Brand personality of global chain hotels, self-congruity, and self-discrepancy on customer responses

Abstract

The current study examined the brand personality of global chain hotels and how it is related to individuals’ image congruence. It also explored what impact self-congruity has on people’s responses, namely brand attachment, intention to revisit, and intention to recommend. In addition, this study considered self-discrepancy to be a potential moderator of the image congruence effect on brand attachment. Following quantitative procedures, we successfully assessed the brand personality of four representative global hotel companies. Among five facets of brand personality, competency was the strongest facet, followed by sophistication, sincerity, excitement, and ruggedness. Competency contributes the most to Marriott, Accor, Wyndham, whereas sophistication contributes greatly to Hyatt. The results showed that brand personality affected image congruence, which was classified as actual self-image congruence, ideal self-image congruence, social image congruence, and ideal social image congruence. Ideal self-congruity and ideal social self-congruity were determinants of brand attachment, which in turn increased behavioral intentions. Furthermore, the significant effects of ideal self-image congruence and ideal social self-image congruence on brand attachment were strengthened for the group that perceived a higher level of self-discrepancy.