Global brands are faced with the challenge of conveying concepts that not only are consistent across borders but also resonate with consumers of different cultures. Building on prior research indicating that abstract brand concepts induce more favorable consumer responses than functional attributes, the authors introduce a generalizable and robust structure of abstract brand concepts as representations of human values. Using three empirical studies conducted with respondents from eight countries, they demonstrate that this proposed structure is particularly useful for predicting (1) brand meanings that are compatible (vs. incompatible) with each other and, consequently, more (less) favorably accepted by consumers when added to an already established brand concept; (2) brand concepts that are more likely to resonate with consumers with differing cultural orientations; and (3) consumers' responses to attempts to imbue an established brand concept with new, (in)compatible abstract meanings as a function of their own cultural orientations.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the relative importance of four main attributes of food products for consumer’s choice. These are price, taste, environmental friendliness and healthfulness, tested across hedonic and utilitarian food products (milk and ice-cream). The weighting of attributes involved in food choices is a complex phenomenon, as consumers must consider contradictory requirements when making their choices. Consumers’ decision-making processes might also be influenced by food category. Some food products are mostly consumed for pleasure, whereas others are consumed because of their nutritional value. Design/methodology/approach – The study employs a choice-based conjoint technique, which addresses how consumers make trade-offs across a set of product attributes. Findings – The results indicate that price and taste attributes are rated as the most important for both hedonic and utilitarian food products. However, when the authors group consumers according to their product preferences, the relative importance of product attributes changes. Specifically, the importance of environmental friendliness and healthfulness is much higher among the health-conscious and environmentally conscious segments than for other segments. Originality/value – To the knowledge, this is the first study comparing the importance of this combination of product attributes (price, taste, calorie content and eco-label) across hedonic and utilitarian foods in a choice-based conjoint setting. Moreover, a new way of grouping consumers according to their ethical-value profiles enables the authors to create a psychographic description of these segments, and to relate it to their food attribute preferences.

Brand personality (human-like characteristics of a brand) has been a popular topic in the marketing literature for over 50 years. However, there is a lack of consumer-focused studies investigating what factors shape perceptions of brand personality. To address this gap, the purpose of the current study is to understand how consumers form their perceptions of the different dimensions of brand personality identified in Aaker's scale (sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness), and what product or brand characteristics influence these perceptions. Sixty-six interviews were conducted with graduate students, who were asked to discuss which brands reflected the specific dimensions of brand personality in Aaker's scale. As a result, we identify the kinds of brands consumers perceive as typical for each personality dimension, discover their common characteristics and explain the reasons why some brands are strongly associated with a particular dimension and some are not. Our findings indicate that specific brand personality dimensions are associated with particular product categories. However, brands mentioned as strong on respective personality dimensions share commonalities beyond just a product category. For instance, sincere brands share family-related associations and high morals, exciting brands offer consumers the opportunity to experience exciting feelings and are related to special 'exciting' occasions, competent brands are mostly associated with expertise and quality, sophisticated brands are usually of feminine nature, whereas rugged brands are of masculine nature. Moreover, we find that brands which consumers perceive as lacking on a particular personality dimension also share common attributes.

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Purpose -The purpose of the current research paper is to uncover the relations between brand and human personality by identifying brand preferences of consumers with different personality types. Originality/value -The paper fills out a gap in the literature about the congruence between brand and human personalities, and demonstrates how brand personality dimensions impacts brand preference among different consumer types.