Knowledge that Transforms

The objective of this article is to determine whether national brand promotions and store brands attract the same value-conscious consumers, which would aggravate channel conflict between manufacturers and retailers. The authors identify psychographic and demographic traits that potentially drive usage of store brands and national brand promotions. They then develop a framework and structural equation model to study the association of these traits with store brand and national brand promotion usage. The authors find that though demographics do not influence these behaviors directly, they have significant associations with psychographic characteristics and therefore are useful for market targeting. Most important, usage of store brands and usage of promotions, particularly out-of-store promotions, are associated with different psychographics. Store brand use correlates mainly with traits related to economic benefits and costs, whereas the use of out-of-store promotions is associated mainly with traits related to hedonic benefits and costs. These differences result in four well-defined and identifiable consumer segments: deal-focused consumers, store brand–focused consumers, deal and store brand users (use-all), and nonusers of both store brands and deals (use-none). Therefore, manufacturers and retailers have the opportunity to either avoid each other or compete head to head, depending on which segment they target.

Despite the enormous benefits of early-detection products, consumers are reluctant to use them. The authors explore this reluctance, testing alternative approaches to communicating the consequences of detection behaviors. The results suggest that anecdotal messages are more involving than statistical messages and that positive anecdotes (about gains from screening) are less persuasive than negative anecdotes (about the losses from failing to get screened); positive anecdotes appear to cause a “boomerang” effect. The authors discuss implications for promoting consumer risk-reduction behaviors.

The authors examine two aspects of brand loyalty, purchase loyalty and attitudinal loyalty, as linking variables in the chain of effects from brand trust and brand affect to brand performance (market share and relative price). The model includes product-level, category-related controls (hedonic value and utilitarian value) and brand-level controls (brand differentiation and share of voice). The authors compile an aggregate data set for 107 brands from three separate surveys of consumers and brand managers. The results indicate that when the product- and brand-level variables are controlled for, brand trust and brand affect combine to determine purchase loyalty and attitudinal loyalty. Purchase loyalty, in turn, leads to greater market share, and attitudinal loyalty leads to a higher relative price for the brand. The authors discuss the managerial implications of these results.