Individual Differences in Brand Schematicity

Abstract

Brand schematicity refers to a generalized consumer predisposition to process information using brand schema. This research uses schema theory to build the theoretical groundwork for brand schematicity and reports seven studies conducted to measure, validate, and establish the nature of the construct. Studies 1 and 2 pertain to a scale developed to measure brand schematicity, Study 3 measures the construct using response times, and Study 4 situates the construct in a nomological network of associated constructs. Studies 5 and 6 test the predictive validity of the brand schematicity construct, and Study 7 uses memory clustering to provide evidence of the schematic nature of the construct that represents an inherent difference in the way consumers organize and utilize brand information. These investigations establish the validity of brand schematicity and its associated scale, as well as reveal that brand schematicity influences the role of brand concept consistency in brand extension evaluations, suggesting the possible moderating role of the construct in a wide variety of brand-related relationships. (print), 1547-7193 (electronic) 115Despite extensive research into the role of branding and its impact on the consumer-brand relationship (Aaker and for a review, see Keller and Lehmann 2006), the epistemology of this relationship is limited, in that it implies that all consumers react similarly to firms' branding activities. The intriguing possibility that consumers differ inherently in the way they interact with brands has received scant attention. In this study, we attempt to fill that gap by suggesting that consumers differ in terms of how they attend to, organize, and use brand information, such that some consumers are brand schematic, whereas others are brand aschematic.Just as some people can be race (Levy 2000) or gender (Bem 1981) schematic, we suggest that some consumers are brand schematic and are predisposed to process information according to brand schema. This definition differs from a traditional conceptualization of brand schema as the web of associations around a specific brand (Braun 1999). Instead, we note how consumers organize and use information in general. As a generalized propensity, brand schematicity is not an inclination toward any particular brand(s) but rather is a representation of the consumer's information-processing approach. Thus, a brand-schematic consumer likely processes information pertaining to any product according to its brand information, whereas brand-aschematic consumers use other information instead (e.g., attributes). A story schema helps readers interpret fairy tales (Rumelhart 1975); similarly, a brand schema can help consumers make sense of a consumption setting. Thus, a schematic processor can encode schema-relevant information quickly, organize information along schema-relevant categories, make highly differentiated assessments according to schemarelevant dimensions, and spontaneously discriminate across such dimensions (Bem 1981). In the context of brands, we posit...

Tourist post-visit attitude towards products associated with the destination country

“…This theory has been widely applied in branding and consumer research (e.g. Kelting & Rice, 2013;Puligadda, Ross Jr, & Grewal, 2012;Swoboda, Berg, & Schramm-Klein, 2013) however, it has not been sufficiently utilised by tourism researchers.…”

“…Activation of nodes of tourism experience helps consumers to 7 form attitudes toward the product, service, or brand associated with the country visited (Boush & Loken, 1991). Specifically, the activation of product, service and brand nodes triggers the activation of the country node and tourism experience node, through associative network linkages, and vice versa (Anderson, 1983;Puligadda et al, 2012). In other words, the linkages are bi-directional.…”

Mental representation of brands: a schema-based approach to consumers’ organization of market knowledge

“…Just as a child develops and begins to interact with external stimuli to learn the attributes and the meaning of social phenomena, consumers are exposed to a plethora of market stimuli through the process of consumer socialization (Puligadda et al, 2012).…”

“…Depending on the situation, a stimulus may activate any or all types of schemata that, in turn, may influence responses to a smaller or a larger extent. The brand schema seems to have a central role in consumers' knowledge structures (Keller, 1993;Kim et al, 2006;Puligadda et al, 2012). It mediates product and ad schemata and incorporates the most important information for decisionmaking (Brannon and Brock, 2006;Hoyer and MacInnis, 2008;Low and Lamb, 2000;Sjödin and Törn, 2006).…”

Consumers' Use of Country-of-Manufacture Information? Norway and the United States: Ethnocentric, Economic, and Cultural Differences

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