Showing papers by "Carlos J. Torelli published in 2012"

Doing Poorly by Doing Good: Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Concepts

Abstract: Although the idea of brand concepts has been around for a while, very little research addresses how brand concepts may influence consumer responses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Four studies reveal that communicating the CSR actions of a luxury brand concept causes a decline in evaluations, relative to control. A luxury brand’s self-enhancement concept (i.e., dominance over people and resources) is in conflict with the CSR information’s self-transcendence concept (i.e., protecting the welfare of all), which causes disfluency and a decline in evaluations. These effects do not emerge for brands with openness (i.e., following emotional pursuits in uncertain directions) or conservation (i.e., protecting the status quo) concepts that do not conflict with CSR. The effects for luxury brand concepts disappeared when the informativeness of the disfluency was undermined but were accentuated in an abstract (vs. concrete) mind-set. These findings implicate brand concepts as a key factor in how ...

Brand Concepts as Representations of Human Values: Do Cultural Congruity and Compatibility Between Values Matter?

Abstract: Global brands are faced with the challenge of conveying concepts that not only are consistent across borders but also resonate with consumers of different cultures. Building on prior research indicating that abstract brand concepts induce more favorable consumer responses than functional attributes, the authors introduce a generalizable and robust structure of abstract brand concepts as representations of human values. Using three empirical studies conducted with respondents from eight countries, they demonstrate that this proposed structure is particularly useful for predicting (1) brand meanings that are compatible (vs. incompatible) with each other and, consequently, more (less) favorably accepted by consumers when added to an already established brand concept; (2) brand concepts that are more likely to resonate with consumers with differing cultural orientations; and (3) consumers' responses to attempts to imbue an established brand concept with new, (in)compatible abstract meanings as a func...

Brand Concepts as Representations of Human Values: Do Cultural Congruity and Compatibility between Values Matter?

Abstract: Global brands are faced with the challenge of conveying concepts that not only are consistent across borders but also resonate with consumers of different cultures. Building on prior research indicating that abstract brand concepts induce more favorable consumer responses than functional attributes, the authors introduce a generalizable and robust structure of abstract brand concepts as representations of human values. Using three empirical studies conducted with respondents from eight countries, they demonstrate that this proposed structure is particularly useful for predicting (1) brand meanings that are compatible (vs. incompatible) with each other and, consequently, more (less) favorably accepted by consumers when added to an already established brand concept; (2) brand concepts that are more likely to resonate with consumers with differing cultural orientations; and (3) consumers’ responses to attempts to imbue an established brand concept with new, (in)compatible abstract meanings as a function of their own cultural orientations.

Extending Culturally Symbolic Brands: A Blessing or a Curse?

Abstract: Results from four studies uncover a relatively automatic cultural congruency mechanism that can influence evaluations of culturally charged brand extensions, overriding the impact of perceived fit on extension evaluations. Culturally congruent extensions (i.e., when both the brand and the extension category cue the same cultural schema) were evaluated more favorably than culturally neutral extensions, which in turn were evaluated more favorably than culturally incongruent ones (i.e., cue two different cultural schemas). The effects emerged with both moderate and low fit brand extensions, as well as for narrow and broad brands. However, they only emerged when both the brand and the product were culturally symbolic, likely to automatically activate a cultural schema but did not emerge for brands low in cultural symbolism. The effects were driven by the processing (dis)fluency generated by the simultaneous activation of the same (different) cultural schemas by the product and the brand.

Doing Poorly by Doing Good: Corporate Social Responsibility and Brand Concepts

Abstract: Although the idea of brand concepts has been around for a while, very little research addresses how brand concepts may influence consumer responses to corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. Four studies reveal that communicating the CSR actions of a luxury brand concept causes a decline in evaluations, relative to control. A luxury brand’s self-enhancement concept (i.e., dominance over people and resources) is in conflict with the CSR information’s self-transcendence concept (i.e., protecting the welfare of all), which causes disfluency and a decline in evaluations. These effects do not emerge for brands with openness (i.e., following emotional pursuits in uncertain directions) or conservation (i.e., protecting the status quo) concepts that do not conflict with CSR. The effects for luxury brand concepts disappeared when the informativeness of the disfluency was undermined but were accentuated in an abstract (vs. concrete) mind-set. These findings implicate brand concepts as a key factor in how consumers respond to CSR activities.