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This paper aims to critically evaluate the definition of the brand concept, support the critique with an empirical study and provide a definition to resolve the problems that have been identified.

This paper combines a conceptual critique with empirical research using a sample of 730 journal papers to analyse the scope and number of brand-related concepts in extant literature.

The brand concept has evolved to become problematic with no clarity of definition. There has been an explosion in the number of brand-related concepts that make the brand concept opaque and unwieldy. Based upon the findings, the authors argue that it is necessary to return to a “label and associations model” of the brand concept to ameliorate these issues.

The empirical research presented examines only 730 papers from a much wider body of brand literature. Nonetheless, it illustrates the fact that researchers and theorists are not talking about the same concept when using the term “brand”.

Practitioners are not being served by academic branding literature because no two researchers appear to be studying the same entity. This prevents a body of research from being built to guide practitioners.

This paper makes an original contribution by combining a conceptual critique and empirical study to examine the problems arising from the absence of an agreed definition of the brand concept and uses this as a foundation for creating a resolution to the problems.

Construct Creation (CC) is a methodological problem occurring when a research process, instead of measuring an extant construct in the participant’s mind, creates the construct. The purpose of this paper is to argue that CC derives from problems around ecologically invalid research and attitudinal responses developed on the spot, both resulting from self-generated validity.

A between-subjects design was used to explore whether the personification prime (PP), a component of brand personality (BP) methodology, influenced the CC of BP for rocks. Analysis of qualitative data on how participants made their BP ratings in the absence of a PP was also completed.

Findings revealed that a methodology can enable CC in the participant’s mind, despite the construct being ecologically invalid prior to them participating in the study. Analysis also revealed that participants will use varied, and sometimes elaborate, strategies to enable CC and provide researchers with the answers to their questions.

Previous research has drawn attention to CC as a problem but the implications of prior research have so far been “sidestepped”. Consequently, this paper demonstrates CC and why it is a problem, while rebutting some arguments made in prior research for sidestepping CC.

CC is a potentially serious methodological problem that can result in invalid findings informing or misdirecting theory used by practitioners. As such, this paper proposes methods to ameliorate CC and improve ecological validity of future research.

This study will contribute to methodological literature by refocusing attention to the currently neglected problem of CC and by proposing a model of CC by participants.

This study aims to investigate whether digital advertising can be effective despite consumer inattention and how certain common combinations of ad characteristics increase or decrease ad effectiveness under conditions of low attention.

Using two online experiments in naturalistic environment, the authors compare ad effects under focussed, divided and incidental attention, for certain ad characteristics, namely, appeal type and (mis)matching between appeal and brand type. The results are analysed using logistic regression.

Ad exposure under low attention does increase brand consideration and choice. The greatest uplift in impact occurs when moving from non-exposure to incidental attention. Under incidental attention, emotive advertising was more effective than rational advertising, as was matching rather than mismatching an emotional appeal to a hedonic brand. Conversely, under divided attention, rational advertising and mismatching a rational appeal to a hedonic brand were more effective.

This research explores the effectiveness of Twitter ads with an emotional or a rational appeal and the (mis)matching between appeal and utilitarian or hedonic brand type. Future research can examine other formats and creative elements of digital advertising that can affect the low-attention processing and the effects that occur.

Intrusive, attention-getting advertising strategies may not be necessary. Certain common creative devices can increase advertising effectiveness despite low attention, so marketers can ensure consumer-centric marketing communication.

There has previously been limited understanding of low-attention mechanisms in advertising and little evidence of ad effectiveness under conditions of low attention. The research also demonstrates that certain ad characteristics, linked to common creative devices, enhance the impact of advertising despite low attention.

There are substantive disagreements about whether encouraging deliberative thinking increases consumer preference in low-involvement product categories. The authors draw on dual-process theory to add rare experimental evidence to this debate. They also investigate whether the effect of deliberative thinking increases with familiarity of the stimuli, as different theories of memory yield different predictions on this point. Finally, they provide evidence on whether the effectiveness of the Fairtrade logo arises more from mere exposure or attention to the ethical claim.

The context for the research is the use of ethical logos in packaged coffee, as this provides a realistic setting for the desired experimental manipulations. The fieldwork consists of two sets of trade-off experiments – rankings based conjoint analysis (n = 360) and best-worst scaling with a balanced incomplete block design (n = 1,628). Deliberative thinking is manipulated in three ways: by varying logos between visual (Type 1 processing) and lexical (Type 2 processing) treatments, by post hoc classification of time taken, and by imposing either time constraints (Type 1) or cognitive load (Type 2) on the completion of the task. Familiarity is manipulated by varying logos between the Fairtrade and a fictional Exchange Ethics logo.

Consumers do have higher preferences in the deliberative treatment conditions; thinking more results in an 18 per cent increase (Cohen’s d = 0.25) in the preference for choices that display an ethical cobranded logo. Surprisingly, the impact of deliberation is not greater for the more familiar Fairtrade logo than the fictional Exchange Ethics logo. This result is inconsistent with strength-based theories of memory, as these predict that deliberation will have a greater effect for more familiar stimuli. However, it is consistent with newer theories of memory that acknowledge familiarity can lead to activation confusion, reducing retrieval of pre-existing knowledge into working memory. The research also shows that the Fairtrade logo has substantial utility to consumers, and that this is approximately 59 per cent due to the ethical claim and 41 per cent due to the familiarity of the logo.

In field conditions, attempts to manipulate deliberation may not be effective or may simply result in reduced attention. Also, the costs of increasing deliberation may outweigh the benefits obtained.

The research confirms the heuristic value of the Fairtrade logo and shows that the effectiveness of ethical logos may increase with additional deliberation by shoppers.

There is relatively little work in marketing that applies dual-process theories to investigate consumer behaviour. The present study extends the use of dual-process theories in marketing, demonstrates a new method to investigate the effect of deliberation on brand choice and shows how deliberation magnifies the effect of endorsing logos, including unfamiliar logos.

The purpose of this paper is an examination of the role of brand personification in the development of the concepts of brand personality and brand relationships.

The paper is a critical evaluation of literature from the 1950s and onwards, examining the evolution and development of brand personality and brand relationship theory and the role of brand personification.

The major finding is that brand personification was developed as a research “gimmick” and that this “gimmick” provided the foundations for the development of the brand personality and brand relationship concepts. Further, the paper traces the evolution of the brand personality concept and identifies the ways in which it has been adapted from its original meaning.

The paper contributes to the branding literature by providing a critical evaluation of the history of marketing concepts and by providing insights into the role that motivation research played in the development of modern brand theory.

To identify women's sources of information about cervical cancer screening, information which women report receiving during Pap consultations, information they would like to receive, and the relationships between perceived information needs, personal characteristics and information sources.

Logistic regression analysis of questionnaire data obtained from 408 screen‐eligible women resident in east central UK.

Programme documentation and the Pap consultation represent the main sources of information, although a sizeable proportion rely on other sources (e.g. mass media). The range and frequency of information services which women report receiving during their Pap consultations are variable, and around one‐sixth of women report never receiving information. “Always wanting information” is predictable from subject characteristics, which do not map precisely, owing to the variation in frequency of information being supplied. Age and women's main sources of information are significant predictors of perceived information shortfall, and such shortfalls are associated with dissatisfaction with the screening programme.

Covers all aspects of women's attitudes towards satisfactory or unsatisfactory availability of external information in the matter of screening for cervical cancer in the UK.

Describes the efforts of Avis to provide monthly progress reports to the individual offices and departments who delivered the service, through their Customer Care Income Statements, allowing their efforts to improving customer care to be seen immediately. Creates a sensitivity analysis to show which major areas of concentration will bring the most return. Asserts that soliciting customer opinion is an excellent public image device. Concludes that customer care must be treated as a going concern ‐ something that requires constant attention and commitment and makes profit over time.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Armstrong et al.’s (2016) finding that ads that more closely follow evidence-based persuasion principles also achieve higher day-after-recall.

The author evaluates the importance of Armstrong et al.’s result and considers the criticisms that their work only examines some aspects of persuasion and that their dependent variable is known to have a low correlation with sales.

Armstrong et al.’s result provides a major advance in the knowledge of persuasive advertising. While they do not examine all aspects of persuasion, the scope of their tests is still very extensive. Day-after-recall is also arguably a better measure of advertising effectiveness than sales impact, due to the difficulty of identifying small sales changes among the random fluctuations that constantly occur in most markets and given the known processes by which consumer memory operates.

By synthesising prior work on advertising and consumer memory, the author provides a simple model of how advertising interacts with memory. This model explains why ad recall ought to be poorly correlated with sales, and highlights the need for Armstrong et al.’s result to be followed by further research into how contextual cues at the point of purchase affect memory retrieval and brand choice.