Kyeongheui Kim

Brand Concept Maps: A Methodology for Identifying Brand Association Networks

Understanding brand equity involves identifying the network of strong, favorable, and unique brand associations in memory. This article introduces a methodology, Brand Concept Maps, for eliciting brand association networks (maps) from consumers and aggregating individual maps into a consensus map of the brand. Consensus brand maps include the core brand associations that define the brands image and show which brand associations are linked directly to the brand, which associations are linked indirectly to the brand, and which associations are grouped together. Two studies illustrate the Brand Concept Maps methodology and provide evidence of its reliability and validity.

More or Less: A Model and Empirical Evidence on Preferences for Under- and Overpayment in Trade-In Transactions

Trade-in transactions typically involve an exchange of an old, used version for a new or newer version of the product. When consumers trade in their used model for a new model, the firm faces the choice of paying the consumer a relatively low price for the used model and charging a commensurately low price for the new model or paying a relatively high price for the used model and charging a commensurately high price for the new model. The extant literature suggests that consumers always prefer to be overpaid in trade-in transactions because they disproportionately value the gain associated with the revenues from the sale of the used version of the product. The authors draw from the prospect theory value function to develop a simple analytical model that identifies a condition under which this preference for overpayment is reversed. Their model predicts that even when faced with economically equivalent price formats, consumers prefer to be overpaid when the ratio of the price of their used product to the price of the new product is low, but when that ratio is high, the preference for overpayment is reversed. They observe support for the predictions that emerge from the model in laboratory experiments.

Priming thoughts about extravagance: Implications for consumer decisions about luxury products.

If a semantic concept is accessible in memory, it can direct attention to the attributes of a target that exemplify this concept. When these attributes have both affective and utilitarian implications that are evaluatively opposite, the relative impact of these different implications depends on an individuals ability and motivation to expend the cognitive effort required to evaluate them. These assumptions were confirmed in six experiments on the impact of priming the concept of extravagance on attention to a products luxury-related features and consequent reactions to it. Priming this concept decreased the choice of a luxury product if participants were both motivated and able to construe the utilitarian implications of the products extravagance-related features. When participants were either distracted from deliberating on their choices or were asked to recommend a product to others, however, priming extravagance led them to base their judgments on the affective reactions that the features spontaneously elicited and consequently increased their choice of the product.