The Role of Expectations in Set Size Evaluations

This research explores whether set-size judgments are assimilated or contrasted with set-size expectations. Participants were told to expect either a limited or extensive set of products, and then faced a limited, moderate, or extensive choice set. Expectations had little effect for the limited or extensive sets, yet significantly modified reactions to the more ambiguous moderate set. Those expecting a sparse set exhibited contrast and viewed the moderate set as highly complete, and overwhelming, with a low choice confidence. Participants expecting an extensive set also exhibited contrast, viewing the moderate set as incomplete and restricted, while expressing high choice confidence

Image, brand and price info: do they always matter the same?

We study attention processes to brand, price and visual information about products in online retailing websites, simultaneously considering the effects of consumers’ goals, purchase category and consumers’ statements. We use an intra-subject experimental design, simulated web stores and a combination of observational eye-tracking data and declarative measures. Image information about the product is the more important stimulus, regardless of the task at hand or the store involved. The roles of brand and price information are dependent on the product category and the purchase task involved. Declarative measures of relative brand importance are found to be positively related with its observed importance

Unconscious Thinking, Feeling and Behavior Towards Products and Brands: Introduction to a Journal of Brand Management Special Issue

This introduction reviews the motivating forces behind this issue, exploring the role of nonconscious consumer behavior in branding environments. The article establishes a foundation of unconscious research in psychology and consumer behavior, and then provides an introduction to the four articles that follow. The article concludes with a call to adopt an inclusive interpretive-positivistic stance to the study of unconscious consumer-brand behavior, attitudes and beliefs

Media Multitasking and Visual Attention: Switch Triggers in Context and Content

College, USA As media multitasking becomes dominant, the need to explore the process of splitting attention across media grows. Through video recordings and eye-tracking methods, the current work establishes switching rates in simultaneous TV and computer use, explores effects of media multitasking on memory, and outlines triggers that encourage or discourage switching

When good brands do bad

University and the Harvard Business School. The authors would like to thank the three reviewers, the Associate Editor, and David Mick as well as the individuals who helped make the experiment possible, Nina Echeverria, Paul Rodhe, Patrick Tower, Melissa Valentine, and most importantly Ravi Pillai for his remarkable support. 3 This paper reports results from a longitudinal field experiment examining the evolution of relationships between consumers and an on-line photography brand in response to brand personality and transgression manipulations. Development patterns differed significantly for the two personalities, whereby relationships with sincere brands deepened over time in line with friendship templates, and relationships with exciting brands evinced a trajectory characteristic of short-lived flings. However, these patterns held only when the relationship proceeded without a brand transgression. Relationships with sincere brands suffered dramatically and irrevocably in the wake of transgressions but, surprisingly, showed signs of reinvigoration for exciting brands. Character inferences concerning the quality of the brand as a relationship partner mediated the results. Findings suggest a dynamic construal of brand personality, greater attention to interrupt events including transgressions, and consideration of the relationship contracts formed at the hand

When Good Brands Do Bad

This article reports results from a longitudinal field experiment examining the evolution of consumer-brand relationships. Development patterns differed, whereby relationships with sincere brands deepened over time in line with friendship templates, and relationships with exciting brands evinced a trajectory characteristic of short-lived flings. These patterns held only when the relationship proceededwithout a transgression. Relationships with sincere brands suffered in the wake of transgressions, whereas relationships with exciting brands surprisingly showed signs of reinvigoration after such transgressions. Inferences concerning the brand’s partner quality mediated the results. Findings suggest a dynamic construal of brand personality, greater attention to interrupt events, and consideration of the relationship contracts formed at the hands of different brands

Components of visual perception in marketing contexts: a conceptual framework and review

Visual perception is essential to marketing practice and theory. Based on literature in marketing and related fields, this article develops a conceptual framework comprising five main components of visual perception: illuminance, shape, surface color, materiality, and location. Additionally, a systematic review of related visual perception research within marketing over the past five decades engenders takeaways of theoretical and practical importance, and an analysis of gaps in the literature reveals promising avenues for future research. The material presented includes coherent definitions, illustrative infographics, and accessible tables