E-store brand personality congruence for multichannel apparel retail brands

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims at examining the role of the e-store brand personality congruence/incongruence of a multichannel apparel retailer in the formation of consumers' perceived e-store brand fit and e-store patronage intention, based on the concept of image congruence.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was conducted with a US national sample of 458 female consumers (20–50 years old) who had shopped for clothing online.FindingsResults revealed that e-store brand personality incongruence in three personality dimensions had a negative impact on consumers' e-store patronage intention directly as well as indirectly by reducing the consumers' global perception of the e-store brand fit. Further, the retailer's relevance to the consumer moderated the relationship between the perceived e-store brand fit and e-store patronage intention in that this relationship was significantly greater among consumers with a high (vs low) perceived self-relevance of the retail brand.Practical implicationsThe findings highlight the importance of symbolically integrated cross-channel brand management for multichannel apparel retailers by clearly identifying their brand personality and carefully crafting it into their e-store interface design and e-store visual merchandising to convey the brand personality.Originality/valueThis study expands the application of image congruence to the cross-channel image congruence phenomenon in multichannel retailing environments by examining the e-store brand image congruence employing both direct and indirect approaches.

Consumers’ brand personality perceptions in a digital world: A systematic literature review and research agenda

“…The congruity‐premise also extends to matching digital BP with other constructs. For instance, Chang and Kwon (2022) argued for the importance of e‐store brand personality (in)congruence as an indicator of how well the BP of the e‐store reflected the personality of the overall brand (within‐brand‐congruity). Other researchers demonstrated that congruity between a brand's personality with its advertising context, the internet media's personality (Ham & Lee, 2015), or the fit between social media influencers, their followers, and brands have positive effects on consumer responses (Lee & Eastin, 2020; von Mettenheim & Wiedmann, 2021) (between‐brands‐congruity).…”