Brand Halo: Understanding its Implications ... - ANZMAC

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(Erdem, Swait, & Louviere, 2002), introduction of brand associations and quality expectations (Van Osselaer & Alba, 2003), among others. A halo effect in consumer choice would, therefore, relate to the information distortion introduced in the judgment of alternatives (Russo et al., 1998); in the pursuit of reaching a final outcome, consumers involuntarily rely on their perceptions about brands, biasing a rational assessment of specific attributes. Beckwith and Lehmann (1975) point out that individuals who favour an alternative tend to rate it high on all desirable attributes, whereas, disliking that alternative influences in making specific attributes more negatively assessed, possibly in pursuit of evaluative consistency (Ajzen, 2005). Brand halo would be the component of Brand Equity that “blinds” consumers into assuming aspects of products of a specific brand are better/worse than others, in line with the global assessment of that brand. Implications of this phenomenon suggest that consumers are unable to rationally judge the alternatives presented, and interpretation, rather than the functional attribute, plays an ever important role in consumer judgment, contrary to what is expected from the rationaleconomic view. Managerially, this effect highlights the role brand equity exerts in addressing shortcomings of specific aspects of products. Additionally, when products are described by a myriad of specifications and consumers can only hope to grasp comprehension of a handful for undertaking a choice, a valuable brand impression would provide an advantageous starting ground, independently of the aspect being analysed. Russo and colleagues (Russo et al., 1998) point out the risk of consumers selecting an inferior alternative due to judgment bias introduced in the selection task. The objective of this paper is to develop a conceptual foundation across choice-related disciplines to investigate the role of brand halo in consumer choice. Defining this component and its moderating variables enables a deeper understanding of this phenomenon and facilitates further research into validating its adequacy to consumer choice studies, measuring its impact in a given choice task, and identifying its boundary conditions and constructs related. The development of this topic will take place in the following sections. Brand Halo and Choice Humans strive for mental coherence: a cognitive response to a state of psychological conflict. This pursuit is justified differently according to various streams of social psychology, ranging from conceptualizing it as an instrument to avoid cognitive dissonance to claims that it is an almost inevitable consequence of the way the human brain functions (Ajzen, 2005). Psychic tension is resolved by the readjustment of cognitive or affective aspects of an assessed element towards a coherent evaluative attitude behaviourally consistent (Ajzen, 2005). The classic approach in social psychology contends that different sources of information provide the input for the construction of personal beliefs, which in turn are concatenated to produce an attitude towards the elements assessed. In a marketplace, a decision-maker constructs beliefs regarding products, which provide a foundation for the construction of an overall attitude towards this alternative (Leuthesser, Kohli, & Harich, 1995). The classic perspective of attitude formation is consistent with economic studies and multiattribute attitudinal models: their premise is to decompose the value of a product into observable parts and measure how these specific aspects weight on the attitude regarding a product/ brand (Beckwith & Lehmann, 1975; Meyer, 1981). Random-Utility Models aim to
identify value based on a consumer’s judgment, assuming consumers are utility-maximisers and will base their evaluations on the precise, thorough and complete use of information. The value perceived for a focal brand, Qantas for example, may be derived from the assessment of attributes such as Fare, Food and Flight Frequency, represented by the A arrows in Figure 1. Fare Flight Frequency A A Food Qantas Fare Flight Frequency A D D D Figure 1 – Overview of Brand Attitude Formation The attitudinal response for Qantas, in this approach, is based on beliefs concerning the company’s attributes. A consumer relies on various sources of information to assess valued aspects of a brand/product, such as advertising, word-of-mouth, or even previous experiences and memories. A brand’s image construed by an individual, via mental associations of functional and perceived characteristics, is defined by the consumer behaviour literature as brand equity (Aaker, 1991; Keller, 1993). Brands that detain a more favourable position in a consumer’s mind possess more equity, which translates into purchase decisions by facilitating choice processes (Erdem & Swait, 1998). A contrary, perhaps complementary, flow in the evaluation process then occurs. Termed halo effects by social psychologists, modifications in beliefs take place on the basis of attitudinal responses (Beckwith & Lehmann, 1975; Johansson, MacLachlan, & Yalch, 1976; Nisbett & Wilson, 1977; Thorndike, 1920). A few studies have extended this effect to the marketing literature, under the term brand halo (Bagozzi, 1996; Leuthesser et al., 1995; Russo et al., 1998). In this context, the phenomenon would occur when the brand equity construed reenters the evaluation process retroactively, as portrayed in Figure 1 by the arrow labelled B. To maintain coherence in their assessment, a consumer may introduce inferences regarding already valued attributes, or even shift importance to accommodate attitudinal assessments, either to previously valued or possibly unvalued attributes hitherto, in a pursuit for coherence towards the evaluation of the favoured brand. This would generate an inflation/ deflation of beliefs in alignment with the individual’s attitude (Ajzen, 2005). In this sense, a consumer who favours Qantas would justify higher fares by assuming the catering of better tasting meals, reassessing the importance of the considered attributes, or introduce assumptions that were outside the scope of the evaluation such as better in-flight entertainment and more comfortable seating. B C Food JetStar
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