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The effects of perceived product-extrinsic cue incongruity on consumption experiences: The case of celebrity sponsorship

Abstract

The level of congruity is determined by the degree of match or mismatch between an object and its associated attribute. Product evaluations are positively influenced when there is moderate incongruity between a product and its association; this finding is termed the moderate schema incongruity effect (Mandler 1982). The purpose of the current study was to investigate the influence of incongruity between a product and one of its extrinsic cues on consumers' product evaluations. Furthermore, we examined the moderating role of consumers' level of product knowledge. Incongruity was created by partnering a product with a sponsor. We found that consumers who were highly knowledgeable of the product gave the highest taste evaluations to the moderately incongruent product–sponsor pairing, whereas taste evaluations for consumers with low product knowledge did not differ across product–sponsor pairings. The results of our study have important practical implications for marketers, namely that product–sponsor fit can enhance consumers' consumption experiences.

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Notes

  1. Different degrees of freedom are reported due to sphericity assumptions and log transformation. For taste evaluations, sphericity is assumed; however, for willingness to buy, sphericity is not assumed and therefore the Greenhouse–Geisser correction is reported. For willingness to buy, given that some participants reported that they were willing to pay $0 for a bottle, this data was set as missing values when the raw data was log transformed and was not included in the analysis.

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Correspondence to Sarah Clemente.

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Clemente, S., Dolansky, E., Mantonakis, A. et al. The effects of perceived product-extrinsic cue incongruity on consumption experiences: The case of celebrity sponsorship. Mark Lett 25, 373–384 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-013-9257-y

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