The situational impact of brand image beliefs

This study experimentally examines some situational influences on the formation and consequences of two brand image beliefs, pertaining to fun and sophistication (classiness). It tests McCracken's (1986) meaning transfer mechanisms and establishes that nonverbalized personality associations of celebrity endorsers on these dimensions can indeed reinforce equivalent consumer beliefs about a brand's fun and classiness benefits. However, this occurs only if a social consumption context is evoked, and only if the brand image beliefs are appropriate to the consumer schema for the product category involved. Moreover, under these facilitating conditions, such ad-created brand image beliefs have an impact only on brand purchase intentions and not on brand attitudes. Results have implications for the growing literature on different types of brand imagery associations, as well as for future research on the processing of nonverbal stimuli, the measurement of nonfunctional brand beliefs, and consumer inference processes.