The impact of construal level on brand preferences: Ad metaphors and brand biography as moderators

Asia Pacific Management Review 22 (2017) 52e59

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The impact of construal level on brand preferences: Ad metaphors and brand biography as moderators Danny Tengti Kao a, Pei-Hsun Wu b, *, Annie Pei-I Yu c a

Division of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, ROC Department of International Business, National Taichung University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, ROC c Department of Business Administration, National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan, ROC b

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 5 May 2015 Received in revised form 15 September 2015 Accepted 21 October 2016 Available online 6 January 2017

This research attempts to explore the moderating roles of ad metaphors and brand biography in the impact of consumers' construal level on brand preferences. This article was designed to examine the main effects and the interaction effects of consumers' construal level, ad metaphor and brand biography on brand preferences. Results indicate that, low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with no brand biography than those with brand biography; conversely, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands with brand biography than those with no brand biography. Moreover, low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands advocated by low metaphorical ads than highly metaphorical ads; in contrast, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands advocated by highly metaphorical ads than low metaphorical ads. Furthermore, when the ad is low metaphorical, low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands with no brand biography than those with brand biography. In contrast, when the ad is highly metaphorical, low-level construal consumers are likely to engender no differential brand preferences for brands with brand biography over those with no brand biography. Moreover, when the ad is low metaphorical, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender no differential brand preferences for brands with brand biography over those with no brand biography. Lastly, when the ad is highly metaphorical, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands with brand biography than those with no brand biography. © 2016 College of Management, National Cheng Kung University. Production and hosting by Elsevier Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.

Keywords: construal level brand preferences ad metaphors brand biography

1. Introduction For brand marketing, brand story-telling has been pervasively applied as an effective approach to communicate with consumers and create the brand's competitive advantages. An inspiring brand story or brand biography contributes to the audience's comprehension of the brand's origins, product/service characteristics and mission statements, as well as helping the brand build psychological connections to consumers.

* Corresponding author. Department of International Business, National Taichung University of Science and Technology, 129, San-Min Road, Section 3, Taichung, Taiwan, ROC. E-mail address: [email protected] (P.-H. Wu). Peer review under responsibility of College of Management, National Cheng Kung University.

From a practical viewpoint, the more important issues regarding brand biography include how brand sponsors (or advertisers) can devise strategies of brand biographies to touch the hearts of customers, which customers are susceptible to brand biographies or brand stories and which internal or external factors can moderate the effect of brand biography. Though for the practical importance, scant research has explored the effect of brand biography in consumer psychology and marketing literature. In addition, recent research has indicated the importance of consumers' construal level, such as its impact on advertising messages (Hernandez, Wright, & Filipe, 2015), decision making (Han, Duhachek, & Agrawal, 2014), and price discrepancy (Irmak, Wakslak, & Trope, 2013). However, scant research has examined the impact of consumers' construal level on consumers' brand preferences. To fill the gap between academic and practical intelligence, this research applies consumers' construal level and ad metaphor to examine

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2016.10.001 1029-3132/© 2016 College of Management, National Cheng Kung University. Production and hosting by Elsevier Taiwan LLC. All rights reserved.

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whether the availability of brand biography can increase or decrease brand preferences. 2. Theoretical development 2.1. Brand biography Since brand advertising is crafted for building and nurturing emotional connections between the brand and customers, storybranding increasingly becomes an effective approach to communicate with audiences and further enhances ad effectiveness. It appears that the information in brand stories or brand biographies is more humane-oriented and affection-based than other information in a form of technical specifications (Mattila, 2000). The ingredients of brand biography include the concepts of product design, the origin of brand and the memorial stories during the initial stage (Parahia, Keinan, Avery, & Schor, 2011). Put another way, these “brand biographies” apply personal narratives to depict a historical context of the events that have delivered the brand, chronicling its origins, life experiences, and evolution through mass media, social networking sites (such as FaceBook and Twitter) and their official websites to narrate the biographical stories of brands (Parahia et al., 2011). However, Escalas (2004) proposes that traditional brand stories, which focus on goals, actions, and outcomes, are likely to be selfrelated, and need to be forged between brands in an ad story to achieve the brand synergy. A smart brand has to include a selfbrand connection, which is based on perceived psychological benefits, in its brand biography. In this way, good brand biographies are expected to invoke a range of consumer values, such as authenticity, artisanship, and heritage. Based upon the story-telling style, brand biography can be dichotomized into underdog and top dog ones. Generally, the underdog brand biographies narrate brand stories regarding the humble origins of entrepreneurs, who struggled to defeat the odds and crafted their brands and businesses through indomitable will and determination, despite the scarcity of external resources in relation to their well-resourced competitors. In contrast, the top dog brand biographies narrate brand stories regarding the smooth starts of the entrepreneurs, who did not suffer from hardship during their brand-building process, as well as the abundance of internal and external resources, as compared with their unrivaled competitors. 2.2. Construal level Construal Level Theory (CLT) posits that objects, events, or individuals can be perceived as being either psychologically close or distant along various dimensions, such as spatial, temporal, and social distance (Trope, Liberman, & Wakslak, 2007). CLT argues that psychologically distant objects, events, or individuals are usually €rster, represented as abstract or high-level construals (e.g., Fo Friedman, & Liberman, 2004), which require more on generalized schemas than on specific details for comprehension. Conversely, psychologically close objects, events, or individuals are represented €rster et al., 2004; Liberman & Trope, 1998) or as concrete (e.g., Fo low-level construals, which require more on specific details than on generalized schemas for comprehension (Yan & Sengupta, 2011). In addition, Trope and Liberman (2000) argue that people may construe information in memory either at an abstract level (highlevel construal) or at a concrete level (low-level construal). Highlevel construal individuals rely more on the primary features (Trope & Liberman, 2000) and the desirability of outcomes for decision-making (Liberman & Trope, 1998; Sagristano, Trope, & Liberman, 2002), as well as generate more support arguments

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for an action (Eyal, Liberman, Trope, & Walther, 2004); in contrast, low-level construal individuals rely more on peripheral features and the feasibility of outcomes for decision-making, as well as generate more support arguments for an action. Specifically, highlevel construal individuals mainly apply the abstract information received to form attitudes, whereas low-level construal individuals mainly use the concrete information received to form attitudes. As aforementioned, it can be inferred that low-construal level individuals tend to have more motivations to process information represented as concrete, whereas high-construal level individuals tend to have more motivations to process information represented as abstract. In the perspective of construal level theory, a good brand story or brand biography is usually featured as emotionbased, and consists of abstract thoughts. Brand ads accompanied with brand biographies are likely to impede the attention focus of low-level construal consumers, who have few motivations to process the abstract information in the brand biographies. Instead, when the ad copy is not accompanied with any brand biography, those low-level construal consumers can focus on seeking the concrete information in the ad appeals. Therefore, low-construal level individuals, who prefer concrete information to abstract information, are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands with no brand biographies. On the contrary, high-construal level individuals, who prefer abstract information to concrete information, are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands with brand biographies. H1: Low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with no brand biographies than those with brand biographies; in contrast, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with brand biographies than those without brand biographies. 2.3. Ad metaphors Metaphorical expressions are increasingly conceived as an effective approach of richly textured communication. Metaphors express “visual and tactual imagery that adds a more vivid level of understanding. Due to the different layers of sensory and informational meanings, metaphors are more likely to evoke an experiential response in the listener than the relaying of an adjective alone… at times, metaphors can more accurately capture the quality of an emotion than an adjective or an emotional label” (see Levitt, Korman, & Angus, 2000, p. 23). Considered in this way, metaphors can be perceived as abstract, experience-based, emotion-based, and can be judged subjectively. When metaphors are applied in text or images in an advertisement, they are considered rhetorical figures (Lagerwerf & Meijers, 2008). Verbal and visual metaphors are increasingly common in print advertisements. Compared with verbal metaphors, visual metaphors are more open to interpretation (Eco, 1976) and may elicit more meanings as they express the ad claim implicitly (McQuarrie & Phillips, 2005). Specifically, visual metaphor leaves more room for consumers to invest more cognitive effort in the ad appeals than verbal metaphor. As Ang and Lim (2006) contended, “a metaphor asserts a similarity between two objects that one does not expect to be associated; in contrast, a non-metaphor describes the world literally”. Clearly, metaphors are linguistically defined as two distinct concepts presented as similar (Lagerwerf & Meijers, 2008). Put another way, conceptual similarity refers to the extent of relatedness between the two metaphorical objects and is about the semantic proximity of these objects in the audience's mind. For example, a

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car and an aircraft are generally deemed as higher in conceptual proximity to each other than a car and a sun-bed, or a television and a razor (Gkiouzepas & Hogg, 2011). Previous research has indicated that the use of metaphors can lead to more extensive ad processing (Toncar & Munch, 2001), expand dimensional thinking (MacInnis, 2004), and enhance ad responses (McQuarrie & Phillips, 2005). Metaphorical expressions tend to be more likely to lead consumers to perceive the brand as imaginative and provoke more imaginations than straightforward expressions (Oliver, Robertson, & Mitchell, 1993). Furthermore, metaphorical expressions are more abstract and require systematic processing than non-metaphorical expressions. Metaphorical openness can be defined as the number and kind of visual cues eliciting particular thoughts (Lagerwerf & Meijers, 2008). In addition, metaphorical openness is a general property of visual and verbal expressions and can define interference of both expressions: Images are less open when combined with captions than without captions (Ketelaar & Gisbergen, 2006; Phillips, 2000). When the metaphorical openness in an advertisement is roomy, message recipients tend to have a higher elicitation of thoughts. In other words, roomy metaphorical openness in advertisements elicits consumers' elaborative thoughts (Lagerwerf & Meijers, 2008). As Oliver et al. (1993) indicate, metaphors usually lead consumers to perceive the brand as imaginative and provoke more imagination than straightforward expressions. Put another way, low metaphorical ads tend to be characterized as concrete and problem-based, whereas highly metaphorical ads tend to be characterized as abstract and emotion-based. In the perspective of construal level theory, low-level construal consumers mainly focus on processing the concrete information and have no or few motivations to elaborate on the abstract information; conversely, highlevel construal individuals mainly concentrate on processing the abstract information and have no or few motivations to scrutinize concrete information in the ad appeals. Therefore, it is predicted that, for low-level construal consumers, low metaphorical ads will lead to stronger brand preferences than highly metaphorical ads. However, for high-level construal consumers, highly metaphorical ads will result in stronger brand preferences than low metaphorical ads. H2: Low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands advocated by low metaphorical ads than highly metaphorical ads; in contrast, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands advocated by highly metaphorical ads than low metaphorical ads. As predicted in H2, low-level construal consumers prefer low metaphorical ads to highly metaphorical ads. When the ad is low metaphorically presented, low-level construal consumers are likely to process information in the ad appeals. Furthermore, when the low metaphorical brand ads are accompanied with brand biographies, low-level construal consumers can generate few or no motivations to systematically process the information in the brand biography, as the information is mainly abstract. Specifically, the affective information in the brand biography is abstract to low-level construal consumers, who seek to concrete information. Therefore, no brand preferences will be evoked for the low metaphorical ads accompanied with a brand biography. Instead, when brand biographies are not available in the brand ads, low-level construal consumers will not be distracted to other non-concrete information and will be able to systematically process the concrete information in the ad copy. Therefore, it is predicted that when the ad is low metaphorical, brand ads accompanied with no brand biographies are likely to elicit stronger brand preferences than those with brand biographies for low-level construal consumers.

H3: When the ad is low metaphorical, low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with no brand biographies than those with brand biographies. By definition, while low metaphorical ads are usually characterized as concrete and functional, highly metaphorical ads are usually characterized as abstract and affective. As Yan and Sengupta (2011) indicated, low-level construal consumers tend to focus on the concrete and specific details rather than the abstract and generalized schemas. Therefore, when the brand ad is highly metaphorical, low-level construal consumers are likely to generate counterarguments, form attitudinal resistance and have no motivations to further process other information, regardless of the availability of brand biography. Therefore, it is hypothesized that low-level construal consumers engender no differential brand preferences for the highly metaphorical brand ads, whether they are or are not accompanied with brand biographies. H4: When the ad is highly metaphorical, low-level construal consumers are likely to engender no differential brand preferences for brands accompanied with brand biographies over those without brand biographies. Likewise, high-level construal consumers mainly concentrate on applying the generalized schemas stored in memory to process the abstract information in the ad appeals. When the brand ads are presented in a low metaphorical style, high-level construal consumers tend to detect the availability of abstract messages to determine their preferences. As noted above, ads accompanied with biographies are more emotion-based and more abstract in nature than those accompanied with no biographies. Therefore, it is hypothesized that high-level construal consumers engender more favorable brand preferences for ads accompanied with brand biographies than those accompanied with no biographies. H5: When the ad is low metaphorical, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender more favorable brand preferences for brands accompanied with brand biographies than those without brand biographies. In contrast, highly metaphorical ads are characterized as abstract thoughts, which conform to the personality traits of highlevel construal consumers, who mainly focus on applying generalized schemas to process the abstract information in the ad appeals. Specifically, high-level construal consumers tend to generate preferences towards highly metaphorical ads. Compared with highly metaphorical ads accompanied with no brand biographies, ads accompanied by brand biographies are more likely to further strengthen the extent of preferences. However, highly metaphorical ads accompanied with no brand biographies are still strong enough to result in brand preferences of high-level construal consumers. On the other hand, even the extent of brand preferences may attenuate, highly metaphorical ads accompanied with no brand biographies still result in brand preferences of high-level construal consumers. Thus, it is hypothesized as below. H6: When the ad is highly metaphorical, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender no differential brand preferences for brands accompanied with brand biographies over those without brand biographies.

3. Methodology 3.1. Pretests of stimulus material According to Martin, Lang, and Wong (2003), a pretest for identifying an appropriate product/service is based on two

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criteria: (1) the product/service offers a range of attributes for manipulation, and (2) the product/service is relevant to the research sample. Hence, a pretest has been conducted to ensure the appropriateness of the stimulus material for the following experiments. 20 on-the-job graduate students have been asked to create a list of the most frequently used services. Next, another 20 on-the-job graduate students have rated the four most frequently used products or services from stage one on five, seven-point scales (e.g., unimportant/important) for involvement, from which an average score is derived. The pretest reveals that banking services are among the highest involvement score (M ¼ 5.57), all subjects currently own at least two bank accounts, (100%), and a large number of them use the financial services (either via Internet or physically visit the bank) more than once a week (95%), suggesting a pretty high frequency of use. Thus, the bank's financial services are selected as the stimulus material in this research. 3.2. Research design and procedure A total of 224 on-the-job graduate students were recruited separately to participate in a 2 (brand biography: unavailable vs. available)  2 (ad metaphor: low vs. high) between-subjects factorial design, where construal level acts as the measured independent variable, brand biography and ad metaphor fulfill as the manipulated moderators, and brand preferences act as the dependent variable. The participants were randomly assigned to two versions (low metaphorical or highly metaphorical) of a print ad for the bank's financial services, which was accompanied either with brand biography or without brand biography, respectively. Each participant was given a premixed folder containing a description of the research purpose, a print ad accompanied either with or without brand biography, and the questionnaire. The coordinator informed subjects that they were invited to join a brand survey for a bank, which intended to launch innovative financial services in the near future. In this questionnaire, a fictitious brand name for the bank was invented to limit confounds related to prior brand exposure. Participants were asked to rate their brand preferences for the bank, in which the ad was accompanied either with or without brand biography. 3.3. Measurement of construal level The measurement of participants' construal level is adapted from the study of Hong and Lee (2010). Participants were asked to fill out the 25 questionnaire items in the BIF scale (Vallacher & Wegner, 1989), which measures individuals' chronic construal level as a personality trait. Each participant was asked to describe an action (e.g. locking a door) by choosing one of two options corresponding to either a more abstract, high-level (e.g. securing the house) or a concrete, low-level representation of that action (e.g. insert a key in the lock). The answers were coded as 1 if the participant chose the high-level construal, otherwise were coded as 0 if the participant chose the low-level construal. The score for each question items was summed up for producing a BIF score for each participant. Subjects were dichotomized into low and highconstrual groups based on a median split (median ¼ 13, a ¼ 0.816). Low-construal and high-construal individuals exhibited significantly different scores (Mhi-con ¼ 17.74, Mlo-con ¼ 8.26, t(222) ¼ 28.83, p < 0.001). Higher BIF scores indicated a greater tendency toward construing information more abstractly, whereas

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lower BIF scores indicated a greater tendency toward construing information more concretely. 3.4. Manipulations of brand biography and ad metaphor For brand biography manipulation, the print ad was demonstrated by the ad copy accompanied either with or without brand biography. In addition, two versions of print ads were created for manipulating ad metaphor (low metaphorical ad vs. highly metaphorical ad). Each advertisement consisted of verbal copy and an image of advertised bank's financial services. As Lagerwerf and Meijers (2008) implied, the incongruity in the combination of verbal and visual expressions attracts attention and prompts consumers to invest more cognitive effort in processing the ads. Therefore, in the primed condition of low metaphorical ads, the verbal copy and the image were manipulated to convey consistent expressions to constrain the number of thoughts elicited by the metaphors; in contrast, in the primed condition of highly metaphorical ads, the verbal copy and the image were manipulated to convey inconsistent expressions to allow the number of thoughts elicited by the metaphors. Subjects were asked to view the ad and read the ad copy regarding those financial services offered by a fictitious bank: Bank of Global Wealth, BGW. The following excerpt shows the main ad copy of the low metaphorical ads accompanied with no brand biography: ~ As the image of all-faceted services illustrated beside, the innovative financial services offered by Bank of Global Wealth will always keep you ahead of others, since we started with the basics. In contrast, the main slogan of the ad copy of the low metaphorical ads accompanied with brand biography reads: ~ As the image of all-faceted services illustrated beside, the innovative financial services offered by Bank of Global Wealth will always keep you ahead of others, since we started with the basics (refer to our brand biography beside). Moreover, the main slogan of the highly metaphorical ads accompanied with no brand biography reads: ~ Besides unleashing your spiritual life (as illustrated), the innovative financial services offered by Bank of Global Wealth will always keep you ahead of others, since we started with the basics. In contrast, the main slogan of the highly metaphorical ads accompanied with brand biography reads: ~ Besides unleashing your spiritual life (as illustrated), the innovative financial services offered by Bank of Global Wealth will always keep you ahead of others, since we started with the basics (refer to our brand biography beside).

3.5. Dependent measure Brand preferences were measured with 3 items and were adapted from the study of Hellier, Geursen, Carr, and Rickard (2003). Those items consist of ‘I am interested in trying another bank‘s financial services’, ‘my favorite bank performs better than all other banks’, and ‘This bank is the finest for me’. All responses were

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collected on 7-point Likert scales (1 ¼ ‘strongly disagree’; 7 ¼ ’strongly agree’) and were averaged to form an index for brand preferences (a ¼ 0.79). 4. Results

Interactions of Construal Level × Brand Biography on Brand Preferences

Brand Preferences

4.1. Manipulation check of brand biography The manipulation check of brand biography was assessed by having respondents rate whether the ad contained a brand biography on a seven-point scale anchored by 1 ¼ extremely disagree and 7 ¼ extremely agree. As expected, an independent samples ttest revealed that the perceived availability of brand biography and the perceived unavailability of brand biography differed significantly (Mavailability ¼ 5.05, Munavailability ¼ 2.51, t(222) ¼ 24.54, p ¼ 0.000), implying that the ad accompanied with brand biography and the ad accompanied with no brand biography were regarded as being different. Therefore, the manipulation of brand biography was successful. 4.2. Manipulation check of ad metaphor The manipulation check of ad metaphor was assessed by having respondents rate whether the verbal and visual expressions in the ad were consistent on a seven-point scale anchored by 1 ¼ extremely disagree and 7 ¼ extremely agree. As expected, an independent samples t-test revealed that the perceived consistency of verbal and visual expressions (low metaphorical) and the perceived inconsistency of verbal and visual expressions (highly metaphorical) differed significantly (Mlow metaphorical ¼ 4.81, Mhighly metaphorical ¼ 2.64, t(222) ¼ 15.22, p ¼ 0.000), implying that the low metaphorical ad and the highly metaphorical ad were regarded as being different. Therefore, the manipulation of ad metaphor was successful. 4.3. Measurement of brand preferences Brand preferences were measured with three 7-point scales anchored by “I am interested in trying another bank‘s financial services’, ‘my favorite bank performs better than all other banks’, and ‘This bank is the finest for me’” (Hellier et al., 2003). The Cronbach's a value was 0.79, which indicated an acceptable internal consistency. Therefore, those scales were summed to form a single brand preference measure. 4.4. Hypothesis testing The simple interaction effect of construal level  brand biography on brand preferences (F(1, 224) ¼ 60.20, p ¼ .000, h2p ¼ 0.215, see Table 1) reached the significance level, implying that the construal level effect on brand preferences was subject to the availability of brand biography. The follow-up independent samples t-test for the brand preferences revealed that low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with no brand biographies than those with brand biographies (Munavail of brand bio ¼ 3.68, Mavail of brand bio ¼ 2.81, Table 1 Univariate analysis of the effects of construal level and brand biography on brand preferences. Source of Variance Construal Level ces of the Effect Construal level Brand biography

F 60.20 94.29 0.73

p 0.000 0.000 0.392

h2p 0.215 0.300 0.003

6 5.5 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5

Low Construal

5.00 3.92

Highly Construal

3.68 2.82 w/o Brand Biography w. Brand Biography

Fig. 1. Interactions of construal level  brand biography on brand preferences.

Table 2 Dependent Measure across Construal Level strual Level and Brand Biogr Brand

Low-construal

High-construal

Preferences With Brand Bio W/O Brand Bio With Brand Bio W/O Brand Bio Mean S.D. t p

2.82 0.57 4.77 0.000

3.68 1.23

5.00 0.48 6.24 0.000

3.92 1.19

Table 3 Univariate analysis of the effects of construal level and ad metaphor on brand preferences. Source of Variance

F

p

h2p

Construal Level ces of the Ef Construal Level Ad Metaphor

130.95 117.89 0.283

0.000 0.000 0.595

0.373 0.349 0.001

t(110) ¼ 4.77, p ¼ 0.000, see Fig 1). On the contrary, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with brand biographies than those without brand biographies (Munavail of brand bio ¼ 3.92, Mavail of brand bio ¼ 5.00, t(110) ¼ 6.24, p ¼ 0.000, see Table 2 and Fig 1). Therefore, H1 was supported. The simple interaction effect of construal level construal consumers are likely to (eF(1, 224) ¼ 130.95, p ¼ .000, h2p ¼ 0.373, see Table 3) reached the significance level, implying that the construal level effect on brand preferences was subject to ad metaphor. The follow-up independent samples t-test for the brand preferences revealed that low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands advocated by low metaphorical ads than highly metaphorical ads (Mlow metaphor ¼ 3.92, Mhighly metaphor ¼ 2.58, t(110) ¼ 8.79, p ¼ 0.000, see Fig 2). On the contrary, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands advocated by highly metaphorical ads than low metaphorical ads (Mlow metaphor ¼ 3.85,

Interactions of Construal Level × Ad Metaphor on Brand Preferences 6 5.5 5 Brand 4.5 Preferences 4 3.5 3 2.5

5.07 3.92

Low Construal

Highly Construal

3.85 2.58 Low Metaphorical Highly Metaphorical

Fig. 2. Interactions of construal level  ad metaphor on brand preferences.

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Interactions of Low Construal Level × Brand Biography × Ad Metaphor on Brand Preferences

Table 4 Dependent Measure across Construal Level strual Level and Ad Meta. Brand

Low-Construal

Preferences

Low Metaphor

Highly Metaphor

Highly-Construal Low Metaphor

Highly Metaphor

Mean S.D. t p

3.92 1.06 8.79 0.000

2.58 0.41

3.85 1.14 7.45 0.000

5.07 0.44

6 5.5 5 4.5 Brand Preferences

Brand Biography ce of the Eff Brand Biography Ad Metaphor

F

p

h

96.03 84.04 202.35

0.000 0.000 0.000

0.47 0.44 0.65

3.02

3

2 p

Mhighly metaphor ¼ 5.07, t(110) ¼ 7.45, p ¼ 0.000, see Table 4 and see Fig 2). Therefore, H2 was supported. For low-level construal consumers, the simple interaction effect of brand biography  ad metaphor on brand preferences (F(1, 112) ¼ 96.03, p < 0.000, h2p ¼ 0.47, see Table 5) reached the significance level, implying that for low-level construal consumers, the brand biography effect on brand preferences was subject to ad metaphor. The follow-up ANOVA revealed that when the ad is low metaphorical, low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with no brand biographies than those with brand biographies (Munavail of brand bio ¼ 4.81, Mavail of brand bio ¼ 3.02, F(1, 54) ¼ 136.70, p ¼ 0.000, see Table 6 and see Fig 3). H3 was accordingly supported. However, when the ad is highly metaphorical, no differentially favorable brand preferences were found for brands accompanied with brand biographies over those without brand biographies (Munavail of brand bio ¼ 2.55, Mavail of brand bio ¼ 2.61, F(1, 54) ¼ 0.29, p ¼ 0.59, see Table 6 and see Fig 3). Therefore, H4 was supported. In contrast, for high-level construal consumers, the simple interaction effect of brand biography  ad metaphor on brand preferences (F(1, 112) ¼ 140.69, p < 0.000, h2p ¼ 0.57, see Table 7) reached the significance level, implying that for high-level construal consumers, the brand biography effect on brand preferences was subject to ad metaphor. The follow-up ANOVA revealed that when the ad is low metaphorical, high-level construal consumers tend to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with brand biographies than those accompanied with no brand biographies (Munavail of brand bio ¼ 2.81, Mavail of brand bio ¼ 4.89, F(1, 54) ¼ 298.40, p ¼ 0.000, see Table 6 and see Fig 4). H5 was accordingly supported. However, when the ad is highly metaphorical, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender no differential brand

w/o Brand Biography w. Brand Biography

4 3.5

Table 5 Univariate Analysis of the Effects of Brand Biography and Ad Metaphor on Brand Preferences (under the situation of low construal). Source of Variance

4.81

2.61 2.55

2.5 Low-Construal / Low Metaphorical

Low-Construal / Highly Metaphorical

Fig. 3. Interactions of low construal level  brand biography  ad metaphoron brand preferences.

Table 7 Univariate Analysis of the Effects of Brand Biography and Ad Metaphor on Brand Preferences (under the situation of highly construal). Source of Variance Brand Biography ces of the Ef Brand Biography Ad Metaphor

F

p

h2p

140.69 161.38 207.02

0.000 0.000 0.000

0.57 0.60 0.66

preferences for brands accompanied with brand biographies over those accompanied with no brand biographies (Munavail of brand bio ¼ 5.04, Mavail of brand bio ¼ 5.11, F(1.54) ¼ 0.36, p ¼ 0.55, see Table 6 and see Fig 4). Therefore, H6 was supported. 5. Discussion 5.1. Theoretical contribution This research differs from the prior research in three main respects, which contribute to consumer psychology literature. First, from an academic perspective, theoretical understanding of the effects of construal level is promising but underexplored. While recent marketing literature focuses on examining the impact of consumers' construal level on price discrepancy (e.g., Irmak et al., 2013), price-quality relationship (e.g., Yan & Sengupta, 2011), and emotion appeals (e.g., Hong & Lee, 2010), this research explores the impact of consumers' construal level on the interaction effects of brand biography and ad metaphor, and thus successfully fills the research gap. Second, brand biography is a brand-new concept, which was first introduced in consumer psychology literature by Parahia et al. (2011). Parahia et al. (2011) conclude that underdog brand

Table 6 Dependent Measure across Construal Level nd Biography and Ad Metaphor on Brand Pref Brand Preferences

Low-Construal

Highly-Construal

Low Metaphor

Mean S.D. F p

Highly Metaphor

Low Metaphor

Highly Metaphor

w. BB

w/o BB

w. BB

w/o BB

w. BB

w/o BB

w. BB

w/o BB

3.02 0.64 136.70 0.000

4.81 1.09

2.61 0.41 0.29 0.59

2.55 0.52

4.89 0.98 298.40 0.000

2.81 0.62

5.11 0.86 0.36 0.55

5.04 0.43

Note: w. BB denotes the ad accompanied with brand biography. w/o BB denotes the ad accompanied with no brand biography.

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Interactions of Highly Construal Level × Brand Biography × Ad Metaphor on Brand Preferences 6 5.5

5.11 5.04

5 4.89 4.5 Brand Preferences

w/o Brand Biography w. Brand Biography

4 3.5 3 2.5

2.81 Highly-Construal / Low Metaphorical

Highly-Construal / Highly Metaphorical

Fig. 4. Interactions of highly construal level  brand biography  ad metaphor on brand preferences.

biography effect is driven by identity mechanisms. Specifically, underdog brand biography effect is stronger when consumers identify themselves as underdog, as well as when consumers purchase for themselves than for others. This research further examines how the availability of brand biography interacts with consumers' construal level and ad metaphor, which contribute to broaden the horizon of brand biography in marketing literature. At last, there is still disagreement regarding whether low ad metaphor or highly ad metaphor is more effective. Some moderators have been addressed to interpret the mixed conclusions, such €rsching, 1999), ad hoc (Carston, 2002) and conas gender (Wo sumers' comprehension (Morgan and Reichert, 1999). This research successfully links the internal factor (consumer's construal level) and the external factor (brand biography in ads) to speculate the disagreement. Put another way, this research demonstrates that the ad metaphor effect on brand preferences is not only driven by changes in internal mental states, but also other external factor(s) may drive the preference changes.

likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands advocated by highly metaphorical ads than low metaphorical ads. Accordingly, advertisers are encouraged to apply low metaphorical or explicit ad strategies for low-level construal consumers and use highly metaphorical or implicit ad strategies for high-level construal consumers. The results of H3 support the notion that when the ad is low metaphorical, low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with no brand biographies than those with brand biographies. Therefore, when the ad strategies are straightforward, advertisers are suggested to add no brand biographies to ads for increasing low-level construal consumers' brand preferences. In contrast, the results of H4 support the notion that when the ad is highly metaphorical, no differentially favorable brand preferences were found for low-level construal consumers for brands accompanied with brand biographies over those without brand biographies. From a perspective of practices, when the ad appeals for the advocated products or services are implicit, the effectiveness of brand biography strategies is limited. Therefore, advertisers are expected to use other marketing stimulus rather than brand biographies for appealing to low-level construal consumers. The results of H5 support the notion that when the ad is low metaphorical, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands accompanied with brand biographies than those accompanied with no brand biographies. Practically, when advertisers determine to adopt straightforward rather than implicit ad strategies for pinpointing high-level construal consumers, adding brand biographies to ads for the advocated products or services is a fine advertising alternative to reinforce high-level construal consumers' brand preferences. In contrast, the results of H6 support the notion that when the ad is highly metaphorical, high-level construal consumers tend to engender no differential brand preferences for brands accompanied with brand biographies over those accompanied with no brand biographies. From a practical perspective, when the metaphorical ads are devised for appealing to high-level construal consumers, it makes no differences to adopt or abandon brand biography strategies.

5.2. Practical implications 6. Limitations and future research Findings of this research suggest that the brand biography effect can be moderated by other factors, which implies that advertisers are advised to adopt a brand biography strategy together with other marketing stimuli or market segmentation. The results of H1 support the notion that while low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for ads accompanied with no brand biographies than those with brand biographies, high-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for ads accompanied with brand biographies than those without brand biographies. In practice, for the target market consisting of low-level construal consumers, advertisers are advised to demonstrate concrete and specific information for the advocated products or services and add no brand biographies to ads for increasing brand preferences. On the contrary, for the target market consisting of high-level construal consumers, advertisers are suggested to exhibit abstract and generalized schemas for the advocated products or services and add brand biographies to ads for increasing brand preferences. Furthermore, the results of H2 support the notion that low-level construal consumers are likely to engender stronger brand preferences for brands advocated by low metaphorical ads than highly metaphorical ads, whereas high-level construal consumers are

This research contributes to the knowledge base of advertising psychology and proposes some practical implications to advertisers; however, some limitations need to be mentioned for future research. First, this research concludes that advertisers can apply different types of brand biography (availability vs. unavailability) and ad metaphor (low vs. highly) to target individuals with different extents of construal level; nonetheless, it is a tough challenge for advertisers to distinguish between individuals with different extents of construal level (highly-construal or lowconstrual) before an ad message strategy is devised. Second, it is assumed that the effect of brand biography may be stronger for new brands than for established brands. While the information for assessing the new brands is limited, prospective customers are likely to gather attribute information and assessments of the established brands as reference points. Therefore, advertisers are encouraged to adopt other marketing strategies rather than the brand biography strategy when newly launched brands become established. At last, this research uses financial services as the experimental stimulus material, future research is expected to apply tangible products to verify the external validity of this research.

D.T. Kao et al. / Asia Pacific Management Review 22 (2017) 52e59

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