explaining the familiarity-liking relationship: mere exposure, information availability, or social...

Marketing Letters 9:1 (1998): 5–19© 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers, Manufactured in The Netherlands

Explaining the Familiarity-Liking Relationship: MereExposure, Information Availability, or SocialDesirability?

ARIC RINDFLEISCHAssistant Professor, University of Arizona, College of Business and Public Administration, 320 McClellandHall, P.O. Box 210108, Tucson, AZ 85721, Email: [email protected]

J. JEFFREY INMANAssistant Professor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Business, 4255 Grainger Hall, 975University Avenue, Madison, WI 53706, Email: [email protected]

Abstract

A large and diverse body of marketing literature suggests that well-known brands enjoy several advantagescompared to less familiar brands. Specifically, brands with higher levels of familiarity appear to achieve higherlevels of liking or preference among both consumers and retailers. This familiarity-liking relationship has provento be one of marketing’s most robust and reproducible empirical generalizations. However, there remains aconsiderable amount of uncertainty as to the conditions under which this relationship arises. In this study, weidentify, conceptualize, and empirically assess three alternative hypotheses of the familiarity-liking relationship:mere exposure, information availability, and social desirability. Our results suggest that social desirability is themost powerful of these three potential mechanisms underlying the familiarity-liking phenomenon.

Key words: Consumer decision making, brand familiarity, double jeopardy, information availability, mereexposure, product and brand choice, social desirability

Marketing scholars have recently turned their attention toward documenting and under-standing the empirical generalizations that underlie their discipline (Bass and Wind,1995). Empirical generalizations are findings that are reliable, robust, and regularly occuracross a broad range of conditions (Barwise, 1995). One exceedingly robust empiricalregularity concerns the relationship between a brand’s degree of familiarity and its levelof preference or liking among buyers.1 Scholars across a broad spectrum of marketingdomains regularly find that brands with higher levels of familiarity enjoy higher levels ofliking among both consumers and retailers. These domains include a diverse set of studiesranging from the brand loyalty literature (e.g., Colombo and Morrison, 1989; Raj, 1985),to studies of distribution intensity (e.g., Reibstein and Farris, 1995), to investigations ofthe endowment effect (e.g., Sen and Johnson, 1997; Thaler, 1980).

While there seems to be little doubt regarding the existence of the familiarity-likingrelationship, there remains a considerable amount of uncertainty as to the conditionsunder which it obtains. Although many researchers document this phenomenon, relativelyfew offer theoretical explanations as to when and how it occurs. In those cases where anexplanation is offered, it is typically focused on the microcosm of the individual effect

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under investigation rather than on the broader set of empirical work which forms thegeneralized familiarity-liking relationship. For example, Ehrenberg and his colleaguessuggest that differential levels of brand awareness produce a “double jeopardy” effect inwhich large share brands enjoy higher rates of penetration and loyalty (Barnard andEhrenberg, 1990; Ehrenberg, Goodhardt, and Barwise, 1990). However, they do not at-tempt to generalize this effect to the broader familiarity-liking literature in marketing nordo they attempt to offer a theoretical explanation of the underlying processes.

Thus, a key question remains: What are the conditions which produce these repeatedobservations of the familiarity-liking relationship? In this paper, we report on three ex-periments designed to address this question. By offering an empirically-grounded theo-retical investigation of the familiarity-liking phenomenon, this study addresses Bass andWind’s (1995) call for “more experimentation as the basis for information leading toempirical generalizations” (p. G3). Specifically, our objective is to enhance understandingof this empirical generalization by identifying, conceptualizing, and empirically testingthree potential rival explanations for the familiarity-liking relationship: mere exposure,information availability, and social desirability. In sum, we offer an important contributionto both marketing literature and practice by providing a more thorough conceptual un-derstanding of the potential mechanisms underlying this empirical generalization. Afterbriefly reviewing the familiarity-liking literature, we detail our conceptual framework andexperimental investigations of each of our three alternative hypotheses. We conclude witha general discussion of our findings and suggestions for future research.

1. The familiarity-liking relationship

As seen in Table 1, the observation that well-known brands appear to be better liked thanless familiar brands has been documented in the marketing literature since the late 1960s(e.g., Shuchman, 1968).2 For instance, the relationship between familiarity and liking hasbeen noted by several brand loyalty researchers, who find that large share brands engenderhigher levels of brand loyalty than small share brands (e.g., Colombo and Morrison, 1989;Raj, 1985).

Over the past 30 years, some of the strongest and most consistent support for thefamiliarity-liking relationship has come from double jeopardy researchers (e.g., Barnardand Ehrenberg, 1990; Ehrenberg, Goodhardt, and Barwise, 1990; Fader and Schmittlein,1993). These researchers suggest that the familiarity-liking relationship poses a dualhazard for small share brands, which typically exhibit both lower penetration and lowerloyalty compared to large share brands. Unfortunately, most studies of brand loyalty anddouble jeopardy are primarily descriptive in orientation and offer little in terms of theo-retical rationale. For example, the most common explanation of the double jeopardy effectsuggests that it arises from heterogeneity in brand awareness between large and smallshare brands (Ehrenberg, Goodhardt, and Barwise, 1990).

In contrast to the descriptive approach employed by double jeopardy and brand loyaltyresearchers, the relationship between familiarity-liking has also been explored by a num-ber of behavioral researchers using experimental techniques. For example, endowment

6 ARIC RINDFLEISCH AND J. JEFFREY INMAN


effect scholars such as Sen and Johnson (1997) and Thaler (1980) show that familiarityresulting from the mere possession of a brand can lead to higher levels of brand valuation.Explanations for the endowment effect commonly draw on prospect theory and suggestthat possession of a product causes consumers to become loss adverse (Kahneman,Knetsch, and Thaler, 1990). Likewise, researchers investigating the impact of missinginformation on consumer decision making find that in brand choice experiments, con-sumers favor brands with higher amounts of available information (Meyer, 1981, 1982;Meyer and Sathi, 1985). Drawing on the multiattribute modeling literature, missing in-formation scholars explain consumers’ preference for familiar brands as resulting fromthe negative impact of perceived information dispersion on consumer utility.

In addition to these primary streams of research, secondary evidence of the familiarity-liking relationship has also been reported by a number of researchers across a broad rangeof interests. For example, Reibstein and Farris (1995) clearly document a positive rela-tionship between market share and distributional intensity. Kent and Allen (1994) showthat well-known brands attain better recall and are better able to shield themselves fromcompetitive advertising interference than less familiar brands. Furthermore, Carpenterand Nakamoto (1989, 1994) suggest that brands which establish a first-mover strongholdin a product category are able to use their position of familiarity to influence preferencestructure formation.

Table 1. Familiarity-liking phenomenon in the marketing literature.

Literature Familiarity Indicant Liking Indicant Key Articles

Brand loyalty Market share Brand loyalty Colombo and Morrison (1989);Hoyer and Brown (1990);Raj (1985)

Competitive adinterference

Brand familiarity Resistance tocompetitive advertising

Kent and Allen (1994)

Double jeopardy Brand penetration Brand loyalty Ehrenberg et al. (1990);Fader and Schmittlein (1993);Shuchman (1968)

Endowmenteffect

Brand possession Brand valuation Kahneman et al. (1990);Sen and Johnson (1997);Thaler (1980)

First-moveradvantage

First-mover status Brand preference Carpenter andNakamoto (1989, 1994)

Distributionadvantage

Market share Distribution intensity Reibstein and Farris (1995)

Missing information Amount of brandinformation

Brand choice Meyer (1981, 1982);Meyer and Sathi (1985)

EXPLAINING THE FAMILIARITY-LIKING RELATIONSHIP 7


Perhaps the most striking aspect of the familiarity-liking phenomenon is the dearth oftheoretical explanations which characterize many of these studies. As noted earlier, bothdouble jeopardy and brand loyalty research is heavily concentrated on simply document-ing this empirical generalization. While endowment effect and missing information schol-ars draw on economic psychology (i.e., prospect theory and multiattribute models) toenhance their understanding of this phenomenon, they provide only partial tests of therange of conditions under which familiarity breeds liking for a product.

Given this need for further investigation of the familiarity-liking relationship, we seekto enhance understanding of this important empirical generalization by examining theconditions under which it may arise within a controlled laboratory context. In contrast toother experimental investigations of the familiarity-liking relationship (e.g., Kent andAllen, 1994; Thaler, 1980), the subjects in our study engage in actual product consump-tion. By allowing subjects to experience products firsthand, our experimental approachshould generate a high degree of familiarity (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987) and enhanceecological validity. Our study also represents the first attempt to provide a competinghypotheses test of this phenomenon. Based on a review of the consumer behavior litera-ture, we believe that there are several potential alternative conditions under which thefamiliarity-liking relationship occurs. Specifically, this literature suggests at least threeplausible theoretical explanations; (1) the mere exposure hypothesis, (2) the informationavailability hypothesis, and (3) the social desirability hypothesis. Each of these threehypotheses and our experimental tests of their empirical validity are described in thefollowing sections.

2. Experiment 1: Mere exposure hypothesis

Psychologists have long observed that repeated exposure to a stimuli results in an increasein positive affect (Bornstein, 1989; Maslow, 1937; Matlin, 1971; Zajonc, 1980; Zajoncand Markus, 1982). In short, perceptual familiarity breeds liking. As Zajonc and Markus(1982) observe, “When objects are presented to the individual on repeated occasions, themere exposure is capable of making the individual’s attitude toward these objects morepositive” (p. 125). Further evidence of the mere exposure effect comes from studies ofsocial interaction. Social exchange theorists observe that in a social exchange context, themore frequent the interaction between people, the stronger their affection or liking for oneanother (Homans, 1961; Kollock, 1994). The mere exposure phenomenon has been con-firmed by a great deal of empirical research over the past two decades, and its effects haveproven to be robust across a variety of contexts and measures (see Bornstein, 1989 for areview).

In addition to promoting a positive affective response, frequency of exposure alsoappears to be positively related to perceived validity or truthfulness. More frequentlyencountered information is usually rated as being more trustworthy and reliable. “Severalexperiments confirm that frequency of occurrence is at least one component in the judg-ments people make about the validity of facts” (Hasher and Zacks, 1984, p. 1383). Studiesof social exchange have found that subjects often rank their more frequent exchangepartners as more trustworthy than their less frequent exchange partners (e.g., Kollock



1994). In a marketing context, Hoyer and Brown (1990) note that frequency informationis often used as the basis for making inferences regarding product quality.

As an potential explanation of the familiarity-liking relationship, the mere exposurehypothesis suggests that the main reason why more familiar brands are better liked is dueto the simple fact that consumers have had more frequent exposure to these brands, andthus develop affective responses to them. Likewise, due to their frequent exposure, highlyfamiliar brands may be viewed as more trustworthy and reliable. Brand name recognitionis one of the key mechanisms for reducing consumer uncertainty by providing an indi-cation of quality and giving the consumer a means of redress if a brand fails to meetexpectations (Hoyer and Brown, 1990). The combined result of increased affective andtrusting responses may produce both higher trial and repeat buying behavior. In sum, themere exposure hypothesis suggests that the familiarity-liking relationship is primarilyattributable to affective processes.

2.1. Design and procedure

Since the design and procedures for all three experiments are closely related, we providea detailed description of our overall method in this discussion of our first experiment andinclude shorter discussions of the method-related distinctions in our second and thirdexperiments. The objective of all three experiments was to induce brand preference bymanipulating our hypothesized influencers (i.e., mere exposure, information availability,social desirability) while holding familiarity constant (by exposing subjects to all of thetest brands). This technique helped to ensure that any observed effects would be attrib-utable to our hypothesized influencers rather than simply due to differences in levels ofbrand familiarity.

The participants for the first experiment were 52 students enrolled in an introductorymarketing course. Each student received course credit for participating in the study. Eachexperimental session contained between one and four participants, who were seated in thecorners of the room. After entering the lab and signing in, students were told that theywould be participating in two short experiments. The first experiment was described as astudy of language learning ability (which contained our mere exposure manipulations),while the second was described as a test of their evaluation of three brands of root beer.We decided to use root beer as an appropriate test category for all three experiments, sinceits key salient attributes (i.e., taste, color, and smell) can be readily assessed by trial. Anumber of prior product and brand choice studies have effectively used beverages astesting stimuli (e.g., Allison and Uhl, 1964; Pronko and Herman, 1950; Smith, 1983).Based on the results of an earlier pretest of root beer familiarity, we selected Barqs, Dads,and Hires as our three brands of root beer. We ran a counterbalanced design in which eachbrand was disguised and rotated an equal number of times as our three test brands. As inthe other two experiments, our objective was to conduct manipulations which wouldapproximate a market structure composed of a high familiarity brand, a medium famil-iarity brand, and a low familiarity brand.

The experiment began with the participants being briefly exposed to six sheets of paper(fifteen seconds per sheet), each of which contained five (nonsense) seven-letter words.



Through this procedure, participants were exposed to the code names for our high famil-iarity brand (i.e., Fubviza) five times, our medium familiarity brand (i.e., Mivketa) threetimes, and our small familiarity brand (i.e., Surzoly) one time. Participants were told thatthese words were generated from “a computer language simulation which is based on ananalysis of actual languages.” In reality these nonsense words were created by the authorsusing systematic techniques developed by Matlin (1971, p. 296). All three words had verylow levels of familiarity and moderate levels of likability as determined from an earlierpretest of 47 undergraduate marketing students. A manipulation check revealed that 87%of the subjects recalled seeing Fubviza, 81% recalled Mivketa, and 50% recalled Surzoly.

After completing the exposure manipulations, participants were given a short filler task,in which they were told to, “Please list the thoughts that you had or things that wentthrough your mind while you were studying these words.” After completing this filler task,participants were sequentially presented with a two ounce sample of each of the threebrands of root beer, which we identified as Fubviza (i.e., large familiarity brand), Mivketa(i.e., medium familiarity brand), and Surzoly (i.e., small familiarity brand), and were toldthat they should taste and smell each sample. Participants were instructed to eat one lowsalt saltine cracker prior to drinking each brand of root beer in order to neutralize theirtaste buds. In addition, they were given a pad of paper and a pencil in order to take notesif they wished. After participants finished their final sample, we removed the cups, tooktheir notes, and gave them a brief questionnaire to complete. This questionnaire containedfour separate measures of brand preference: brand choice, future purchase intent, mon-etary allocation, and overall evaluation. A description of each item is provided in theAppendix. On average, the entire experiment lasted 25 minutes.

2.2. Results

According to the mere exposure hypothesis, we would expect to see a familiarity-likingrelationship in which the high exposure brand (i.e., Fubviza) obtains higher preference(i.e., liking) scores than the medium exposure brand (i.e., Mivketa), and the mediumexposure brand receives higher preference scores than the low exposure brand (i.e., Sur-zoly). Our results clearly do not support this hypothesis. As shown in Table 2, it is actuallythe low familiarity brand which garnered the largest level of brand choice (38%), whilethe high familiarity brand had the same level of brand choice (31%) as the mediumfamiliarity brand. Likewise, although the high familiarity brand had a higher future pur-chase intent score (2.68) than the medium familiarity brand (2.48), the low familiaritybrand had the highest overall future purchase intent score (2.77). The same type of patternoccurred for overall evaluation, as the high familiarity brand (2.85) scored higher than themedium familiarity brand (2.63), but was surpassed by the low familiarity brand (2.90).However, the high familiarity brand did register a higher level of monetary allocation($3.67) compared to both the medium familiarity ($3.15) and low familiarity ($3.17)brands. None of the differences for any of these four brand choice measures are statisti-cally significant.



3. Experiment 2: Information availability hypothesis

Consumer researchers regularly find that the amount of information available to consum-ers appears to affect their decision making and choice behavior (e.g., Kardes and Kalya-naram, 1992; Smith, 1983). The idea that the sheer availability of information can influ-ence consumer behavior dates back to Krugman’s classic 1965 article on low involvementlearning, and plays a key role in information integration theory (Smith, 1983; Smith and

Table 2. Experimental results.

Brand choice

Percentage of respondents hypothetically selecting one of the three brands.Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3

High familiarity brand 31% 28% 39%*Medium familiarity brand 31% 33% 38%Low familiarity brand 38% 39% 23%*The distribution pattern of brand choice among these brands is significant at the .10 level.

Future purchase intent

Likelihood of buying each brand during a shopping trip.Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3

High familiarity brand 2.68 3.13 2.94*Medium familiarity brand 2.48 2.92 2.44Low familiarity brand 2.77 2.88 2.60*The future purchase intent for the high familiarity brand is significantly higher than the future purchase intentfor the medium familiarity brand at the .04 level.

Monetary allocation

Amount of money (out of $10) allocated to each of the three brands.Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3

High familiarity brand $3.67 $3.30 $3.92*Medium familiarity brand $3.15 $3.04 $2.98Low familiarity brand $3.17 $3.44 $2.78*The monetary allocation for the high familiarity brand is significantly higher than the monetary allocation forboth the medium (p # .02) and the low familiarity (p # .01) brands.

Overall evaluation

Overall assessment of each of the three brands.Experiment 1 Experiment 2 Experiment 3

High familiarity brand 2.85 3.06 3.04*Medium familiarity brand 2.63 3.08 2.69Low familiarity brand 2.90 3.12 2.84*The overall evaluation for the high familiarity brand is significantly higher than the overall evaluation for themedium familiarity brand at the .10 level of significance.



Swinyard, 1982). Information integration researchers in both marketing and psychologyhave found that the overall evaluation of an object becomes more extreme as the amountof information known about the object increases.

In addition to being affected by the amount of information available in their environ-ment, consumers can also be influenced by the accessibility of this information. Informa-tion processing research suggests that in order to be stored in long-term memory, infor-mation must be rehearsed; without this rehearsal, memory traces are difficult to access.Since consumers constantly search through their memory structures in interpreting exter-nal information, brands for which information is difficult to retrieve may be ignored infavor of brands for which relevant information is readily accessible. For example, Biehaland Chakravarti (1983) find that information for previously selected brands was moreaccessible in consumer’s memory compared to information for rejected brands. Althoughthese two concepts are interrelated, information availability can be thought of as a char-acteristic of the external environment and information accessibility can be considered asa characteristic of a person’s internal cognitive structure. For example, due to limitedphysical distribution, lack of sufficient advertising and promotion, and poor productpositioning, a small brand may simply have less information available for processing thanits more prominent counterparts. Likewise, since smaller brands are encountered lessfrequently and are often rejected by most consumers, the information associated withthese brands is likely to be less accessible in consumers’ memory structures compared tobigger brands.

Thus, the information availability hypothesis suggests that, brands low in familiaritypresent consumers with less available and accessible information compared to betterknown brands. The difference in the amount of information available for well-knownbrands compared to obscure ones leads to a differential learning advantage in favor oflarge brands. Furthermore, since bigger brands are more likely to be purchased, theirinformation is more accessible in consumers’ memory. The subsequent rehearsal andrepeated exposure to brand information will facilitate consumer learning and increase theinformation known about familiar brands relative to their lesser known competitors. Insum, the information availability hypothesis suggests that the familiarity-liking relation-ship is primarily attributable to cognitive processes.


The participants for this second experiment were 51 introductory marketing students whofollowed the same basic procedure detailed in our description of Experiment 1. However,in this experiment we manipulated attribute information rather than brand names. Inspecific, we began the experiment by sequentially presenting participants with three listsof brand attributes; seven attributes (i.e., calories, carbonation, color, manufacturer, price,smell, and taste) for our high familiarity brand (which we called Brand L), four attributes(i.e., color, manufacturer, price, and taste) for our medium familiarity brand (which wecalled Brand M), and two attributes (i.e., smell and taste) for our low familiarity brand(which we called Brand N). These attributes were balanced for favorability based on theresults of an earlier pretest in which we asked 32 undergraduate marketing students to



rank both the importance of seven root beer attributes, as well as the desirability of threeoptions for each attribute. Participants were told that, they were being presented “somebrief factual information about each brand,” and were given 15 seconds to examine theinformation on each list. We conducted a manipulation check by asking participants to listall the information that they could recall about each brand. On average, participants listed3.41 attributes for Brand L, 2.88 attributes for Brand N, and 2.39 attributes for Brand L.After completing the information manipulations, participants were provided with a twoounce sample of each of the three brands of root beer, which we identified as Brand L,Brand M, and Brand N, and were asked to complete a questionnaire containing the samemeasures of brand preference outlined in Experiment 1. On average, the experiment lasted20 minutes.

3.2. Results

The information availability hypothesis suggests that we should see a familiarity-likingrelationship in which the brand with the largest amount of available information (i.e.,Brand L) obtains higher preference (i.e., liking) scores than the brand with a moderateamount of available information (i.e., Brand M), and the brand with the moderate amountof information receives higher preference scores than brand with the smallest amount ofinformation (i.e., Brand N). Our results clearly do not support this hypothesis. As can beseen in Table 1, once again it is the low familiarity brand which claimed the largest levelof brand choice (39%), while the high familiarity brand had the lowest level of brandchoice (28%). A similar pattern can be seen in our overall evaluation measure, in whichthe low familiarity brand had the highest assessment (3.12), while the high familiaritybrand had the lowest (3.06). The low familiarity brand also claimed the largest amount ofmonetary allocation ($3.44), followed by the high familiarity brand ($3.30) and the me-dium familiarity brand ($3.04). A (nonsignificant) familiarity-liking effect did appear forour future purchase intent measure, in which the high familiarity brand (3.13) had thehighest score, followed by the medium familiarity brand (2.92) and the small familiaritybrand (2.88). None of the differences for any of these four brand choice measures arestatistically significant.

4. Experiment 3: Social desirability hypothesis

Sociologists have long observed that social desirability exerts a strong influence on peo-ple’s opinions and actions (Asch, 1955; Homans, 1961). Most people feel strong pressureto act in accordance with social expectations. Violators of accepted social norms andstandards face social sanctioning, humiliation, and various forms of punishment. Socialdesirability is the product of our desire to conform to the expectations of significant otherssuch as spouses, relatives, and friends. In addition to the influence of significant others,consumers are often swayed by the sheer weight of popular opinion. Sociologists suggestthat we often determine what is correct behavior in any situation by observing the be-haviors of others. As suggested by Asch (1955) in his classic study of social compliance,



people will even make decisions that run counter to their better judgment in order toconform with social expectations. Marketers have long been aware of the power of socialexpectations, and popularity claims are often used in product advertisements (e.g., fourout of five dentists recommend…). As Bettman, Johnson, and Payne (1991) note, [theneed to justify one’s decisions to others] leads consumers to choose options that provideeasy rationales or justifications” (p. 63). In sum, the social pressure to conform to thebehaviors of others increases in proportion to the perceived popularity of a given activity.

As an explanation for the familiarity-liking relationship, the social desirability hypoth-esis suggests that this relationship may be a product of a desire to conform to socialexpectations. As noted earlier, consumers are more likely to be exposed to well-knownbrands due to their larger advertising and promotion budgets, more extensive distribution,and better product positioning. These bigger and more popular brands may be able to exertthe power of social influence upon consumer behavior. In other words, although consum-ers may feel that it is acceptable to purchase less popular brands from time-to-time, thepower of social compliance may influence many consumers to prefer more well-knownbrands, thus producing an empirical relationship between familiarity and liking. This typeof social desirability effect should be especially pronounced for publicly-consumed prod-ucts such as automobiles and clothing. In sum, the social desirability hypothesis suggeststhat the familiarity-liking relationship is primarily attributable to social processes.


The participants for this final experiment were 52 introductory marketing students. In thisexperiment, we manipulated social desirability at the start of each session by tellingparticipants that:

For your information, we have conducted this experiment many times, with hundredsof students like yourself over the past year and have found that on average 60% of ourparticipants prefer Brand L, 30% prefer Brand M, and 10% prefer Brand N. For publicinformation purposes, we are compiling a list of each participants’ favorite brand andwill post this information in the undergraduate student commons later this semester, soyou can compare your results with others if you desire.

This type of manipulation has been employed in previous consumer choice studies and hasproved very effective in eliciting socially desirable responses (e.g., Simonson, 1989). Amanipulation check revealed that over 90% of our subjects could correctly identify ourstated brand preference percentages at the end of the experiment. As in the first twoexperiments, participants were provided with a two ounce sample of each of the threebrands of root beer, which we identified as Brand L (i.e., high familiarity brand), BrandM (i.e., medium familiarity brand), and Brand N (i.e., low familiarity brand), and weregiven a questionnaire containing our four measures of brand preference after finishingtheir last sample. On average, the experiment lasted 15 minutes.



4.2. Results

According to the social desirability hypothesis, we should see a familiarity-liking rela-tionship in which the brand with the highest degree of social desirability (i.e., brand L)obtains higher preference (i.e., liking) scores than the brand with a moderate degree ofsocial desirability (i.e., brand M), and the brand with the moderate degree of socialdesirability receives higher preference scores than brand with the lowest degree of socialdesirability (i.e., brand N). Our results appear to provide support for this hypothesis acrossall four measures of brand preference. As shown in Table 2, the high familiarity brand hadthe largest level of brand choice (39%), followed by the medium familiarity brand (38%),and the low familiarity brand (23%). A chi-square test reveals that this distribution patternis marginally significant (chi-square 5 5.22, df 5 2, p # .10). A positive associationbetween familiarity and liking is also evident for our measure of monetary allocation, asthe high familiarity brand garnered a significantly higher level of allocation ($3.92) thanboth the medium ($2.98) (t 5 2.52, p # .02), and the low familiarity ($2.78) (t 5 3.12,p # .01) brands. the high familiarity brand also displayed a significantly higher futurepurchase intent score (2.94) than the medium familiarity brand (2.44) (t 5 2.11, p # .04).finally, the high familiarity brand had an overall evaluation score which was marginallyhigher (3.04) than the overall evaluation for the medium familiarity brand (2.69) (t 51.61, p # .10).

5. General discussion

Of our three hypotheses, social desirability appears to be the strongest theoretical expla-nation of the familiarity-liking relationship, as it demonstrated significant effects acrossall four measures of brand preference, including brand choice, future purchase intent,monetary allocation, and overall evaluation. In contrast, neither the mere exposure nor theinformation availability hypotheses showed evidence of a familiarity-liking relationshipfor any of these four measures.

Support for the role of social desirability as a valid explanation for the familiarity-liking relationship comes from a variety of sources in both marketing and social psychol-ogy. First of all, early work by Maslow (1937) suggests that objects with higher potentialfor social desirability demonstrate stronger familiarity-liking effects. In a series of ex-periments, Maslow discovered that the relationship between familiarity and liking is muchstronger for paintings and names than for rubber bands and paper clips. More recently, inhis study of the relationship between brand familiarity and brand loyalty, Raj (1985)shows that the correlation between familiarity and liking is higher for product categorieswhich are publicly-consumed (i.e., high social desirability) than privately-consumed prod-ucts (i.e., low social desirability). Specifically, Raj finds that the penetration-loyalty rela-tionship is strongest for tobacco and personal care products and weakest for pet food andhousehold goods. We encourage future researchers to assess the generalizability



of the social desirability hypothesis. For example, IRI panel data could be used to assessthe degree to which product categories high in social desirability have a stronger corre-lation between penetration and loyalty compared to categories low in social desirability.

Because previous studies have verified both the mere exposure and information avail-ability effects, our null results appear to be somewhat contradictory to these bodies ofresearch. However, it should be noted that our approach differs significantly from thesepast studies. For example, our study represents the first attempt to assess the impact ofmere exposure of a stimuli (i.e., brand name) on the preference for a product. The extantmere exposure literature has focused exclusively on the relationship between frequency ofexposure and liking for the stimuli itself. Likewise, information availability studies typi-cally do not allow subjects an opportunity for product trial. Thus, unlike most studieswhich provide subjects with only external information, the participants in our studyobtained brand information from both external (i.e., manipulated information) and inter-nal (i.e., product trial) sources.

Our results suggest that social desirability may play an important role in other empiricalregularities in addition to the familiarity-liking relationship. Specifically, recent researchin competitive market dynamics posits that new markets typically follow a systematicpattern of development in which positive feedback effects among buyers can produceempirical regularities in product demand (Dickson, 1996; Dickson, Farris, and Verbeke,1997). For example, products such as videocassette recorders and computers create net-work effects in which the benefit of using a specific product is heavily dependent upon thenumber of others who also use that product (Katz and Shapiro, 1985). These demand-sidepositive feedback effects lead to trends in buyer behavior which favor popular productssuch as VHS-formatted videocassette recorders and IBM-compatible computers. Cur-rently, the emerging competitive market dynamics literature does not offer a comprehen-sive explanation of how such feedback effects arise. We suggest that these types ofpath-dependent processes in buyer behavior may be at least partially attributable to theinfluence of social desirability.

We acknowledge the possibility that the effects of all three hypotheses may be partiallyattenuated due to our experimental approach, which employed manipulations which mayhave been somewhat transparent. Thus, an important avenue for future research would beto replicate our hypotheses tests using less obtrusive manipulations. For example, the useof a confederate who expresses a preference for a given brand may present a less trans-parent and more valid manipulation of social desirability. In addition, future research isneeded in order to better understand the process by which social desirability produces apreference bias for highly familiar brands. For example, research on the role of interper-sonal influence such as opinion leaders and reference groups may be useful in under-standing how brands grow through a social diffusion process, which may lead to increasedliking over time (Rogers, 1983). In general, we encourage marketing researchers to ex-plore other possible consumer behavior and market-related explanations for thefamiliarity-liking phenomenon.

In sum, our collection of studies provides a more comprehensive experimental test ofthe familiarity-liking relationship than previous work in this area. Through our empiricalassessment of three competing hypotheses employing actual product consumption, our



research suggests that the conditions which give rise to the robust relationship between abrand’s degree of familiarity and its level of liking appears to be the result of a socialinfluence process rather than internalized psychological processes of affect or cognition.While our results are far from conclusive, we believe that our investigation provides atheoretically-grounded starting point for future investigations. Like all empirical gener-alizations, the familiarity-liking relationship is in need of further experimentation andtheoretical explanation (Ehrenberg, 1995).

6. Appendix

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Hank Boyd, Andrew Ehrenberg, the editor and reviewer for theirhelpful comments on earlier versions of this research, Stephanie Dixon for her assistancein data collection, Tara Petryni for her assistance in data analysis, Nigel Hollis for hisinsightful experimental design recommendations, and Millward Brown, Inc. for theirgenerous funding of this research.

Notes

1. Following Alba and Hutchinson (1987), we define familiarity as a consumer’s degree of accumulation ofproduct-related experiences. We regard liking as an indicant of a consumer’s brand preference which maybe exhibited in either attitudes (e.g., positive brand image) or behavior (e.g., brand choice decision).

2. Evidence of the familiarity-liking relationship has also received notice outside of marketing, dating back tothe psychology literature of the 1930s, when Abraham Maslow (1937) suggested that, “familiarity, mayresult in greater liking for the familiar thing or activity” (p. 162). The familiarity-liking relationship has alsoreceived attention in the form of sociological studies of the Matthew Effect (Merton, 1968), which suggeststhat the scientific contributions of eminent scientists is likely to gain more attention than equally noteworthycontributions of lesser known scientists.

Brand preference measures

1. Brand choice: “If you were offered a free sample of any one of these three brands, which one brand would

you choose?” Measured by asking subjects to select one of the three brands.2. Future purchase intent: “Assuming that all three of these brands were offered in the near future in the grocerystore where you usually shop, how likely are you to purchase each of them?” Measured on a five-point scaleranging from “very unlikely” to “very likely.”3. Monetary allocation: “Assume you had been given $10 and were told that you had to spend this money onone or more of these three brands of root beer. How much money would you allocate to each of the threebrands?” Measured on a ten-point constant sum scale.4. Overall evaluation: “Based on your assessment of these three root beers, please record your overall evalu-ation of each of these brands.” Measured on a five-point scale ranging from “very poor” to “very good.”



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explaining the familiarity-liking relationship: mere exposure, information availability, or social...

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