Active White Space (AWS) in Logo Designs: Effects on Logo Evaluations and Brand Communication

In this article, we explore Active White Space (AWS)—the space between individual logo design elements—as a stylistic modification that revamps a logo design yet preserves its extant associations. Across three studies, we find AWS to be an effective stylistic logo tool. In Study 1, we find that adding AWS to pictorial logos improves their visual evaluation. In Study 2, we find this positive evaluation to spillover to verbal brand aspects such that logo designs with AWS are perceived to communicate brand descriptions more clearly. In Study 3, we find that logo designs with AWS benefit sophisticated brand personalities the most, followed by sincere, exciting, and competent brand personalities, with no effect on rugged brand personalities

Modeling Fuzzy Data in Qualitative Marketing Research

In marketing, qualitative data are used in theory development to investigate marketing phenomena in more depth. After qualitative data are collected, the judgment-based classification of items into categories is routinely used to summarize and communicate the information contained in the data. In this article, the authors provide marketing researchers with a method that (1) provides useful substantive information about the proportion and degree to which items belong to several categories and (2) measures the classification accuracy of the judges. The model is called the fuzzy latent class model (FLCM), because it extends Dillon and Mulani\u27s (1984) latent class model by freeing it from the restrictive assumption that all items are crisp for a given categorization. Instead, FLCM allows for items to be either crisp or fuzzy. Crisp items belong exclusively to one category, whereas fuzzy items belong—in varying degree—to multiple categories. This relaxation in the assumption about the nature of qualitative data makes FLCM more widely applicable: Qualitative data in marketing research are often fuzzy, because they involve open-ended descriptions of complex phenomena. The authors also propose a moment-based measure of overall data fuzziness that is bounded by 0 (completely crisp) and 1 (completely fuzzy)

The differential effect of ad novelty and message usefulness on brand judgments

We examine the differential effects of ad novelty and message usefulness-frequently conceptualized as the two major dimensions of ad creativity-on the following variables: attitude toward the ad, attitude toward the brand, brand trust, ad recall, and brand recall. Novelty and usefulness influence attitude toward the brand, but only usefulness influences brand trust. Both relationships are mediated by attitude toward the ad. We also investigate how novelty and usefulness influence recall by both type (brand and ad) and duration (short term and long term). We find that novelty leads to better short-term ad recall, whereas usefulness leads to better short-term and long-term brand recall. © 2011 American Academy of Advertising. All rights reserved

I See Me: The Role of Observer Imagery in Reducing Consumer Transgressions

As the number of consumer transgressions (i.e., acts of deliberately violating the established marketplace codes of conduct) continues to increase, so do their financial repercussions for companies. Though academic and managerial interest in addressing this issue is growing, research on how to dissuade consumers from committing transgressions remains scarce. Drawing on the mental imagery literature and normative moral theory, the present research examines a novel way of reducing consumers’ appraisals of their own transgressions. Whereas an actor-imagery perspective fosters a teleological, egoistic view of morality and, in turn, induces moral leniency, having consumers adopt an observer-imagery perspective fosters a deontological view of morality and, in turn, induces moral stringency. The effects are robust across various types of consumer transgressions, including the purchase of counterfeit products (Studies 1 and 3) and return fraud in the form of wardrobing (Study 2). Study 2 also rules out vividness as an alternative explanation for these effects. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed

Using the conditional grade-of-membership model to assess judgment accuracy

nominal classification, incidental parameters, extreme profiles, mixtures,