A Brand Entitativity Model: Metacognitive Coherence Surrounding the Conception of a Brand and Implications for Consumers' Judgment Processes
An established brand has many advantages in achieving communicative effectiveness (Campbell, Keller, Mick, & Hoyer, 2003). However, any negative association of an established brand is difficult to replace by marketing claims when there is a sense of coherence associated with a brand. How then can marketers encourage consumers to be more open to new marketing claims? Little is known about these issues. The Brand Entitativity Model addresses this and other issues by investigating the epistemological status of a brand as a coherent entity in consumers' minds. Specifically, the model identifies (a) the conditions under which the metacognitive sense of coherence associated with a brand can be formed and (b) how changing the metacognitive sense associated with a brand can make consumers be more influenced by available new information for making judgments. The Brand Entitativity Model can provide a deeper understanding of consumers' cognitive representation of a brand and its implications for subsequent information processing, generating predictions that existing models have not been able to anticipate. The model also offers practitioners insights for achieving successful advertising and brand repositioning strategies for updating existing brand associations.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign