Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Befriending the Enemy: The Effects of Observing Brand-to-Brand Praise on Consumer Evaluations and Choices

Befriending the Enemy: The Effects of Observing Brand-to-Brand Praise on Consumer Evaluations and... Consumers have grown increasingly skeptical of brands, leaving managers in a dire search for novel ways to connect. The authors suggest that focusing on one's relationships with competitors is a valuable, albeit unexpected, way for brands to do so. More specifically, the present research demonstrates that praising one's competitor—via “brand-to-brand praise”—often heightens preference for the praiser more so than other common forms of communication, such as self-promotion or benevolent information. This is because brand-to-brand praise increases perceptions of brand warmth, which leads to enhanced brand evaluations and choice. The authors support this theory with seven studies conducted in the lab, online, and in the field that feature multiple managerially relevant outcomes, including brand attitudes, social media and advertising engagement, brand choice, and purchase behavior, in a variety of product and service contexts. The authors also identify key boundary conditions and rule out alternative explanations, further elucidating the underlying mechanism and important implementation insights. This work contributes to the understanding of brand perception and warmth, providing a novel way for brands to connect to consumers by connecting with each other. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Marketing SAGE

Befriending the Enemy: The Effects of Observing Brand-to-Brand Praise on Consumer Evaluations and Choices

Loading next page...
 
/lp/sage/befriending-the-enemy-the-effects-of-observing-brand-to-brand-praise-fCW3xjdwSp

References (69)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© American Marketing Association 2022
ISSN
0022-2429
eISSN
1547-7185
DOI
10.1177/00222429211053002
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Consumers have grown increasingly skeptical of brands, leaving managers in a dire search for novel ways to connect. The authors suggest that focusing on one's relationships with competitors is a valuable, albeit unexpected, way for brands to do so. More specifically, the present research demonstrates that praising one's competitor—via “brand-to-brand praise”—often heightens preference for the praiser more so than other common forms of communication, such as self-promotion or benevolent information. This is because brand-to-brand praise increases perceptions of brand warmth, which leads to enhanced brand evaluations and choice. The authors support this theory with seven studies conducted in the lab, online, and in the field that feature multiple managerially relevant outcomes, including brand attitudes, social media and advertising engagement, brand choice, and purchase behavior, in a variety of product and service contexts. The authors also identify key boundary conditions and rule out alternative explanations, further elucidating the underlying mechanism and important implementation insights. This work contributes to the understanding of brand perception and warmth, providing a novel way for brands to connect to consumers by connecting with each other.

Journal

Journal of MarketingSAGE

Published: Jul 1, 2022

There are no references for this article.