How mortality salience hurts brands with different personalities

Abstract

From deadly disease outbreaks to crimes and terrorism, consumers often experience mortality salience (MS). This research examines how MS-inducing events impact brand evaluations. We propose that under MS, consumers avoid experiencing change. Because consumers perceive brands with an exciting personality to be more closely associated with the notion of change than brands with other types of personality, the onset of MS is more likely to hurt the evaluations of exciting brands than those of other brands. Study 1, a large-scale secondary data study, showed that the 9/11 terror attacks degraded consumers’ evaluations of exciting brands but not of other types of brands. Subsequent studies demonstrated causality and the underlying mechanism. In Study 2, experimentally inducing MS decreased evaluations of an exciting brand but not of a control brand. Using a process-by-moderation approach, Study 3 showed that manipulating consumers’ perception of the extent to which an exciting brand was associated with the notion of change moderated the negative impact of MS on brand evaluations. Studies 4a-4b demonstrated that consumers’ tendency to avoid experiencing change mediated the detrimental effect of MS on the evaluations of an exciting brand but not of a control brand. These findings add to the literature on branding and offer practical insights for brand management during crises.