effects of brand personality

7/29/2019 Effects of Brand Personality

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Effects of Brand Personality

Ove Oklevik

Sogn and Fjordane University College, Norway

Abstract

This work (in progress) contributes to the literature on effects of brand personality in the

following ways: (1) Investigation about brand personality might have different roles among

symbolic vs. utilitarian products. (2) Testing Brand personality as a moderating variable.

Introduction

Brand personality, the set of human characteristics associated with a brand, has become a

central concept within the marketing literature (Aaker 1997; Azoulay and Kapferer 2003;

Keller 2003). Especially since 1997, when Jennifer Aaker published her Brand Personality

article, the literature about the topic has been growing. Aaker (1997) has been the standard

reference in this stream of research. A quick search on papers citing Aakers (1997) work or on

the key word brand personality in standard literature databases asThe Institute for Scientific

Information (ISI), reveals a large amount of hits. However, Brand Personality is an old

construct (Azoulay & Kapferer 2003; Aaker 1997). Marketing practitioners has used the

construct for several decades (Plummer 1984). For instance, former U.S. president Ronald

Reagan was a celebrity endorser for different products and brands during his acting days. The

rationale behind this strategy is that a famous person can draw attention to a brand and shape

the perceptions of the brand based on the knowledge consumers have about the famous person

(Keller 2003).

Brand Personality is an important antecedent inn formation of brand attitude; see (Aaker

1999; Chen & Wells 1999; Helgeson & Supphellen 2004; Batra & Homer 2004). But the

effect of brand personality on other variables as brand loyalty (Kim, Han & Park 2001), new

product evaluation (Madrigal 2000), relationship strength indicators (Aaker, Fournier &

Brasel 2004), evaluation of brand extensions (Hem & Iversen 2002) and brand preference

(Grimm 2005) has also been investigated. The results indicate that brand personality often has


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strong effects on brand attitude, brand preference, brand loyalty, and brand relationship

strength.

Previous research on brand personality has mainly focused on brands within symbolic

categories, e.g. stereo, sneakers, camera, fragrance, beer, wine, cellular phone, and car (Batra,

Lehmann et al. 1993; Aaker 1999; Kim, Han et al. 2001). Some contributions argues with that

Brand Personality should not have any effect among products and brands that are bought and

used primary to solve problems (Batra, Myers et al. 1996; Aaker 1997). According to Aaker

(1997), the brand personality approach can enable researchers to understand the symbolic use

of brands at the same level as multi-attribute models (e.g. Fishbein and Ajzen 1975) shed

insights into why consumers by brands for utilitarian reasons. However, most attitudes serve

several functions (Shavitt 1990; Shavitt, Lowrey, and Han 1992). On this background, it is

interesting that products that solely have a problem solving meaning exist in the pool of

studied products which indicate significant effects of brand personality (Batra, Lehmann et al.

1993; Aaker 1999). It has not yet been studied what role Brand Personality might have among

problem solving product. It is important to note that many products serve multiple purposes

(Shavitt, Lowrey et al. 1992). For example, sunglasses serve both the problem solving

purpose of providing protection from the sun as well as the symbolic purpose of self-

expression. In addition, we do have products that mainly are product solving by nature, as air

conditioners, paper towel, soap and so on. Such products have been labelled as utilitarian

products in literature (Shavitt 1990; Shavitt and Lowrey 1992). An understanding about how

Brand Personality might function for utilitarian products, will give some additional insight

into how the construct can function for the broader class of products that are both symbolic

and utilitarian by nature. If it figures out that brand personality can function as an antecedent

of brand attitude also for utilitarian products, the brand personality approach should have a

broader range of use than what is known today. The literature on effects of Brand Personality

shows that the construct is an important antecedent of brand attitude. However, no empirical

contributions has used the construct as moderating variable, and only one as mediating

variable (Kim, Han et al. 2001). Thus, it seems clear that the role of Brand Personality is not

fully understood. According to Chaiken (1980) information can be processed in two ways,

systematically and as heuristic. Brand personality is studied several times as an independent

variable. This means that associations about brand personality are processed systematically

and that this process is well documented and understood. On the other hand, the possibility

that Brand Personality can be processed as heuristic has been overlooked.


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This research project contributes to the literature about Brand Personality in two ways: (1)

Investigation about brand personality might have different roles among symbolic vs.

utilitarian products. (2) Testing Brand personality as a moderating variable.

Dependent measure Brand attitude

Brand attitudes are defined as consumers overall evaluations of a brand (Wilkie 1986; Keller

1993). Brand attitudes are important because they often form the basis for consumer

behaviour. This is probably the reason for why brand attitude so frequently is used as a

dependent variable in symbolic brand research (Graeff 1997; Helgeson and Supphellen 2004).

One widely accepted model of brand attitudes is the multiattribute model of (Fishbein and

Ajzen 1975), which propose that attitude leads to intentions and intentions lead to actual

behaviour. Keller (1993) writes that this model probably has been the most influential

multiattribute model to marketing. According to the multiattribute model, brand attitudes are a

function of the associated attributes and benefits that are salient for the brand. One of these

benefits will be functional benefits and another will be symbolic benefits (Park, Jaworski et

al. 1986; Keller 1993). Functional benefitsare the more intrinsic advantages of product or

service consumption. Intrinsic advantages correspond to product related attributes, forexample quality of the product (Szybillo and Jacoby 1974; Riezebos, Kist et al. 2003). On the

other hand, symbolic benefitsare the more extrinsic advantages of product consumption (Park,

Jaworski et al. 1986; Keller 1993). Extrinsic adventages are product-related but not part of the

physical product itself. Price, brand name, and level of advertising are examples of extrinsic

adventages (Szybillo and Jacoby 1974; Zeithaml 1988; Riezebos, Kist et al. 2003). Symbolic

benefits relate to underlying needs for social approval or personal expression. According to

Keller (1993) should symbolic benefits be especially relevant for symbolic products.

Independent measures

Utilitarian product attribute

Quality of a product is important in consumer evaluations. Unfortunately, from a consumers

point of view, the quality of a product might be difficult to establish before purchase.

Therefore, consumers have to use different heuristics to guess the quality of a product.

Szybillo and Jacoby (1974) distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic (attribute) heuristics.

Intrinsic cues involve the physical composition of the product. Intrinsic attributes can not be


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changed without altering the nature of the product itself (Szybillo and Jacoby 1974; Zeithaml

1988; Riezebos, Kist et al. 2003). Extrinsic cues are product-related but not part of the

physical product itself. Price, brand name, level of advertising are examples of extrinsic

heuristics to quality (Szybillo and Jacoby 1974; Zeithaml 1988; Riezebos, Kist et al. 2003).

Other examples of quality heuristics used in empirical studies are country of origin (Ahmed,

Johnson et al. 2002) and warranty (Erevelles, Roy et al. 2001). The important role of product

quality in consumer evaluations can also be seen through studies of effects of advertising.

Literature shows that there exist two main strategies in marketing communication as

advertising. These are labelled the soft-sell and hard sell approach. The first one relates to

image oriented ads and the latter one to quality oriented ads, (see Snyder and DeBono 1985).

The effects of appeals that either are image- or quality oriented have been extensively studied

(Snyder and Debono 1985; Debono 1987; Debono and Packer 1991; Shavitt, Lowrey et al.

1992). The fact that advertising focusing on quality of the product itself is an effective

strategy to improve consumer evaluations indicates that quality is an important aspect in

consumer judgement about products.

Three possible alternatives to capture the construct of quality have been found in literature:

perceived quality(Zeithaml 1988), functional product performance(Keller 2003), and

utilitarian product attribute(Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000). In this research, the utilitarian

product attribute approach will be chosen. This is done because the two other candidates

suffer of some limitations. The functional product performanceapproach has not been used in

any empirical research paper as far as I can see and the construct is not defined precisely.

Further, the perceived qualityconstruct has been interpreted as an overall judgement akin to

attitude by several researchers (Zeithaml 1988).

The utilitarian product attributeapproach has been used in an experimental setting (Dhar and

Wertenbroch 2000). The respondent were exposed to an apartment as stimuli, were the

utilitarian product attribute was described as the distance from the apartment to work.

Subjects were instructed to imagine themselves as consuming an alternative with either

superior or inferior values: half of the subjects consuming 10 minutes drive to work and the

other half 45 minutes. In both conditions they were told that they had to switch to another

alternative, which was either better or worse according to the level of the utilitarian product

attribute. When consumers are provided with a reference point, they may evaluate alternatives

with respect to that reference point (Dhar and Wertenbroch 2000). The same pattern will


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occur in consumer evaluations of products. Consumers do have expectations about how well

products should function. When consumers evaluate different brands in the given product

category, they compare the alternatives with a minimum level of quality or product

performance (Keller 2003). Hence:

H1: Utilitarian product attribute has a positive effect on brand attitude

Brand personality

One argument for why Brand Personality should have any effect, relates to congruence, see

(Aaker 1999; Hem and Iversen 2002; Helgeson and Supphellen 2004; Grimm 2005). The idea

is that consumers are more likely to prefer brands with image similar to their own self-

concept. Self-concept can be interpret as the present self-concept, the ideal self-concept, the

self-concept as perceived by significant others and, the self concept as ideally perceived by

significant others (Sirgy 1982; Helgeson and Supphellen 2004). One person may want to

drive his VW-car because the down-to-earth image of the brand fit with the consumers

understanding of him self. Other products or brands are bought and used mainly on the reason

of impression management. A man driving his Harley Davidson may which to signalise a

rugged image. Some of the papers on effects of Brand Personality use the argument of

congruence indirectly, exemplified through constructs as impression (Batra et. al 2004), self-

monitoring (Aaker 1999) and self expression (Kim et. al. 2001). Congruence seems to be

especially important when products are used to emphasize any symbolic meaning for the

consumer (Batra, Myers et al. 1996; Aaker 1997; Aaker 1999; Hem and Iversen 2002). Such

products have been categorized as Social identity products in literature (Shavitt 1990; Shavitt

and Lowrey 1992).

It is reasonable that consumers are high involved in social identity products because the use of

them are close related to self-expression. The study of Shavitt et. al (1994) showed that in the

condition of high involvement the attractiveness of an endorser is very important and is

scrutinized in consumer evaluations of the product. This indicates that the information

processing appears in a systematic way. The attractiveness of an endorser does not function as

heuristics, but is treated as direct source of information that is evaluated. Brand personality

may play the same role as endorsers attractiveness because endorsement is one of the main

sources in creation of brand personality (McCracken 1989; Aaker 1997). In addition, results

from research on communication shows that image based appeals (advertising) tend to be


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more effective than quality-based appeals for social identity products. One such image

variable that are used in advertising is brand personality (Batra, Lehmann et al. 1993). This

indicates that brand personality is important as antecedent in attitude formation for social

identity products. Hence:

H2: Brand personality has a positive effect on brand attitude for social identity products

Some authors argue with that Brand Personality should not have any effect among products

and brands that are bought and used only to solve problems (Batra, Myers et al. 1996; Aaker

1997). Such products has been categorized as utilitarian products in literature (Shavitt 1990;

Shavitt and Lowrey 1992). Attitudes toward utilitarian products tend to be based on beliefs

about product attributes and the rewards and punishments intrinsically associated with them.

The motivation for buying an air conditioner is obtaining comfort and relief from heat. For

utilitarian products, quality-based appeals (advertising) tend to be more effective than image

based appeals (Shavitt & Lowrey 1992; Shavitt 1989). This pattern might indicate that the

level on utilitarian product attribute is more important than image variables (such as brand

personality) as antecedent to attitude for utilitarian products. This view can be supported by

findings in functional theory. According to Shavitt & Nelson (2000) consumers are less likely

to associate users of utilitarian products with words that described personality traits than users

of social identity products. It seems reasonable that personality associations then should be

less important in evaluation for utilitarian products related to social identity products. Prior

research has shown that differences between products are consequential in that they predict

the content of the cognitive representation underlying an attitude (Shavitt 1990; Shavitt and

Nelson 2000). For utilitarian products, the utilitarian product attribute should be most

important in evaluation because such product are bought and consumed to solve or avoid

problems. The attitude towards an air conditioner that effectively brings down the temperature

(a high level of utilitarian product attributes) should be higher than a less effective one (a low

level of utilitarian product attributes). Therefore, for utilitarian products it is reasonably to

believe that the products ability to solve problems (and then the utilitarian product attribute) is

the main driving force in the formation of attitude towards the product or brand. On the other

hand, brand personality, which is strong related to the symbolic meanings of a brand, should

not play a direct role in the formation of attitude. Hence:

H3: For utilitarian products, brand personality has no direct effect on brand attitude.


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The moderating effect of Brand Personality

The literature mentions several ways a brand personality might be created. Two sources of

interest are the brands user imagery (McCracken 1989; Aaker 1997), and product categoryassociations (Batra, Lehmann et al. 1993; Aaker 1997). Viewed against this background, the

finding of Shavitt and Nelson (2000) is particularly interesting. If personality traits associated

with the user of a product become more salient for the user of a social identity product

compared to the user of a utilitarian product, it is also reasonable that associations about

brands personality follow the same pattern. Therefore, a brand in the class of social identity

products should be more and stronger associated with personality traits than a brand in the

class of utilitarian products.

A message element which has been studied is the attractiveness of an endorser (Shavitt and

Nelson 2002). Shavitt et al (1994)demonstrated that the attractiveness of endorses in an ad is

used as shortcut or heuristic to product evaluation when utilitarian goals are made salient and

the respondents involvement is low. One of the main sources in the creation of brand

personality is endorsement (McCracken 1989; Aaker 1997). If the attractiveness of an

endorser in an ad is used as shortcut or cue in consumer evaluations about utilitarian products,

it is likely that brand personality can have the same role among this type of products. These

findings indicate that brand personality may function as a moderating variable in the

formation of attitude.

H4: For utilitarian products, brand personality has a moderating effect on brand attitude.

Theoretical model

In figure 1 abow, the conceptual model is outlined. The model incorporates Brand attitude as

the dependent variable. Two independent variables are incorporated, (1) utilitarian product

attribute and (2) brand personality (Aaker 1997; Aaker 1999). Further, the variable brand

personality is also modelled as a moderating variable. Moreover, one additional variable is

included as a moderating variable. This is product category, which is the distinction between

utilitarian and social identity products (Shavitt 1990).


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At ti tudetowardsthe brand

Brandpersonality

Utilitarian

product

attribute

Productcategory

Figure 1.The conceptual model

Method

Procedures

In the first stage of this research, product stimuli were tested. 101 adults filled out a

questionnaire about fifteen different products. Four clearly social identity products and four

clearly utilitarian products were identified. For each product category a well known

international brand was selected. In the second stage, Brand Personality characteristics of the

eight selected brands were elicited by means of both open-ended questions and

questionnaires. 294 subjects participated at this stage. The Brand Personality characteristics

obtained from the second stage were used in the third stage. In the third stage of the study, 49

subjects filled out a questionnaire with measures of Brand Attitude, Brand Personality and

Utilitarian Product Attribute was used. Data from the third stage was used to test the

hypotheses. The fourth stage extends the study in stage three with more variables and a larger

sample. Stage four is not yet conducted.

The first stage

The main purpose of stage one was to identify products that are either clearly utilitarian or

social identity. 101 adults filled out a questionnaire. 35 of these were employed in the

administration of Sogn and Fjordane University College, 37 adults recruited in their own

home and 29 travellers with an express boat. 15 products were tested, and 8 of them were

selected for the main study after the test. The 15 products were: Luxury car, pick up truck,


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snowboard, headache pill, jeans, perfume, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, beer, sunglasses,

refrigerator, mobile telephone, watch and laptop. The sample was spitted in three, each

respondent were exposed to five products. Subjects first read a cover sheet that gave the

thought-listing instructions (Caccioppo and Petty 1981):

We are now interested in what you are thinking about the product Luxury car. The next page contains the

form we have prepared for you to use to record your thoughts and ideas. Simply write down the first idea

you have about Luxury Car in the first box, the second idea in your second box, etc. Ignore spelling,

grammar, and punctuation. We have deliberately provided plenty of room to write down your ideas. So

dont worry if you dont fill every space.

Product

#utilitarianthoughts

# socialidentitythoughts Differences

Refrigerator3,3

(1,15)0,15

(0,51) -3,15

Toothpaste3,61

(1,27)0,27

(0,45) -3,33

Headache pill2,57

(1,63)0,06

(0,23) -2,51

Pick up truck3,67

(1,85)0,12

(0,33) -3,55

Soap2,83

(1,77)0,09

(0,28) -2,74

Watch3,33

(1,29)1,03

(1,24) -2,3

Shampoo3,15

(1,72)0,42

(0,66) -2,73

Laptop2,83

(1,48)0,63

(1,00) -2,2

Mobiletelephone

3,82(1,51)

0,42(0,75) -3,39

Sunglasses2,3

(1,38)1,48

(1,18) -0,82

J eans2,39

(1,49)1,58

(1,41) -0,82

Beer 1,51(1,04) 1,86(1,22) 0,34

Perfume2,27

(1,04)1,85

(0,97) -0,42

Snowboard1,64

(1,60)2,48

(1,73) 0,85

Luxury car0,77

(1,21)2,57

(1,69) 1,8

Table 1: Mean number of utilitarian and social identity thoughts for the 15 tested products,

standard deviations in brackets.


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Subjects described their thoughts on standard thought-listing forms Caccioppo and Petty

(1981) on which six boxes were printed. The numbers of utilitarian and social identity

thoughts were counted by the author for each of the fifteen products. The results are shown in

table 1. The difference between number of social identity thoughts and utilitarian thoughts for

each product are also reported. A high positive value on this measure indicates a high social

identity score. A high negative value on this measure indicates a high utilitarian score. This

might be informative because many products will have high scores on both utilitarian social

identity thoughts, which in fact will be the case for most products (Shavitt 1990).

The four products that yielded most social identity thoughts and the four products that yielded

most utilitarian thoughts were selected as stimuli, with one exception. Jeans was selected

instead of perfume because the market of perfume in Norway exists of many of different

brands. The existing perfume brands are linked to specific segment of sex, age and so on. On

the other hand, the jeans market exists of some well known big brands as Levis and Diesel,

which are accepted and used across sex and age. Since the social identity score of both

perfume and jeans are quite close, jeans are selected as stimuli instead of perfume. For each

product category a well known international brand was selected. The selected utilitarian

product categories were: refrigerator, toothpaste, pickup truck and headache pill. The selected

social identity products were: jeans, beer, luxury cars and snowboard, see table 3 below. The

mean number of utilitarian thoughts for the four selected utilitarian and four selected social

identity products are ( = 3.28, =1.56). Utilitarian products have a

significant higher number of utilitarian thoughts than social identity products F(2,268)=87,25;

p


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The mean number of social identity thoughts for the four selected utilitarian and four selected

social identity products are ( = 0.15, =2.13). Social identity products have

a significant higher number of social identity thoughts than utilitarian products F(2,268) =

200.66; p


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According to Aaker (1997), can brands personalities be measured through a five dimensions

scale; Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophisticated and Rugged. On the background of

the free association task, the numbers of relevant associations within each brand personality

dimension were counted by the author. Relevant associations were predetermined to be those

which fit with the 42 traits in Aakers (1997) scale. Table 3 shows the results.

Brand personality dimension

Brand Sincerity Exitement Competence Sophistication Ruggedness

Guiness 0,18 0,10 0,02 0,05 0,39

Electrolux 0,09 0,20 0,31 0,13 0,02

Mercedes 0,04 0,15 0,19 0,95 0,22

Paracet 0,18 0,03 0,57 0,06 0,01

Levis 0,12 0,61 0,09 0,26 0,49

Colgate 0,62 0,04 0,15 0,15 0,03Burton 0,07 0,94 0,03 0,11 0,64ToyotaHiace 0,20 0,06 0,49 0,01 0,18

Table 3: The mean number of trait associations for each brand and brand personality

dimension, the free association task.

On the background of the free association task, the most relevant Brand Personality

dimension was identified for each brand. Colgate was then identified as Sincerity, Burton as

Excitement,Electrolux, Paracet and Toyota Hiace as Competence,Mercedes as Sophistication

and Guinness and Levis as Rugged.

In addition, each subject was asked to fill out the 42 items questionnaires of Aaker (1997),

for the four brands they were exposed to. Using a five-point Likert scale (1=not at all

descriptive, 5= extremely descriptive), subjects were asked to rate the extent to which the 42

personality traits describe a specific brand (Aaker 1997). The scale was translated into

Norwegians by one bilingual person and translated back to English by another bilingual

person. No serious deviations were discovered between the original wordings and the back

translated version. On the background of the results of the 42 items questionnaires, the most

relevant traits within the selected dimension were identified. Items with a score higher than

the mean in the chosen dimension were selected to the main study. The rationale for doing

this is that the all the original items of the aaker scale, do not fit in the Norwegian context. For

instance, the dimension sophisticated contains six items in the original scale. But only three

of them seem to be relevant to Norwegians. The items charming, feminine and smooth

have very low score at the 5 points scale, because Norwegians dont use these words about


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brands. But at the other hand, items as upper class, glamorous and good looking have

very high scores. The consequence of this phenomenon is that a clearly sophisticated brand

(on the background of the open ended task) as Mercedes has a very low score on this

dimension when using aakers six items.

The third stage

The purpose of the third stage was to test the main ideas and hypotheses. The sample for this

study consisted of 49 students (average age =30.7, range 21-56). 30 of the students were

undergraduates and 19 were postgraduate students. The first section of the questionnaires

contained the utilitarian product attribute measure. This was a four-item own developed

measure, with a 5 point Likert scale. Products with such a brand function as they should,

this brand solves very well the primary needs that such products should solve, I associate

this brand with products that function very well, and this brand is characterized by products

which function very well. The next section contained the brand attitude measure. This was a

standard three-item measure with a seven point Likert scale (Helgeson and Supphellen 2004).

Finally, the measure on Brand Personality contained between 3 and 6 items, dependent of

which Brand it is questioned about.

Results

The two independent variables, Utilitarian Product Attribute and Brand Personality are

significantly correlated for all the eight brands in this study, see table 4 below.

Social identity products

Guiness Levis Mercedes Burton

0,366** 0,391** 0,537** 0,493**

Utilitarian products

Electrolux Paracet Colgate Toyota Hiace

0,769** 0,643** 0,461** 0,637**

Table 4. Correlation for Brand Personality versus Utilitarian Product Attribute for the eight

brands in the study. **p


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Because the two independent variables were significantly inter-correlated, and the regression

equation also included interaction terms, multi-collinearity was a potential problem. To

minimize potential collineraity problems, the two independent/moderating variables were

centered (Marquardt 1980). This means that each observation on a variable was subtracted by

the mean of that variable. The variance inflation factors (VIF) was calculated. The VIFs

signal how much variance in an independent variable is explained by other independent

variables, and range from zero to infinity. In the preset analysis, VIF values varied from 1.01

to 2.49, which is well below the cut-off of 10 recommended by Neter et al. (1989, p.409).

Thus, multi-collinearity does not seriously bias the regression coefficients and is not a threat

to the substantive conclusions drawn from the analysis.

H1

In H1 it was hypothesised that Utilitarian Product Attribute would have a positive effect on

Brand Attitude. The regression analysis presented in table 5 was used to test H1. The analysis

was performed across eight brands. Since the Brand Personality variable has been measured

different for each of these eight brands, the analysis is reported for each brand.

Utilitarian products

Variables Electrolux Paracet Colgate ToyotaHiace

Utilitarian Product Attribute 0,535*** 0,469*** 0,460*** 0,523***

Brand Personality 0,372** 0,275* 0,312** 0,413***Utilitarian Product Attribute BrandPersonality 0,083 -0,093 0,075 0,147

Social identityproducts

Guinnes Mercedes Levis Burton

Utilitarian Product Attribute 0,368** 0,669*** 0,457*** 0,644***

Brand Personality 0,17 0,378*** 0,320** 0,169

Utilitarian Product Attribute BrandPersonality 0,004 0,199* -0,028 -0,12

*** p


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from 0,368 to 0,669. Seven of the p-values < 0,01 and one p-value < 0,05). These findings

provide support for the effect of utilitarian products attribute on brand attitude proposed in

H1.

H2 and H3

H2 and H3 dealt with the direct effect of Brand Personality on brand Attitude. In H2, Brand

Personality was hypothesised to have a positive effect on Brand Attitude for Social Identity

Products. The results are also reported in table 5. Brand Personality was positive related to

brand attitude for two of the four brands in the social identity product category. The effect of

brand personality was significant for Mercedes ( BP =0.378; p


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product; Mercedes. This is a surprising result, which indicates that Brand Personality do not

function as heuristics. Even more surprisingly, Brand Personality had a significant direct

effect on Brand Attitude for all the four utilitarian Brands. These findings indicate that Brand

Personality is scrutinized in consumer evaluations, not only for social identity products but

also for utilitarian products. This might signify that Brand Personality is far more important in

formation of Brand Attitude than what is known so far. However, the sample is very small

with only 49 respondents. Therefore, these findings have to be verified in a larger sample.

Further, some explanations about the surprising results have to be investigated. This is the

agenda in stage four of this research project. Stage four is still not yet conducted.

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