The role of brand image congruity in Chinese consumers ... - Emerald

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Brand image congruity in Chinese consumers’ brand preference Jing Hu, Xin Liu, Sijun Wang and Zhilin Yang theories from Western markets to emergent markets. Specifically, through integrating the social reference and national socio-cultural literature into the current brand image management literature, this study proposes and tests the role of functional and symbolic image congruity in Chinese consumers’ brand preferences in the auto market. Further, this study examines the role of brand familiarity in moderating the relationship between brand image congruity and consumers’ preferences. The organization of our paper is as follows. Initially, we provide an overview of the brand image and brand image congruity literature, focusing on several major findings, their theoretical underpinnings, and suggest differences based on the social reference and national sociocultural literature. Then, we address our research method, data analysis and results. We conclude with implications, limitations, and future research directions. Literature review Brand image congruity Brand image is generally defined as consumers’ perceptions of a brand (Keller, 1993). This perception influences the brand’s positioning in the market. A good brand image establishes a brand’s position and improves the brand’s market performance (Shocker and Srinivasan, 1979; Wind, 1973). Brand image congruity happens when a brand image matches consumers’ expectations. Schema congruity theory asserts that congruity positively influence consumers’ brand preferences (Fiske, 1982; Fiske and Pavelchak, 1986; Pavelchak, 1989). A schema is a hypothetical memory structure that helps people organize new information relative to existing information (Solso, 1989). For example, consumers’ expectations of a product can be viewed as existing schema. Based on schema congruity theory (Fiske, 1982; Fiske and Pavelchak, 1986; Pavelchak, 1989), schema congruity determines consumers’ affective responses. When the brand image matches expectations, positive evaluation results. The schema theory was originally developed and applied in the social science area (Fiske, 1982). Later, many marketing studies borrowed Fiske’s theory to explain issues including judgments about consumer products (Aggarwal and McGill, 2007; Meyers-Levy and Tybout, 1989), brand extension evaluations (Broniarczyk and Alba, 1994), and advertisement evaluations (Houston et al., 1987). We define congruity, in this context, as the perceived difference between an actual brand image and a consumerdesired image. According to Park et al. (1986), brand image has two dimensions: functional and symbolic. A brand positioned with a functional image highlights the tangible and productrelated utilitarian attributes. Symbolic needs are internally generated for self-expression (Park et al., 1986). Symbolic brands are prestige-oriented for status appeal. Several later studies (Bhat and Reddy, 1998; Chernatony and Harris, 2000; Mowle and Merrilees, 2005) supports that the functionality/ symbolism constitutes a two-dimensional construct, and a brand can have the two dimensions at the same time. The two dimensions of brand image generate two types of brand image congruity: functional and symbolic image congruity. Functional image congruity takes place when a brand matches the utilitarian set of criteria that consumers prefer. This utilitarian set is related to a brand’s tangible attributes, reflecting its functional performance. For example, functional attributes of an automobile brand will include the Journal of Product & Brand Management Volume 21 · Number 1 · 2012 · 26–34 degree of comfort, engine performance, safety and so forth. Functional image congruity results when a brand’s performance on these attributes matches a consumer’ desired level. In a similar vein, symbolic image congruity occurs as a brand’s performance on symbolic attributes match consumers’ desired level. Based on the schema theory, both types of congruity will generate consumers’ affective responses. Therefore, we propose: H1a. Functional image congruity positively influences consumers’ brand preference. H1b. Symbolic image congruity positively influences consumers’ brand preference. Relationship between symbolic and functional image congruity From the accessibility-diagnosticity perspective, symbolic information is more accessible, and will be processed prior to functional information. First, accessibility was defined by Feldman and Lynch (1988) as “the degree to which a piece of information can be retrieved from memory for input into a judgment, and diagnosticity is the degree to which that piece of information is relevant for that judgment”. Symbolic image is related to intangible attributes, such as attractiveness, friendliness and etc, and is more abstract than the functional one. The abstract information requires less cognitive effort to process than concrete information (Abelson, 1976; Anderson, 1980). In other words, symbolic information is more accessible than functional information because the former is easier to be retrieved from memory. Second, a basic assumption of the accessibility-diagnosticity argument is that consumers are “cognitive misers”, and will not retrieve all information at a time (Wyer and Scrull, 1986). Among information that is diagnostic to the judgment, consumers choose to retrieve the most accessible one first (Feldman and Lynch, 1988; Wyer and Scrull, 1986). In other words, the information most accessible would be chosen first to make the judgment. Since symbolic information is more accessible than functional ones, we propose that the processing result of symbolic image congruity will prime the judgment of the functional image congruity. The proposed relationships are shown in Figure 1. H2. Consumers’ perceived symbolic image congruity has a positive impact on the perceived functional image congruity. Role of brand familiarity Brand familiarity indicates consumers’ prior knowledge of and experience with a brand (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987; Campbell and Keller, 2003). Consumers familiar with a brand have a set of knowledge about the brand, including its tangible/intangible attributes and the relationships among them (Sujan and Bettman, 1989). We suggest that the brand familiarity moderates the relationship between the brand image congruity and brand preference in two ways. First, familiarity changes the weights of congruent and incongruent information in product evaluations. Fiske and Taylor (1991) point out that people with well-developed knowledge are able to notice both schema-congruity and incongruity information whereas those with little knowledge are likely to be especially sensitive to schema incongruity information. In this context, consumers familiar with a brand will judge the brand based on 27
Brand image congruity in Chinese consumers’ brand preference Jing Hu, Xin Liu, Sijun Wang and Zhilin Yang Journal of Product & Brand Management Volume 21 · Number 1 · 2012 · 26–34 Figure 1 Conceptual framework both congruity and incongruity information. When incorporating both sides of the information, its impacts on brand preference are likely to be offset. As for those with low brand familiarity, the incongruity information plays a dominant role in forming the brand preference. Therefore, the schema-congruity effect is more obvious among groups with low-brand familiarity than those with high-brand familiarity. Second, familiarity helps consumers resolve the incongruent information, reducing its negative impact on brand preference (Fiske and Pavelchak, 1986). When encountering incongruity, consumers who are familiar with the brand already have the prior knowledge to process the information and resolve the incongruity. As for those who have little prior knowledge about the brand will have difficulty in doing so. According to H1, incongruent information negatively affects brand preferences. Therefore, we propose that when viewing the discrepancy, consumers who are less familiar with the brand are likely to respond more negatively to brand preference. H3a. Consumers’ brand familiarity moderates the relationship between functional image congruity and brand preference such that at a lower level of brand familiarity, functional image congruity has a stronger impact on brand preference than at a higher level of brand familiarity. H3b. Consumers’ brand familiarity moderates the relationship between symbolic image congruity and brand preference such that at a lower level of brand familiarity, symbolic image congruity has a stronger impact on brand preference than at a higher level of brand familiarity. Method Product stimulus To test the hypotheses, a survey was administered in the Chinese automobile market. Automobiles were chosen as the product stimulus because automobiles are high in value, especially as compared to average income in China, and purchasing an automobile is usually a comprehensive purchase decision. We have reason to believe that consumers would initiate a relatively more intensive information search and thought process when making their decision, which makes their responses to our survey research more reliable. For this research, we limited our study to medium-priced sedan market (price ranges from CNY120,000 to 300,000, which is roughly from $US15,000 to 37,000). Specifically, we chose Bora and Mazda 6 as our product stimuli, two very popular brands in this range in China. Bora is from FAW- Volkswagen Automobile Co. Ltd (a large-scale joint venture passenger car manufacturer between FAW Group Corporation and Volkswagen AG) and Mazda is from FAW Car Co. Ltd in corporation with Mazda. A new Bora is priced at somewhere between CNY120,000 and 160,000 ($US15,000-20,000) and a new Mazda6 is priced between CNY190,000 and 230,000 ($US23,750-28,750). We will examine responses on Bora first in the following analysis. Procedure and sample A one-on-one survey was administered to 1,440 selected Chinese consumers by market research specialists using a predesigned questionnaire. The Chinese automobile market has only been booming in the last few years, and automobiles are still unaffordable to most consumers. To ensure the knowledge of the target respondents, only those who had made the purchase decision and bought a medium-priced sedan within the last three years or planned to buy one within the next three months were allowed to participate in this survey. Respondents were evenly distributed in seven major cities throughout China, including large cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, mid-sized cities like Chengdu and Shenyang, and smaller cities like Hangzhou and Qingdao. All of the respondents were adults above 20 years old (20-30, 24.8 percent; 31-40, 36.1 percent; 41 and above, 39.1 percent). About half were female (50.1 percent) and half male (49.9 percent). Of the 1,440 respondents, there were 317 new buyers (22 percent) who were looking for a sedan at the time of the investigation; 735 who had previously bought a sedan once (51 percent); and 388 who had previously bought sedans more than once (26.9 percent). This sampling is deemed to be representative of consumers in the Chinese automobile market. 28
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