Share these talks and lectures with your colleagues
Invite colleaguesResearch paper
The triadic influence of brand personality, culture and social media usage on consumer attachment to iconic brands
Journal of Cultural Marketing Strategy,
8
(2),
192-210
(2024)
Abstract
While iconic brands are influential in practice, marketing research on iconic brands has been scarce. To understand better how consumers favour certain iconic brands, this paper identifies three groups of factors influencing consumer’s iconic brand attachment. First, it is hypothesised that strong brand personality dimensions (composed of sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness) perceived by consumers explain why consumers are attracted to iconic brands. Secondly, the paper hypothesises that consumers with increased social media activity tend to hold decreased preferences for particular iconic brands because of their diversified interests in various brands. Thirdly, the paper hypothesises how cultural dimensions (individualism, power-distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation) influence consumers’ iconic brand preferences. Further, the paper theorises three interaction effects of these stated factors: (1) brand personality × masculinity; (2) social media activity × uncertainty avoidance; and (3) brand personality × age. Using the survey method, the paper provides empirical support for our hypotheses.
Keywords: iconic brand; brand personality; social media; consumption culture; emotional attachment to brand; brand loyalty
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Brian Whelan is an assistant professor of marketing at Western Carolina University. His research interests include branding, consumer behaviour, blockchain and social media. Dr Whelan’s research has been published in the Journal of Brand Strategy, Journal of Indian Business Research and Association of Marketing Theory and Practice. In addition to his academic credentials, Dr Whelan has over 20 years of industry experience, holding senior and executive-level roles in marketing, branding, corporate communications and product management.
Sangkil Moon is the Cullen Endowed Professor of Marketing at the Belk College of Business, University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His research interests include artificial intelligence, marketing analytics, text mining, social media, consumer culture and entertainment marketing. His research has been published in various journals, including Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Retailing and International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Sunil Erevelles is an associate professor of marketing at the Belk College of Business, University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His research has been published in various journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, Journal of Database Marketing and Journal of Information Technology and Management.
