in the category and the regulatory focus of the perceiver. In essay 2, brand centricity is defined as a generalized predisposition of the consumer to center or focus on brands. Developing the theoretical background for the construct and a scale to measure it, this essay shows that a) brand-centric consumers assign higher weight to brand information as opposed to item specific attribute information while evaluating products, and b) brand centricity influences the evaluation of brand extensions such that brand-centric consumers assign i) a higher weight to brand concept consistency than non brand-centric consumers and ii) a higher weight to brand concept consistency than product feature similarity while evaluating brand extensions.