Conspicuousness of Consumption Determines when Brands Benefit Most from Offering Ethical Attributes: An Abstract

Abstract

Consumers are increasingly demanding that organizations operate more responsively and offer more ethical products. Building on congruity theory, three experiments use real brands and an experimental framework to investigate the interactive effect of brand concept (i.e., symbolic vs. utilitarian) and ethical attribute type (i.e., symbolic vs. utilitarian) on brand evaluations. Experiment 1 demonstrates that congruity between a brand concept and an ethical attribute (e.g., a symbolic brand offering a symbolic ethical attribute) leads to enhanced consumer brand evaluations. However, incongruity between a brand concept and an ethical attribute (e.g., a symbolic brand providing a utilitarian ethical attribute) results in more negative brand evaluations compared to a congruent brand concept-ethical attribute pairing. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and supported the prediction that the positive effect of the congruity between brand concept and ethical attributes is mediated by perceived congruity. Experiment 3 shows that the positive effect of a symbolic ethical attribute paired with a symbolic brand emerges only when the brand consumption is perceived to be conspicuous. Evaluations of utilitarian brand concept-ethical attribute pairings were unaffected by the level of conspicuousness of brand consumption.

This research provides insights into consumer responses to brand concepts paired with ethical attributes. Specifically, this research contributes to the more recent research demonstrating that ethical attributes may elicit negative consumer responses (Griskevicius et al. 2007; Luchs and Kumar 2015; Luchs et al. 2010; White et al. 2012). The findings suggest that this is more likely when ethical attributes and brand concept do not match or when the consumption of a symbolic brand offering a symbolic attribute is inconspicuous. In-line with prior studies (Torelli et al. 2012), this research shows that brand concept has an important influence on ethical attributes effectiveness. Distinctively, our research looks at brand concept from a different perspective (i.e., utilitarian/symbolic rather than self-enhancement/self-transcendence) and show that certain types of ethical attributes may be roadblocks for certain brand concepts. Moreover, this research is the first to empirically document that the mediating role of perceived congruity and the moderating role of conspicuousness of consumption in the evaluation of symbolic brands provide symbolic ethical attributes. In terms of managerial implications, this research supports the notion that managers should consider the type of ethical attributes in conjunction with brand concepts to enhance brand evaluations. It is noteworthy that an ethical attribute/brand concept matching strategy is more effective for products and brands that are highly associated with conspicuous consumption, such as automobiles, apparel, or luxury brands.