EXPRESS: Befriending the Enemy: The Effects of Observing Brand-to-Brand Praise on Consumer Evaluations and Choices

Consumers have grown increasingly skeptical of brands, leaving managers in a dire search for novel ways to connect. The authors suggest that focusing on one’s relationships with competitors is a valuable, albeit unexpected, way for brands to do so. More specifically, the present research demonstrates that praising one’s competitor—via “brand-to-brand praise”— often heightens preference for the praiser more so than other common forms of communication, such as self-promotion or benevolent information. This is because brand-to-brand praise increases perceptions of brand warmth, which leads to enhanced brand evaluations and choice. The authors support this theory with seven studies conducted in the lab, online, and in the field that feature multiple managerially-relevant outcomes, including brand attitudes, social media and advertising engagement, brand choice, and purchase behavior, in a variety of product and service contexts. The authors also identify key boundary conditions and rule alternative explanations, further elucidating the underlying mechanism and important implementation insights. This work contributes to our understanding of brand perception and warmth, providing a novel way for brands to connect to consumers by connecting with each other.

Reducing Resistance: The Impact of Nonfollowers’ and Followers’ Parasocial Relationships with Social Media Influencers on Persuasive Resistance and Advertising Effectiveness

Although social media influencers have become popular brand endorsers, previous research on this new form of advertising has neglected to analyze how the followers of these influencers are persuaded. Based on a key mechanism proposed by the entertainment overcoming resistance model, long-term parasocial relationships (PSRs) should reduce the amount of persuasive resistance in the forms of reactance and counterarguing. Consequently, the persuasive effects should be enhanced. To empirically test these assumptions, two online studies were conducted. The first experimental study (N = 151) confirmed that followers experienced stronger PSRs than did nonfollowers, which resulted in higher perceived source trustworthiness and reduced levels of both perceived freedom threat and counterarguing after exposure to a sponsored Instagram post. The second study (N = 225) further confirmed the enhanced persuasive impact of PSRs in terms of brand evaluations and behavioral intentions. The theoretical and practical implications for advertisers, consumer advocates, and future research are discussed.

Elevating Food Perceptions Through Luxury Verbal Cues: An Eye-Tracking and Electrodermal Activity Experiment

Many brands, including food brands, draw on connotations of luxury to elevate the favorability of consumer perceptions. This is often undertaken using cues in marketing communications; however, no research has examined the psychophysiological effect of luxury cues on consumer attention. Evidently, this study is the first experiment to use eye-tracking and skin conductance analysis to investigate how luxury cues in marketing communications can influence consumer perceptions of a food product. Our findings demonstrate that the use of luxury verbal cues can significantly enhance the attention to hedonic processing and elevate food brand perceptions. Specifically, consumers pay greater attention to the imagery of marketing communications when exposed to luxury verbal cues, which, in turn, enhance arousal and positive brand evaluations. Our research provides valuable theoretical and managerial implications for food brands using communications such as content marketing and advertising to build favorable brand connotations and elevate brand positioning.

Sharing consumers’ brand storytelling: influence of consumers’ storytelling on brand attitude via emotions and cognitions

Purpose Brand storytelling has been found to be an effective marketing tool. Unlike a brand story that originates from a firm, consumers’ brand storytelling is created, developed and shared by consumers. This research aims to examine whether consumers’ brand storytelling leads to increased favorable brand evaluations and compares its effects on consumer cognition and emotions, to a brand story generated by a firm. Design/methodology/approach Three experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. In Study 1, a 2 (story: consumers’ brand storytelling vs brand story by a firm) × 2 (product: coffee shop vs airline mileage programs) between-subjects design was used. Studies 2 and 3 replicated Study 1 and investigated different measurements of the constructs using different brands. Additionally, a mediation analysis was conducted. Findings The results show that consumers’ brand storytelling increases favorable brand attitudes. Consumers present deeper cognitive processing and higher experienced positive emotions when they read consumer brand storytelling as compared to a firm-created brand story, leading to a more favorable brand attitude. Originality/value There is a lack of empirical research investigating how consumers’ brand storytelling is different from brand stories created by firms, and how consumers’ brand storytelling influences brand attitudes. This study extends the literature by clarifying how consumers respond to consumers’ brand storytelling and evaluates brands by exploring the underlying mechanism for the effect of brand storytelling via consumers’ cognitions and emotions.

Webcare as a signal: exhaustive-selective webcare strategy and brand evaluation

Purpose Keeping in mind the growing significance of online reviews, management of responses to the customer reviews – webcare – is becoming important in recent times. How a firm responds to online reviews can send a signal to the readers of the reviews contributing to their brand evaluations. From a strategic perspective, a firm should decide if they should respond to all reviews or respond to only a select few reviews. This study aims to provide an understanding of how exhaustive and selective webcare influence brand evaluations. It also explores the role of review balance and review frame, which potentially act as moderators, on such influences. Design/methodology/approach Three scenario-based experiments were used to manipulate the webcare strategy (exhaustive-selective) and the potential moderators (review balance and review frame). The 910 participants of the single-stage experiments were identified using an online panel managed by UK-based Prolific Academic. Findings Exhaustive webcare is found to be the most effective strategy for influencing brand evaluations in all conditions. Also, two interesting results were found, which can have practical implications. A selective negative strategy is as effective as an exhaustive webcare in almost all cases, and a selective positive webcare is as good as not having a webcare in nearly all cases. Changes in webcare effectiveness due to the influence of review balance and review frame were established. Research limitations/implications With the review reader perspective and focus on brand management, this study may trigger enquiries into effects of webcare strategies on brand evaluations and other outcomes such as word-of-mouth. The interaction effects of the various strategies adopted together on brand evaluation and loyalty have not been explored and would be of interest to academicians and managers. Practical implications Firms need to plan a careful resource deployment while responding to the online consumer reviews as responding to a select few reviews may yield the same effects as that of exhaustive webcare. Brand managers may find responding only to positive reviews futile, as it could be as good as having no webcare. Also, the strategy of responding to reviews needs to be adapted based on the online review platform where the set in which the review is read is different. Originality/value This is one of the few studies focusing on the effects of webcare on brand evaluations from a review reader perspective as against the dominant reviewer perspective. This research also presents hitherto unexplored effects of an exhaustive-selective webcare strategy on brand evaluations.

Deal or No Deal? Online Deals, Retailer Heterogeneity, and Brand Evaluations in a Competitive Environment

Daily deal platforms, such as Groupon, peaked in the mid-2000s, by letting retailers offer 50% promotions to consumers using an app. When used right, retailers were able to get consumers to try them for the first time and build a customer base. When used wrong, retailers lost revenue unnecessarily and sometimes went out of business. Even now, in 2020, you can find lovers and haters of daily deals, and yet they remain an integral part of the marketing mix for many retailers. One lingering question about these deals remained: How do customers perceive a retailer that offers daily deals before going to the retailer? Do retailers look desperate or confident? Through a series of laboratory experiments, we test whether offering a deal changes consumers’ preconsumption brand evaluations. Our research shows that brand evaluations are contingent on the retailer type (i.e., price segment and age), the success of the current deals offered (i.e., number of page visits and purchases), and the number of competitors that are also using deals. Together, our work demonstrates specific conditions where offering deals may lead to positive or negative consumer perceptions even before arriving at the retailer.

The Impact of human vs. non-human causes on brand evaluations and purchase intentions

Introduction. Do consumers prefer to support certain types of causes more than others? Today, many brands use cause-related marketing (CRM) in their strategies as a way to connect with consumers. However, little is known if consumers prefer to support certain types of causes more than others. Extant literature on CRM has long studied the role of brand/cause fit in the effectiveness of CRM campaigns. Somewhat surprisingly, almost no research has addressed the issue of whether certain types of causes (e.g., human-related causes) are more important to the consumer than other types of causes (e.g. non-human-related campaigns). Objective. Based on the self-categorization theory this study aims to understand the role of cause category (human vs. non-human) and willingness to support, on consumers’ perceptions and behavioral intentions. Materials and methods. The methodology used in this research is experimental. Results. Cause category has a significant direct effect on people’s willingness to support. Additionally, results showed that willingness to support has a positive direct effect on both brand evaluations and purchase intentions. Conclusions. Advance in the discussion on what type of causes should companies promote, by highlighting the importance of consumer’s willingness to support as a requisite to improve brand as well as purchase intentions.