IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ijrema/v25y2008i2p104-108.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The low stability of brand-attribute associations is partly due to market research methodology

Author

Listed:
  • Dolnicar, Sara
  • Rossiter, John R.

Abstract

Using an experiment built into a longitudinal survey, we demonstrate that the low stability of consumers' brand-attribute associations [see Rungie, C., Laurent, G., Dall'Olmo Riley, F., Morrison, D.G., & Roy, T. (2005). Measuring and modeling the (limited) reliability of free choice attitude questions. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 22(3), 309–318.] can be partly explained by the prevailing methods used in market research, which can often lead consumers to construct temporary associations. To increase the proportion of stable brand-attribute associations, we recommend the following improvements in market research methods: use of a shorter, brand-prompted attribute association task; inclusion of an “don't know this brand” option to isolate ratings of brands unknown to the individual; omission of the standard instruction to guess when uncertain; and, in cross-cultural studies, translation of instructions and attribute descriptions into appropriate first languages. Even with these improvements, however, the maximal stability of associations that brands can achieve is less than 100% after correcting for methodological influences. This imperfect stability may mean that consumers learn brand-specific attribute associations that are temporary but stable enough to lead them to try or re-try the brand, after which consumers replace the specific brand associations with a summary brand attitude.

Suggested Citation

  • Dolnicar, Sara & Rossiter, John R., 2008. "The low stability of brand-attribute associations is partly due to market research methodology," International Journal of Research in Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 104-108.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ijrema:v:25:y:2008:i:2:p:104-108
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijresmar.2007.10.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167811608000141
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijresmar.2007.10.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lynch, John G, Jr & Marmorstein, Howard & Weigold, Michael F, 1988. "Choices from Sets Including Remembered Brands: Use of Recalled Attributes and Prior Overall Evaluations," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 15(2), pages 169-184, September.
    2. Zaichkowsky, Judith Lynne, 1985. "Measuring the Involvement Construct," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 12(3), pages 341-352, December.
    3. Mazursky, David, 1990. "Temporal instability in the salience of behavioral intention predictors," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 383-402, September.
    4. Gilles Laurent & Cam Rungie & Fransesca Dall'Olmo Riley & Donald G. Morrison & Tirthankar Roy, 2005. "Measuring and modeling the (limited) reliability of free choice attitude questions," Post-Print hal-00818684, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rossiter, John R., 2010. "Consumer protocol evidence against Ehrenberg’s “stochastic” theory of brand associations," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 36-40.
    2. Saridakis, Charalampos & Katsikeas, Constantine S. & Angelidou, Sofia & Oikonomidou, Maria & Pratikakis, Polyvios, 2023. "Mining Twitter lists to extract brand-related associative information for celebrity endorsement," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 311(1), pages 316-332.
    3. John R. Rossiter, 2013. "Scientific progress in measurement theory?," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 3(3), pages 171-179, September.
    4. Anja Plumeyer & Pascal Kottemann & Daniel Böger & Reinhold Decker, 2019. "Measuring brand image: a systematic review, practical guidance, and future research directions," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 13(2), pages 227-265, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gianluca Fiocchi & Mona Seyed Esfahani, 2024. "Exploring the uniqueness of distinctive brand assets within the UK automotive industry," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 31(1), pages 1-15, January.
    2. Inwon Kang & Deokhee Cheon & Matthew Shin, 2011. "Advertising strategy for outbound travel services," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 5(4), pages 361-380, December.
    3. Peng Cheng & Zhe Ouyang & Yang Liu, 0. "The effect of information overload on the intention of consumers to adopt electric vehicles," Transportation, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-20.
    4. Malin Jonell & Beatrice Crona & Kelsey Brown & Patrik Rönnbäck & Max Troell, 2016. "Eco-Labeled Seafood: Determinants for (Blue) Green Consumption," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(9), pages 1-19, September.
    5. Merja Halme & Kari Linden & Kimmo Kääriä, 2009. "Patients’ Preferences for Generic and Branded Over-the-Counter Medicines," The Patient: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research, Springer;International Academy of Health Preference Research, vol. 2(4), pages 243-255, December.
    6. Mahan, Joseph E. & Seo, Won Jae & Jordan, Jeremy S. & Funk, Daniel, 2015. "Exploring the impact of social networking sites on running involvement, running behavior, and social life satisfaction," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 182-192.
    7. O'Cass, A., 2000. "An assessment of consumers product, purchase decision, advertising and consumption involvement in fashion clothing," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 21(5), pages 545-576, October.
    8. Eunae Jung & Hyungun Sung, 2017. "The Influence of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Outbreak on Online and Offline Markets for Retail Sales," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(3), pages 1-23, March.
    9. Martinovici, A., 2019. "Revealing attention - how eye movements predict brand choice and moment of choice," Other publications TiSEM 7dca38a5-9f78-4aee-bd81-c, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Kautish, Pradeep & Paço, Arminda & Thaichon, Park, 2022. "Sustainable consumption and plastic packaging: Relationships among product involvement, perceived marketplace influence and choice behavior," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    11. Nitin Walia & Mark Srite & Wendy Huddleston, 2016. "Eyeing the web interface: the influence of price, product, and personal involvement," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 297-333, September.
    12. Paul Baginski & Christoph Weber, 2017. "A Consumer Decision-making Process? Unfolding Energy Efficiency Decisions of German Owner-occupiers," EWL Working Papers 1708, University of Duisburg-Essen, Chair for Management Science and Energy Economics, revised Aug 2017.
    13. Yi-Hsiu Lin & Chen-Yueh Chen & Yen-Kuang Lin & Chen-Yin Lee & Chia-Yi Cheng, 2023. "Effects of Online Video Sport Spectatorship on the Subjective Well-Being of College Students: The Moderating Effect of Sport Involvement," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-11, March.
    14. Bruneau, Virginie & Swaen, Valérie & Zidda, Pietro, 2018. "Are loyalty program members really engaged? Measuring customer engagement with loyalty programs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 144-158.
    15. Ahrholdt, Dennis C. & Gudergan, Siegfried P. & Ringle, Christian M., 2019. "Enhancing loyalty: When improving consumer satisfaction and delight matters," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 18-27.
    16. Zhang, Yicong & Guo, Xiaoling, 2023. "“New and old†: Consumer evaluations of co-branding between new brands and Chinese time-honored brands," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    17. Puccinelli, Nancy M. & Goodstein, Ronald C. & Grewal, Dhruv & Price, Robert & Raghubir, Priya & Stewart, David, 2009. "Customer Experience Management in Retailing: Understanding the Buying Process," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 15-30.
    18. Xu, Yingjiao & Summers, Teresa A. & Belleau, Bonnie D., 2004. "Who buys American alligator?: Predicting purchase intention of a controversial product," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 57(10), pages 1189-1198, October.
    19. Daniel Hoppe, 2021. "Argument-Based Versus Emotion-Based Videos During the Early Stages of Recruitment: Effects on Perceived Employer Brand Image, Application Intentions, and Positive Word-of-Mouth," Corporate Reputation Review, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(1), pages 31-47, February.
    20. Songhong Chen & Jian Ming Luo, 2023. "Understand Delegates Risk Attitudes and Behaviour: The Moderating Effect of Trust in COVID-19 Vaccination," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-18, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ijrema:v:25:y:2008:i:2:p:104-108. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-research-in-marketing/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.