Executive Summary
It is currently assumed that all consumers react similarly to firms’ branding activities. However, the consumer, with his or her unique biases and traits, is as much of a cocreator of the consumer–brand relationship as the marketer. This research shows that consumers differ inherently in the way they interact with brands. Brand schematicity is a generalized consumer predisposition to process information using brand schema. It is not an inclination toward any particular brand or brands; rather, it is a representation of the consumer’s information processing approach. Brand-schematic consumers are more receptive to brand information, perceive brands as more important, and etch brand images more clearly in their memory. In contrast, for a perfectly brand-aschematic consumer, brands are merely labels on products. Therefore, brand information is more diagnostic for brand-schematic consumers, resulting in a general preoccupation with brands.
Because this individual difference leads to differential consumer responses to marketing efforts, brand managers should customize their efforts to maximize their effectiveness. For example, brand-schematic consumers are influenced by advertising that touts brand rather than attribute information, whereas brand-aschematic consumers are convinced more by product attribute–oriented messaging. Segmentation based on brand schematicity could enable targeted brand image and product advertising. It would be possible, using the scale developed in the current research, to determine specific media consumption patterns, including not just media vehicles (e.g., television, print, Internet) but also the specific content (e.g., sitcoms versus sports-based content) that consumers with different levels of brand schematicity are likely to consume; such segmentation would help marketers identify and target communications to brand-schematic versus -aschematic consumers.
Brand schematicity is an outcome of consumer socialization and the ubiquitous influence of brands in today’s world. Marketers strive to centralize all associations of their products around the brand (and would prefer that all consumers are brand schematic). Their efforts, in turn, are reinforced by experts, popular culture, and stories shared by consumers, which create not only a set of brand-related associations but also knowledge that differences among brands are critically important. The more society uses brands as heuristics and bases its judgments on them, the more important they become in consumers’ minds.
This research reports seven studies conducted to measure, validate, and establish the nature of the construct. The first two studies develop a scale to measure brand schematicity, Study 3 measures the construct using response times, Study 4 situates the construct in a nomological network of associated constructs, Studies 5 and 6 test its predictive validity, and Study 7 uses memory clustering to provide evidence that brand schematics do have memory structures organized around brand information.
Biography
Sanjay Puligadda is Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Farmer School of Business, Miami University of Ohio. He received his BA in Economics from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University, Delhi India, his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, India, and his PhD in Marketing from the Smeal School of Business, Pennsylvania State University. After completing his MBA, he worked for three years as area sales manager in ITC Agrotech Ltd and for two years as account planner in DraftFCB-Ulka before commencing his PhD. His research focuses on the consumer–brand relationship and he has published, or has forthcoming articles, in leading journals in his field including Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Psychology, and Journal of Brand Management. The current article was one of his dissertation essays during his PhD.
William T. Ross Jr. is the ING Global Chair and Professor of Marketing at the School of Business of the University of Connecticut. He has previously served on the faculty at Wharton, Temple, and Penn State. He earned his BA in history from Wake Forest University, completed one year of an MBA at The Wharton School, and earned his PhD in Business from Duke University. His research specializes in the areas of channel and brand management, ethical decision making, and buyer decision making. His publications have been published in, among others, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, and Management Science. Over his career, he has taught at the undergraduate, MBA, eMBA, and doctoral levels, including courses in consumer behavior, sales force management, business-to-business marketing, marketing management, marketing strategy, retailing, business ethics, and channels of distribution.
Rajdeep Grewal (PhD 1998 – University of Cincinnati) is Irving & Irene Bard Professor of Marketing at the Smeal College of Business at the Pennsylvania State University. He is also the Associate Research Director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets at the Smeal College of Business at the Pennsylvania State University. He has received several awards for his research. He was named in 2003 in the Marketing Science Institute’s Young Scholars (people who earned PhDs after 1995 selected on the basis of research productivity in top tier marketing journals). He also received the AMA Marketing Strategy SIG Early Career Award in 2007 and was cited among the most productive scholars in marketing from 1982 to 2006 in terms of publication rate (ranked 15 globally) in a study published in the Journal of Marketing.
Journal of Marketing Research, Volume 49, Number 1, February 2012
View Table of Contents