Gerrath, MHEE orcid.org/0000-0001-7422-2181 and Biraglia, A orcid.org/0000-0002-1323-2586 (2021) How Less Congruent New Products Drive Brand Engagement: The Role of Curiosity. Journal of Business Research, 127. pp. 13-24. ISSN 0148-2963
Abstract
When new products are announced, stakeholders often expect them to be congruent with the brand. Nevertheless, brands often go against stakeholders’ expectations and announce less congruent new products. However, the effects of brand congruence on consumers’ brand engagement (i.e., the sharing and commenting of posts) are not well understood. Drawing on schema-congruity theory, we show that (1) consumers are more curious about less congruent new products announced on social media, (2) this curiosity drives their intention to engage with the posted announcement, and (3) brand background operates as a boundary condition of this effect. While prior work shows that high congruence drives positive evaluations of brand extensions, we find that this positive effect only holds for brands with a traditional (vs. non-traditional) background. We demonstrate the robustness of our findings across three experiments using real and fictitious brands.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of an article published in Journal of Business Research. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Congruence; Curiosity; Brand engagement; Brand Extensions; New Products |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Marketing Division (LUBS) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 14 Jan 2021 09:58 |
Last Modified: | 26 Oct 2022 20:28 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.01.014 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:169975 |