Focal Brand Research Articles

Triggering and tempering brand advocacy by frontline employees: vendor and customer-related influences

PurposeLawler (2001) posits that social exchanges create a sense of shared responsibility for outcome success. The purpose of this study is to apply this framework to the vendor/frontline employee/customer triad to examine the underlying role of emotions in how frontline employees’ evaluations of vendors and customers trigger and temper brand advocacy efforts, respectively.Design/methodology/approachWith cross-sectional data from 168 frontline employees working at a leading national retailer of electronic goods, path analysis is used to evaluate the hypotheses.FindingsFrontline employees’ relationship quality with the vendor and perceptions of vendors’ product quality positively influence brand advocacy. Also, customers’ brand affinity and recommendation preference both demonstrate a significant, negative curvilinear relationship with brand advocacy.Research limitations/implicationsFrontline employees’ emotion-laden evaluations of vendors and customer influence brand advocacy in different ways. Vendor relationship quality and brand quality perceptions “trigger” brand advocacy. However, customer’s affinity toward a vendor’s brand and willingness to seek recommendations “temper” brand advocacy. Specifically, brand advocacy effort is low when customers possess very low and very high affinity toward a focal brand – moderate affinity spurs high advocacy; likewise, advocacy is low when customers demonstrate very low and very high interest in seeking the frontline employees’ opinion – moderate interest spurs high advocacy. Although ideal to examine vendor and customer emotional exchanges, using only frontline employee data from a technology-selling retailer may constrain generalizability.Practical implicationsFrontline employee training programs should emphasize the customer’s role in the transaction to increase perceptions of shared responsibility, as a means to create a favorable emotional experience, and accentuate timing strategies on when to pursue heightened or diminished emotionally charged brand advocacy efforts.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the frontline employee behavior literature by viewing shared responsibility in transactions as a source of emotional value, explaining variance in frontline employee brand advocacy through relationship and product quality dimensions, and uncovering curvilinear effects for customers’ brand affinity and recommendation preference in elucidating brand advocacy.

Cause marketing and customer profitability

This research marks the first attempt to investigate the cause marketing–customer profitability relationship, and to assess whether features can moderate the influence of cause marketing (CM) on customer profitability for a focal brand and its main rival. We obtain a panel dataset on 7257 customers to evaluate the Yoplait–Susan G. Komen partnership. On a propensity score matched sample, we estimate a multilevel model and find that Yoplait’s CM initiative positively influences Yoplait’s customer profitability (2.70%), along with a deleterious effect on Dannon’s customer profitability (−13.31%). These findings are theoretically meaningful and pragmatically useful as they: (1) provide behavioral evidence of CM’s profit impact, (2) establish CM as an “offensive” strategy that cultivates the rival’s customers, (3) suggest features can amplify the effect of CM on the focal brand’s customer profitability, and (4) support that managers can add CM to their strategic marketing arsenal as an instrument to strengthen brand equity.

Asymmetric Persuasive Effects of Gain- and Loss-related Messages in Electronic Word of Mouth

This study examines the aggregate effect of electronic word mouth (eWOM) communications containing multiple messages of different type on brand attitude. It focuses on the moderating role of individuals’ regulatory focus and message proportion in influencing the extent to which consumers respond to gain- and loss-related messages. We develop some hypotheses regarding the interplay between the constructs, and test them through two web-based experimental studies on online product reviews. In study 1, we examine the persuasiveness of four different reviews composed of several combinations of gain- and loss-related messages. In study 2, we modify the proportion of positive and negative messages to examine how the impact of eWOM is affected by disproportionate message structure. The results reveal that different combinations of message types lead to different evaluation of the focal brand. Furthermore, subjects with different regulatory focus exhibit different attitudes toward the focal brand when exposed to the same message combination. In addition, the moderating effects of regulatory focus appear to be altered by eWOM message proportion. Theoretical and managerial implications of this study are discussed.

Engagement valence duality and spillover effects in online brand communities

PurposeOnline brand communities (OBCs) are an effective avenue for brands to engage consumers. While engaging with the brand, consumers simultaneously interact with other OBC members; thus engaging with multiple, interrelated engagement objects concurrently. The purpose of this paper is to explore both positively and negatively valenced consumer engagement with multiple engagement objects, the interplay between these, and the spillover effect from consumers’ engagement with the OBC to their engagement with the brand.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on 16 in-depth interviews with OBC members of a luxury accessory brand, a constant comparative method was adopted using axial and selective coding procedures. The objective was to understand the nature of participants’ engagement with the brand, the OBC, and the interplay between individuals’ engagement with these objects. The coding framework and resultant interpretive frameworks address engagement valence, outcomes, and direction.FindingsThis study illustrates consumer expressions of consumers’ positively and negatively valenced engagement with a focal brand, and with the OBC. Further, it demonstrates the interplay (spillover effect) that occurs between consumers’ engagement with the OBC, to their engagement with the brand. While the existence of positively valenced engagement with the OBC was found to further enhance consumer brand engagement (i.e. reflecting an engagement accumulation effect), negatively valenced engagement with the OBC was found to reduce consumer brand engagement (i.e. reflecting an engagement detraction effect).Originality/valueWhile consumer engagement has been recognized to have both positive and negative manifestations, this study demonstrates that consumers’ engagement valence may differ across interrelated engagement objects (i.e. the brand and the OBC). Further, we demonstrate the existence of engagement spillover effects from the OBC to the brand for both positively and negatively valenced engagement.

The Impact of Brand Equity Drivers on Consumer-based Brand Equity in the Sport Service Setting

The importance of brand equity to a firm has been well documented by previous literature. Brands with high equity allow a firm to charge a premium price as well as garner a larger market share in relation to competitors (Simon & Sullivan, 1993). From the consumer’s perspective, previous research has failed to explain precisely how consumers perceive and become loyal to specific brands. Therefore, this study constructed and tested a consumer-based brand equity model based on Keller’s (2003a) brand equity pyramid that explains how consumer perceptions influence brand resonance. Data were collected from a general consumer sample (n = 787) in a mid-sized southeastern community in order to validate the consumer-based brand equity model. The results from an examination of the structural model confirmed a significant relationship between brand awareness and brand associations as posited by previous research. Brand associations were found to have a significant impact on a consumer’s cognitive evaluation (brand superiority) and affective response (brand affect) to a focal brand in the service realm. Further, this study highlighted the important role that emotions play in the process of building strong brand equity. Cumulatively, these findings revealed that two attitudinal constructs (brand superiority and brand affect) played a differential role in the brand association-brand resonance relationship in the services context.

Social media advertising in a competitive market

PurposePrevious literature has discussed the importance of two types of social media exposures: owned social media (OSM) exposures generated by service providers and earned social media (ESM) exposures initiated by consumers. This study aims to examine the relative effects of owned and ESM exposures on brand purchase, as well as their advertising externality to competing brands. Rooted in theory of planned behavior and advertising externality literature, this study hypothesizes that owned and ESM exposures positively influence brand purchase. Such effects, however, can spill over to competing brands that invest in social media marketing and co-exist in the market.Design/methodology/approachThis study collects brand purchase records and social media messages on the Facebook brand pages of a group of service providers over 12 months. The data are assembled for time series analysis with the unit of analysis being “brand × bi-week”.FindingsUsing a blend of fixed-effects models and seemingly unrelated regressions, this study finds that both owned and ESM exposures positively affect brand purchase, the purchase effect of OSM exposures is greater than ESM exposures, OSM exposures generate not only more purchase of the focal brand but also positive advertising externality to competing brands, whereas ESM exposures locks up the advertising effect to the focal brand without spilling over to competing brands.Originality/valueThis study advances the understanding about the externality of social media exposures in an increasingly competitive market where multiple brands invest in social media marketing and co-exist. Important implications on the strategic use of social media exposures to drive brand purchase while competing with similar brands are provided.

Can Retail Sales Volatility be Curbed Through Marketing Actions?

For many years, marketing managers have used dynamic sales response models to compute expected sales conditional on the available information. These models fail to recognize that the volatility (conditional variance) of sales can vary over time. Moreover, the covolatilities (conditional covariances) between sales and marketing-mix variables can be time varying. Both concepts introduce a new range of strategic and tactical considerations for product and brand managers. Using a multivariate volatility model, we investigate the covolatility of sales and the marketing mix of a focal brand and competing brands in the market. We also examine carryover effects from a volatility perspective. The methodology is applied to six product categories sold by Dominick’s Finer Foods. The results reveal valuable implications for marketing managers. Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2016.1013 .

Effect of Adjacent Product Price on Customer’s Willingness to Pay of Focal Brand: A Bayesian Approach

Psychological researchers, while studying internal reference price, have dealt with different types of psychological effects like attraction effect and compromise effect. While studying consumer reference price and willingness to pay, marketing researchers have focused on consumers’ perception about a brand by evaluating several attributes of that brand. Our research investigates the incremental effect on consumers’ willingness to pay in a context where an adjacent price is present, for instance, when a medium priced brand is associated with a high price brand than a moderately high priced brand. Unlike other pricing research, this research deals with consumer’s individual level heterogeneity as price sensitivity and consumers’ willingness to pay for a particular brand since they vary among individual. Hierarchical Bayes methodology is used to incorporate such heterogeneity. The study shows significant difference in consumers’ utility and her willingness to pay when a medium priced brand is compared with a high priced brand as against a moderately high priced brand.

Does Offline TV Advertising Affect Online Chatter? Quasi-Experimental Analysis Using Synthetic Control

This study analyzes the impact of offline television advertising on multiple metrics of online chatter or User-Generated Content (UGC). The context is a quasi-experiment in which a focal brand undertakes a massive advertising campaign for a short period of time. The authors estimate multiple dimensions of chatter (popularity, negativity, visibility and virality) from numerous raw metrics using the content and the hyperlink structure of consumer reviews and blogs. The authors use the method of Synthetic Control to construct a counterfactual (synthetic) brand as a convex combination of the rivals during the preadvertising period. The gap in the dimensions of chatter between the focal brand and the synthetic brand in the test versus advertising periods assesses the influence of advertising. Offline TV advertising causes a short but significant positive effect on online chatter. This effect is stronger on information-spread dimensions (visibility and virality) than on content-based dimensions (popularity and negativity). Importantly, advertising has a small short-term effect in decreasing negativity in online chatter.

Does Offline TV Advertising Affect Online Chatter? Quasi-Experimental Analysis Using Synthetic Control

This study analyzes the impact of offline television advertising on multiple metrics of online chatter or user-generated content. The context is a quasi experiment in which a focal brand undertakes a massive advertising campaign for a short period of time. The authors estimate multiple dimensions of chatter (popularity, negativity, visibility, and virality) from numerous raw metrics using the content and the hyperlink structure of consumer reviews and blogs. The authors use the method of synthetic control to construct a counterfactual (synthetic) brand as a convex combination of the rivals during the preadvertising period. The gap in the dimensions of chatter between the focal brand and the synthetic brand in the test versus advertising periods assesses the influence of advertising. Offline television advertising causes a short but significant positive effect on online chatter. This effect is stronger on information-spread dimensions (visibility and virality) than on content-based dimensions (popularity and negativity). Importantly, advertising has a small short-term effect in decreasing negativity in online chatter. Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2017.1040

Measuring the Lifetime Value of a Customer in the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry

In this study, the authors propose a flexible framework to assess customer lifetime value (CLV) in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) context. They address the substantive and modeling challenges that arise in this setting, namely, (1) multiple discreteness, (2) brand switching, and (3) budget-constrained consumption. Using a Bayesian estimation, the authors are also able to infer the consumer's latent budgetary constraint using only transaction information, thus enabling managers to understand the customer's budgetary constraint without having to survey or depend on aggregate measures of budget constraints. Using the proposed framework, CPG manufacturers can assess CLV at the focal brand level as well as at the category level, a departure from CLV literature, which has mostly been firm centric. The authors implement the proposed model on panel data in the carbonated beverages category and showcase the benefits of the proposed model over simpler heuristics and conventional CLV approaches. Finally, they conduct two policy simulations describing the role of the budget constraint on CLV, as well as the asymmetric effects of pricing in this setting, and develop managerial insights in this context.

Brand schematicity moderates the effect of aesthetic brands on brand accessories purchase intentions

We empirically tested the relationship between aesthetic brands and evaluation of their accessories, and also explored the moderating roles of functional complementarity and brand schematicity on this relationship. Participants were 260 undergraduate students in Korea, who took part in an online experiment. Results showed that there were statistically significant differences in the evaluation of accessory products depending on the level of functional complementarity to the focal brand. Participants were significantly more likely to purchase an accessory of a high, compared to low, aesthetic brand when functional complementarity was moderate. Further, brand-schematic, compared to brand-aschematic, participants were more likely to purchase an accessory of high aesthetic brands, even when the functional complementarity was low. This demonstrates that when brand-aschematic participants acquired an aesthetically pleasing brand, they were motivated to buy additional accessories. Marketers may use our findings to develop strategies to increase the extendability of brand accessories.

The impact of brand evangelism on oppositional referrals towards a rival brand

PurposeThis study aims to build on the notion of brand evangelism developed by Becerra and Badrinarayanan (2013) by examining how brand relationship variables regarding one brand (i.e. brand loyalty, brand community identification and self-brand connection) influence oppositional referrals to a rival brand (i.e. desire to harm and trash-talking) in the high definition (HD) videogame console industry.Design/methodology/approachA survey of online communities devoted to video gaming was conducted using a sample of 809 respondents, all owners of either a PlayStation or an Xbox.FindingsThe results show that the desire to harm the rival brand is strongly and positively associated to participation in trash-talking. Brand loyalty is connected to both dimensions of oppositional brand referrals. Consumers’ connection with the brand affects trash-talking only indirectly through the desire to harm. No association is found between identification with the brand community and oppositional brand referrals.Originality/valueThis study is the first to demonstrate the mechanism linking brand relationship variables regarding a focal brand with consumers’ disparagement of a rival brand, showing that a desire to harm plays a central role. Just as the desire for retaliation drives negative word-of-mouth in the context of an unsatisfactory experience with a brand (Grégoire and Fisher, 2006), the desire to harm drives trash-talking against a rival brand by brand evangelists. This study improves our understanding of the relationships consumers build with their preferred brands and how this relationship may influence their rejection of competing brands with which they do not have direct experience.

Relationship type, perceived trust, and ambiguity aversion

Ambiguity averse suggests consumers to prefer risky options over ambiguous ones. In this study, the authors propose that consumer–brand relationship types influence consumers’ ambiguity aversion. Specifically, compared with consumers in exchange relationships with the focal brand, consumers in communal relationships are more likely to trust the focal brand and thereby be less averse to ambiguity. These proposals were tested in two experiments. In experiment 1, participants in communal relationships showed less ambiguity aversion than those in exchange relationships. In experiment 2, participants in communal relationships had higher perceived trust with the focal brand than the participants in exchange relationships, and they showed less dislike for tensile promotions. Experiment 2 also tested for and confirmed the mediating effect of perceived trust. This study concludes with a discussion of the theoretical contributions and practical implications of the results.

An examination of relative satisfaction and share of wallet: investigating the impact of country and customer characteristics

Purpose Absolute satisfaction ratings are widely used, but demonstrate a poor link to share of wallet, in part because this relationship is mediated and/or moderated by customer characteristics (including total spend in the category) and heterogeneity of scale usage. Relative satisfaction metrics, such as the Wallet Allocation Rule, have been shown to produce a much stronger link to share of wallet than absolute monadic ratings. This study compares absolute and relative satisfaction models after controlling for these mediating and moderating factors and re-examines the impact of these factors when using relative, rather than absolute metrics. Design/methodology/approach 3,793 satisfaction ratings by 1,172 unique grocery customers across 5 countries (US, Brazil, Chile, France & Germany) are used to evaluate the mediating and moderating impacts of scale usage and customer characteristics on the relationship between satisfaction and share of wallet. Findings Relative metrics continue to significantly outperform absolute metrics after controlling for these factors. With the exception of the moderating influence of income, effects of customer characteristics and country differences are insignificant when linking relative satisfaction to share of wallet. Practical implications Managers need to re-evaluate their satisfaction measurement strategy in order to establish a strong link to actual behavior. While calculating relative satisfaction requires managers to collect data on competitors as well as the focal brand, this need for additional information is mitigated by a trade-off in terms of mediating and moderating information that is essential to properly model absolute metrics, but is not needed when using relative measures. Originality/value Provides a significant contribution to both retail literature and scientific literature in general by examining the robustness of a relative metrics approach within the grocery retail sector across a disparate collection of countries.

Corporate brand effects in brand alliances

Published literature demonstrates that when a single well-known reputable brand is allied with a previously unknown focal brand, perceived quality evaluations of the latter will be more positive. Whether or not the corporate brand improves consumer evaluations of a cobranded product is a topic of interest to marketers. This is true because marketing managers must make decisions regarding investments in building both their corporate and product brands. The authors propose and empirically verify that the corporate brand's role as a parent of its product brands helps determine the extent of the corporate brand's influence on the consumer's evaluation of the focal brand in a brand alliance. Specifically, the corporate brand will be more diagnostic for customer evaluations of a cobranded product when its brand portfolio is more consistent in terms of the customer's attitude toward the brands that comprise the portfolio.

Taming the Blame Game: Using Promotion Programs to Counter Product-Harm Crises

The present research examines how different kinds of promotion programs (i.e., price discount versus donation promotion) buffer brands from the ill effects of product-harm crises. Drawing on attribution theory, the authors investigate the differential effects of promotion programs on consumer responses following ambiguous product-harm crises. These effects are moderated by promotion depth (i.e., the monetary value of a promotion) and brand reputation. Results show that for low-depth promotions, donation is more effective than price discount when the product-harm crisis involves moderately reputable brands. Importantly, the authors identify blame attribution as the mediating mechanism accounting for the interaction effects. When the locus of causality is external to the focal brand, the interaction effects of promotion programs and brand reputation disappear.

Suppliers Caught in Supermarket Price Wars: Victims or Victors? Insights from a Dutch Price War

During retailer-initiated price wars (PWs), hundreds of brands are involved simultaneously, affecting brands’ and retailers’ positioning and ultimately making the performance outcome for individual brands difficult to predict. Likewise, the impact on brand performance after the PW, when prices are restored, is unclear. The authors use a natural-experiment approach to track brand sales and shares before, during, and after a long-lasting supermarket PW in the Dutch grocery market. They find that PWs are not truly revenue, sales, or share generators for most brands unless prices remain reduced permanently by the retailer. Only after the PW, when rivals’ prices are restored and the focal brand's reduced retail price is maintained, can substantial sales, revenues, and share gains be realized. Moreover, restoring prices without additional price promotion support can severely damage brands’ performance. Overall, national brands can gain share, sales, and revenue, but at the cost of not restoring regular prices, while private labels can benefit even when prices are restored after the PW ends.

Online customer engagement

Purpose – The emergence and success of online brand communities in the marketplace have attracted considerable interest; this study seeks to determine the conditions in which people create social environments by investigating the drivers of connections to a focal online brand community and other brand communities. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the composition of multi-community networks, focussing on the density and centrality of brand communities. Design/methodology/approach – On the basis of insights from prior literature, the proposed model examines customers’ social relationships with multiple brand communities. A survey of 290 participants spans eight brand communities. The modeling process used structural equation modeling; the analysis of the social relationship among brand communities relied on an ego network approach. Findings – Two drivers prompt connections to other online brand communities. First, personal identification with a core brand community enhances connections to other communities. Second, some core brand members choose a functionality-driven approach in creating social environments. Practical implications – For marketers, this study highlights the importance of positioning the brand community as part of a social environment. To strengthen customer-brand relationships, marketers should focus on community members’ multiple memberships. Originality/value – This paper extends understanding of online brand community members’ motivations to participate in a focal brand community. It also explains the creation of a social environment, through a careful consideration of participation in different brand communities and their relationships.

Does Online Learning Work in Retail?

A retail customer seeking to buy a product often needs to decide which of several versions of a product type best meets her needs. A knowledgeable retail sales associate (SA) can explain the features of the available product variants and give the customer sufficient confidence in her choice that she becomes willing to purchase. It is thus plausible that increasing SA knowledge will increase sales. Given that training is not costless, an important question is whether training increases SA productivity, and if so, whether the increase is enough to justify the cost of training. To answer these questions, we partnered with Experticity, a firm that provides online training modules for retail SAs, and Dillard’s, a leading department store chain whose more than 50,000 SAs had access to the Experticity modules. We assembled a data set of the training history and sales productivity of Dillard’s associates over a two-year period. We found that as SAs engaged in training over time, their sales rate increased by 1.8 percent for every module taken. We also found that willingness to engage in voluntary training was an indicator of raw talent; those SA who engaged in training were 20 percent more productive prior to any training, and 46 percent more productive after training, than those who took no training. Surprisingly, brand-specific training does not significantly affect sales of the focal brand but instead improves overall sales of all brands. Our evidence of successful online learning is also of general interest given that, to date, analysis of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has shown poor engagement by participants and questionable outcomes.