In today's competitive environment, brand differentiation based on tangible attributes
is difficult to achieve. Therefore, concepts, like "customer-brand relationship"
(Blackston, 1993), "brand magic" (Biel, 1997) or "lovemark" (Beckman, 2002) have become
important in brand building literature. The reason for the success of these lies in the emotional
and self-expression benefits that brands provide to their ultimate consumers. From the
brand building perspective, brand personality is considered as an important input variable
in branding strategy models (Kapferer, 1991; Keller, 1993; and Aaker, 1996). From
the customer perspective, the adoption of new brands is a consequence of advertising
process (Mehta, 1994 and 1999; Cobb-Walgren et
al., 1995; and Meenaghan, 1995).
Consumer purchase products/brands not only on the basis of their functions or
quality, but do so, more importantly, because of the symbolic meanings contained in
products/brands (Veryzer, 1995). Brands offer different values to consumers: these values
are basically functional (i.e., the problem-solving capability of a brand), experiential
(i.e., benefits related to sensory enjoyment or cognitive arousal), and symbolic
brand benefits (i.e., the signal effects shown to others via the brand) (Keller, 1993). |
