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This study aims to explore the role of brand personality traits in explaining how different levels of brand favorability evoke affect from and forge connections to consumers.

The authors used a quantitative approach consisting of within-subjects (Study 1) and between-subjects (Study 2) experimental designs. Mediation analyses were tested using OLS regression with the MEMORE and PROCESS macros.

Findings suggest increases in brand excitement and sincerity to be related to differences in positive affect evoked by favorable and unfavorable brands; decreases in brand sincerity to be related to differences in negative affect between favorable and unfavorable brands (Study 1); brand competence and excitement to be related to the relationship between brand favorability and self-brand connection; and brand competence and excitement to best distinguish favorable brands from unfavorable brands (Study 2).

These results support the importance of brand personality traits that are considered to be universally positive and provide managers with an initial roadmap for which brand personality traits should be prioritized when communicating with consumers.

Drawing on symbolic interaction theory (SIT), this study aims to identify what makes corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication more favorable to customers in the chain restaurants context. Specifically, this study examines the direct relationships between the interactivity of CSR communication, brand trust and brand sincerity. In addition, the mediating role of brand trust (i.e. separate dimensions of brand reliability and intentions) and the moderated mediating role of self-congruity are explored.

A total of 418 US consumers with past experiences of participating in CSR campaigns organized by chain restaurants on social media were recruited using the online survey method of nonprobability sampling through Amazon Mechanical Turk in December 2021.

The results of this study revealed that the interactivity of CSR communication on social media affects brand sincerity; brand reliability and brand intentions mediate the positive effect of interactivity of CSR communication on brand sincerity; and customer’s self-congruity moderated the positive mediation effect via brand reliability.

Chain restaurant marketers need to understand the important role of interactivity as a key element of CSR communication on social media to help develop brand trust and brand sincerity in chain restaurants.

This study expands on SIT to support the symbolic benefits of interactive CSR communication on social media.

This study aims to fill in new evidence related to theoretical explanations on how perception of sincerity, excitement and sophistication relates to attitudes towards the different kinds of brand extensions, namely, horizontal extension and vertical extension.

Taking an established Chinese brand as a test object and a survey sample data from three cities in China, the strength of perception of brand personality and its effect on attitudes towards brand extension is tested. T‐test is used to analyze the data.

Results show that, a salient perception of personality “sincerity” is significantly favourable to downward extension, but has no significant effect on upward, near or far extension. A salient perception of personalities “excitement” and “sophistication” is significantly favourable to upward and far extension, but has no significant effect on downward or near extension.

Although the data used for testing the hypotheses in this article are taken from three cities in China, spanning four major age groups, this collection of data does not eliminate the possible errors introduced in the course of survey. Another limitation is that this survey takes one single established brand.

This study provides targeted strategies for the long‐term management of Chinese local brands, particularly established brands. Decision makers for enterprises of established brands are consequently faced with two alternative solution approaches. One is to undertake brand extension and develop and promote new products to improve brand personality. The second is to reform a brand's personality to make it conducive for reasonable market extension.

This study contributes to branding theories by pioneering research on attitudes towards a parent brand as an evaluation factor in research on the mechanism of brand extension, as well as by enriching research on matters related to brand personality traits.

The purpose of this study is to identify conditions under which consumers prefer matte packages and those under which they prefer glossy packages and to extend the findings to the context of consumer evaluations.

A series of four experiments-conducted across a diverse range of settings and consumers (through lab experiments and field studies) and using different types of products (mobile phones, invitation cards, wrappers and coffee packs)- examined the effects of matte and glossy packaging finishes on consumer evaluations (i.e. preferences, attitudes and purchase intentions). This paper further developed moderated mediation models to illustrate the mechanisms underlying the examined effects.

People with warmth and competence focus favored matte and glossy packaging, respectively. In addition, the warmth (competence) focus enhanced the positive influence of matte (glossy) packaging on brand sincerity (competence), leading to more favorable consumer evaluations (i.e. brand attitudes, product attitudes and purchase intentions).

This study provides managers with insights into conferring desired impressions of sincerity (competence) upon a brand and methods of attracting certain warmth focused (competence focused) consumers by using matte (glossy) packaging finishes.

This is the study to systematically investigate the effect of packaging finishes on brand impressions and consumer evaluations.

This study examines the use of dark humor in brand-to-brand communications on social media and its impact on consumers' brand perceptions. In particular, this study looks at roasting messages in which a brand humorously insults its peers.

The authors used a sampling method to recruit 286 participants from the United States. They employed an ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc analysis to test the hypotheses, as well as Hayes' PROCESS to test the mediation and moderation effects, including Johnson–Neyman procedure.

The authors found that not all customers find roasting messages funny. Rather, consumers' personality and age will influence their perceived humor of the messages and their brand evaluations. Customers who are young and extroverted are likely to believe roasting messages to be funny. They thus perceive the brand to be cooler and more sincere when using such a communication approach, compared to when the brand neutrally interacts with others. Meanwhile, brands may find less success with old and introverted customers.

This research sheds light on how the consumers' perception of humor in a roasting type of brand-to-brand communication has an impact on consumers' psychological perceptions of brand coolness and brand sincerity. To guide practitioners, it explored how the interaction between a consumer's personality and age moderates the aforementioned relationship.

In the modern era, brand authenticity is one of the most powerful positioning strategies for sustainable business growth. This study investigated the impacts of perceived brand authenticity dimensions (i.e., quality commitment, heritage, sincerity) on brand love to predict Generation Y's behavior from the Asian context.

This is new empirical research that tested the proposed hypotheses through PLS-SEM, as PLS is the most robust technique for predicting consumer behavior. Importantly, consumers (of Generation Y) from five Asian countries contributed to this study, and data collected from 427 Asian millennials on global brands.

The results analysis revealed that perceived brand authenticity dimensions significantly impacted brand love, which positively affected Asian millennials' behavioral outcomes (i.e., continuous purchase intention and price premium).

This study investigated dimensions of perceived brand authenticity to predict Asian millennials' behavioral outcomes in a broader perspective. Future researchers may investigate a specific culture with a larger sample size to predict millennials behavior.

This study has several implications that guide the global managers of several service and manufacturing industries to develop various positioning and relationship strategies for global brands to target Asian markets effectively.

Using attribution theory, this is the first novel research study that empirically discussed the dimensions of perceived brand authenticity, brand love, and Asian millennials' behavior toward global brands.

Despite competition and supply-chain disruptions during Covid-19 pandemic (2019–2021), one grocery retailer consistently thrived and was ranked top. The sources of the sustained performances needed examination. Guided by self-congruity theory and integrating three models, the authors examined how much the retailer's brand performances (brand loyalty, equity, preference and repurchase intentions) were emanating from brand personalities and marketing offerings. The mediating roles of brand loyalty and equity were tested.

Cross-sectional data was collected from 480 frequent customers using an online questionnaire posted on the researchers' social media pages. Factor analysis was conducted to identify the dimension that best describes the grocery retailer. Partial least square–structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test a conceptual model.

Factor analysis results show that brand sincerity (28.582% variance-explained; M = 4.1) was top (factor 1), followed by excitement (20.336% variance-explained; M = 3.9) and then trustworthiness (18.854% variance-explained; M = 3.87). PLS-SEM results revealed that two brand personalities (brand excitement and trustworthiness) and marketing offerings (price, place, product, promotion) impacted loyalty found to be a strong driver of brand equity. Repurchase intention and brand preference were influenced by brand equity. Brand loyalty mediated most of the relationships between brand personality dimensions, marketing offerings and brand equity. Brand equity also significantly mediated the relationships between brand loyalty, preference and repurchase intentions. The integrated model produced high explanatory powers with brand equity (67.8%), brand preference (71.7%), brand loyalty (63.2%) and repurchase intentions (54.2%).

The study extends a brand personality-loyalty model through integrating two other models that provided marketing offerings and brand equity outcomes. It demonstrates that a stream of profitable customers' responses awaits a retailer who holds both brand and customer mindsets by building admired brand personalities while providing desired marketing offerings.

The purpose of this research paper is to uncover the relations between brand and human personality by identifying brand preferences of consumers with different personality types.

Based on the existing literature, 15 propositions are suggested linking Ekelund's DI types as parsimonious proxies of human personality and brand personality dimensions as suggested by Aaker. Propositions were tested through statistical analysis of survey data collected in two stages.

It was found that consumers prefer brands with personalities that match their own. For example, consumers with Blue DI type exhibit clear aversion from the excitement dimension of brand personality, whereas consumers with Red DI type exhibit clear preference for the sincerity dimension of brand personality. No clear findings emerged concerning the Green DI type, mostly likely linked to the individualistic, non‐conformist and innovative orientations of such individuals. In addition data revealed a possible hierarchy of brand personality dimensions' influence.

Findings provide guidelines for better tailoring of promotional materials based on target customer groups, as well as the ability to evaluate underperforming brands in terms of a brand‐human personality mismatch.

The paper fills a gap in the literature about the congruence between brand and human personalities, and demonstrates how brand personality dimensions impacts brand preference among different consumer types.

The purpose of this paper is to describe research which introduces attractiveness as a moderator of the relationship between the perceived brand personality and evaluations of the brand as a relationship partner in a product marketing context.

This research tests hypotheses concerning the relationship between the perceived personality of a test brand and perceptions regarding the quality of the test brand as a relationship partner, and the moderating effects of the test brand's perceived attractiveness. The research is based upon a survey of 142 graduate and undergraduate students attending four universities in the southeastern USA. Reliability and validity of the measures were tested using structural equation modeling and the hypotheses tested using multiple linear regression.

This research provides empirical evidence, in a product‐marketing context, that perceived attractiveness significantly influences the consumer‐brand relationship development process in meaningful and predictable ways. Results indicate that consumer perceptions regarding a product brand's possession of certain personality traits can influence their opinion of the desirability of the brand as a relationship partner, and that the brand personality‐partner quality connection depends, to a degree, on the brand's perceived attractiveness. The specific role attractiveness plays in the relationship appears to vary across individual brand personality dimensions.

Limitations of this study include use of a student sample, use of a single test brand selected from a single product category, and reliance upon a subset of ten items from the original 42‐item Brand Personality Scale to represent the brand personality construct.

The results suggest that, for relevant product categories, understanding how perceived attractiveness interacts with other brand perceptions can enhance brand managers' understanding of, and thus their ability to foster, consumer relationships with their brands.

This research reveals that it is appropriate to include perceived attractiveness in the discussion of the impact of psychological brand perceptions on consumer‐brand relationship development.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the interaction effects of spokes-character dynamism (high vs low) and brand personality (sincere vs competent) on consumers’ evaluation and the mediating role of processing fluency.

Two experiments were conducted to test the hypotheses. Study 1 establishes the interaction effect between evoked spokes-character dynamism and brand personality on brand trust and examines the mediating role of processing fluency. By introducing a control group and using purchase intention as the dependent variable, Study 2 further extends the results of Study 1.

The results of Studies 1 and 2 show that for sincere brands, spokes-characters with high dynamic imagery contribute to significantly higher consumer evaluation than the control group and the group of spokes-characters with low dynamic imagery. However, for competent brands, spokes-characters with low dynamic imagery contribute to significantly higher consumer evaluation than the control group and the group of spokes-characters with high dynamic imagery. In addition, processing fluency mediates the interaction effect between evoked spokes-character dynamism and brand personality on consumers’ evaluation.

The studies considered only one method, “frozen motion,” to evoke perceived movement. Further studies using other methods are needed to allow for generalization.

The discerning use of dynamic imagery in spokes-character design involving advertisements may aid marketers in maximizing spokes-characters’ effect on consumers’ evaluation.

The perceived movement of spokes-characters is integrated into the cognition of brand personality. Marketers should take into account how the match between spokes-character dynamism and brand personality may influence consumers’ evaluation of the brand.