Shaping Retail Brand Personality Perceptions by Bodily Experiences

Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438–446

Shaping Retail Brand Personality Perceptions by Bodily Experiences Jana Möller a,∗ , Steffen Herm b,1 a

b

Freie Universität Berlin, Marketing-Department, Otto-von-Simson-Str. 19, 14195 Berlin, Germany Technische Universität Berlin, Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany

Abstract Customer experiences play an important role in retail brand management. This research investigates how bodily experiences in retail environments influence customers’ perceptions of retail brand personalities. Based on research on human personality perception, we propose that bodily experiences transfer metaphoric meaning to customers’ brand perceptions. In a field experiment and a lab experiment we manipulated participants’ bodily experiences (feeling of hardness and temperature) and consistently found a metaphor-specific transfer of experiences to retail brand personality perceptions (on the dimensions “ruggedness” and “warmth”). A third study reveals the mechanism behind the effect and demonstrates concept activation elicited by bodily experiences in customers’ minds. © 2013 New York University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Retail customer experience; Brand personality; Retail branding; Temperature; Experiments

A rich stream of research has emerged on multisensory customer experiences (Ailawadi and Keller 2004; Baker, Parasuraman, and Voss 2002; Borghini et al. 2009; Grewal et al. 2003; Kaltcheva and Weitz 2006; Mattila and Wirtz 2001; Puccinelli et al. 2009; Wakefield and Baker 1998). The tip of the iceberg includes retail spectacles, such as themed entertainment brand stores (The Hard Rock Café) and flagship brand stores (Nike Town), where sensory environments expand the meaning of retail brands (Hollenbeck, Peters, and Zinkhan 2008). The editors of the Journal of Retailing’s special issue on “Enhancing the Retail Customer Experience” emphasize that understanding customer experiences “sits atop most marketing and chief executives’ agendas” [. . .] but “remains a critical area for academic research” (Grewal, Levy, and Kumar 2009, p. 1). Likewise, Shankar et al. (2011) stress the importance of further investigating the effects of sensory experiences on customers. This research follows these calls and investigates how sensory experiences contribute to retail branding goals. Central to this research is the concept of retail brand personality—defined as “a consumer’s perception of the human personality traits attributed to a retail brand” (Das, Datta, and Guin 2012, p. 98). Retail brands are comprised of multisensory

∗

Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 30 838 52543. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Möller), [email protected] (S. Herm). 1 Tel.: +49 30 314 22641; fax: +49 30 314 22664.

experiences (Ailawadi and Keller 2004) and we propose that customers’ retail brand personality perceptions are shaped by in-store sensory stimulation. Research about the general concept of brand personality has shown that a favorable brand personality increases positive attitudes toward the brand (Aaker 1999), purchase intentions (Freling, Crosno, and Henard 2010), and brand loyalty (Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello 2009). For retail brands, the strategic shaping of brand personality contributes to the overall store image; helps to reach positioning goals; and increases customer loyalty, retail sales, and profitability. Despite its relevance, Ailawadi and Keller (2004) have identified a lack of empirical studies on retail brand personality perceptions. The present research strives for a contribution in this area and suggests that customers’ sensory experiences are antecedents of retail brand personality. Our findings add to the literature on retail branding and provide guidance for retailing managers. Research on retail atmospherics has zoomed in on experiences that customers detect by the senses of hearing, smell, and eyesight. For example, sound, scent, or visuals in shopping environments have been shown to influence product evaluation and behavior (Babin, Hardesty, and Suter 2003; Baker, Levy, and Grewal 1992). In this research, we emphasize the importance of somatosensory experiences in retail settings. Somatosensory experiences are sensory activities that convey information about the state of the body and its immediate environment, which include experiences of hardness and temperature. These bodily experiences are triggered—intentionally or unintentionally—in

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J. Möller, S. Herm / Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438–446

all retail environments by a variety of stimuli, for example, padding of store furniture and store temperature. The literature offers initial evidence for an effect of somatosensory experiences on customer perceptions. Meyers-Levy, Zhu, and Jiang (2010) investigated the effect of hard versus soft flooring using a manipulation by Cham and Redfern (2001). Results showed that bodily experiences of hardness influence customers’ evaluation of a product in terms of product comfort. The purpose of this research is to examine whether and how bodily experiences can elicit specific desired brand personality perceptions in the retail context. Thus, we theorize and test a managerially relevant issue that academia and practice has neglected as a strategic lever for retail branding. Our findings help to build a better foundation for planning, executing, and controlling the influences of bodily experiences on customers’ perceptions of retail brand personalities. Our studies aim at generalizable knowledge across different experiences and brands and we examine the influence of two different experiences—hardness and temperature—on various retail brands. In the following section, we describe our main concepts and derive our hypotheses. Subsequently, we report our studies in which we manipulated participants’ bodily experiences. In Study 1A we manipulated bodily experiences of hardness when sitting on hard versus soft store furniture to investigate a transfer to retail brand personality perception. Study 1B examines whether merely seeing hard versus soft store furniture activates the concept of hardness. Study 2 pioneers a method of manipulating experiences of temperature in a retail context. In particular, we investigate the effect of temperature on customers’ brand perceptions. Finally, we discuss the implications of our work for theory and retailing practice. Conceptual background Retail brand personality Customers appear to easily imbue brands with personality traits (Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel 2004; Fournier 1998; Levy 1985). With respect to retail brands—“a group of the retailer’s outlets which carry a unique name, symbol, logo or combination thereof” (Zentes, Morschett, and Schramm-Klein 2008, p. 167)—a study showed that customers associate H&M with excitement and IKEA with sincerity (Zentes et al. 2008). Martineau (1958) has discussed a similar concept to retail brand personality—store personality— as “the way in which the store is defined in the shopper’s mind, partly by its functional qualities and partly by an aura of psychological attributes” (p. 47). In spite of this early impulse and the calls by Ailawadi and Keller (2004) or by Grewal and Levy (2007) to examine retail brand personality, literature on this construct remains sparse, especially in contrast to the attention that researchers and managers pay to the concept of product brand personality (Das et al. 2012). Literature on retail brand personality refers to the general concept of brand personality that is defined as a “set of human characteristics associated with a brand” (Aaker 1997, p. 347). Brands can hold various personality dimensions, such

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as “ruggedness,” “sophistication,” “warmth,” and “competence” (Aaker 1997; Kervyn, Fiske, and Malone 2012) and these dimensions can be applied to both retail brands and product brands (Zentes et al. 2008). Customers and retailers benefit when a brand has a distinctive and enduring personality. Brands acquire symbolic meaning that offers customers the opportunity for selfexpression, identity construction, and confirmation (Belk 1988; Elliott and Wattanasuwan 1998). These benefits translate into economic value for the company and build brand equity (Keller 2007; van Rekom, Jacobs, and Verlegh 2006). Customers’ (retail) brand personality perceptions can arise from any experience with a brand (Aaker 1996; Plummer 1985). For example, customers draw inferences from the personality traits of the people associated with the brand, such as a company’s CEO, as well as from the brand’s user imagery. In the branding literature, we have found initial indication that bodily experiences influence consumers’ perceptions of product brand personalities. Brakus et al. (2009) have suggested that bodily experiences serve as an antecedent of product brand personality perceptions. Their study relied on survey data based on customers’ memories of experiences, but they did not manipulate bodily experiences. Labrecque and Milne (2011) investigated the effect of brand color on product brand personality perceptions. They manipulated the color of brand logos and packaging and discovered that certain patterns of color-brand associations create and reinforce product brand personality. Spence and Gallace (2011) discuss “tactile branding” by means of multisensory packaging to shape product brand image. We build on these initial and sparse findings indicating that bodily experiences have an impact on product brands and systematically investigate a relationship between retail brands and customers’ bodily experiences. For this purpose, we define bodily experiences as physical sensations evoked by the external world, such as the ones elicited by the retail environment. In order to understand the mechanism behind the effect, we draw on literature in social psychology where studies have shown that human personality perception is influenced by bodily experiences because of priming effects (Williams and Bargh 2008). Thereby, this research is the first that combines the streams of research on retail and product brand personality and research on priming through experiences. In the next section, we briefly review research on priming through experiences and we derive our main proposition about how bodily experiences serve as an antecedent for customers’ retail brand personality perceptions. Priming through experiences Research in social psychology has investigated the influence of bodily experiences on human personality perception. For example, Williams and Bargh (2008) have demonstrated that experiencing physical warmth or coldness unconsciously transfers to evaluations of other people, leading people to believe that others possess warmer or colder personalities. The study was based on priming effects on social judgments (Higgins, Rholes, and Jones 1977; Stapel, Koomen, and van der Pligt 1997), in particular the idea that the experience of warmth

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or cold automatically primes the semantically related personality dimension of being a warm or a cold person. The term priming refers to the activation of stored knowledge in memory (Higgins 1996). The exposure to a particular stimulus—for example, a bodily experience—increases the accessibility of a related concept in memory that can be applied for judgments, for example, the impression of a person (Herr 1986). People can memorize such impressions based on experiences. Research indicates that any information perceived during personal encounters has the potential to be added to the associative network related to that person in memory (Srull and Wyer 1989). Transferred to the branding context, bodily experiences during shopping are likely to serve as information that connects retail brands with related traits in a customer’s memory. That is, bodily experiences can become learned parts of brand knowledge and shape retail brand personality perception in the long run. Williams and Bargh (2008) argue for a metaphoric relationship between experiences and personality perceptions. Metaphors are “shared linguistic descriptors” (Ackerman, Nocera, and Bargh 2010, p. 1713) and people use metaphors that describe concrete experiences in order to talk about abstract conceptual knowledge (Boroditsky 2000; Lakoff and Johnson 1980). The body is an important source of information acquisition that helps people use and understand metaphors. As people interact with their environment, concrete sensory (visual, auditory, motor) information becomes part of abstract knowledge representation in memory (Barsalou 2008). For example, the concrete bodily experience of a warm home in terms of a comfortable temperature, shelter, and nourishment becomes associated with the concept of social warmth in memory (Williams and Bargh 2008). In line with associative network models of memory (Anderson 1983), whenever the body experiences warmth, the abstract concept of social warmth can become activated at the same time that it influences information processing. Similarly, Ackerman et al. (2010) have demonstrated a metaphoric link between experiences and personality perception, for example, the influence of physical weight on perceptions of peoples’ seriousness and importance. In one of their experiments, participants who sat on a hard chair judged a person (car dealer) to be more stable in a negotiation task than did participants who sat on a soft chair. Just as bodily experiences can transfer their metaphoric meaning to personality perception, our main proposition suggests the following: Main Proposition: Bodily experiences transfer their metaphoric meaning to retail brand personality perception. In Study 1A we test whether the bodily experience of “hardness” (vs. softness) influences customers’ perceptions of a retail brand as being rugged. “Ruggedness” is one of five brand personality dimensions as outlined by Aaker (1997). In Study 1B we examine the mechanism behind the effect and measure if the concept “ruggedness” is activated when participants merely see hard (vs. soft) store furniture in a retail setting.

Likewise, judgments of “warmth” play an important role in customers’ brand perceptions (Aaker, Garbinsky, and Vohs 2012). To generalize our assumption, we tested whether the bodily experience of warmth influences customers’ perceptions of a retail brand as being warm (Study 2). Study 1A We conducted our first study in a natural retail setting with actual customers to gain externally valid insights on our research question. Based on a pretest (N = 66, Mage = 25 years), we argue that the experience of hardness is metaphorically related to the brand personality dimension “ruggedness.” Hardness is an important bodily experience in retail settings and is present in various forms, for example, hard or soft fitting-room furniture, and hard or soft flooring in a store. Based on our main proposition we assume: H1. The feeling of hardness (softness) increases (decreases) customer’s perception of a retailer’s brand personality as rugged. In the study we asked customers to fill out a short questionnaire while they sat on either a hard or soft piece of store furniture in the retail store. Customers rated the retailer’s brand personality. We used Aaker’s (1997) brand personality dimension “ruggedness” and three control dimensions that were metaphorically unrelated to the experience of hardness. Since we do not assume an effect of hardness on more general feelings or unrelated thoughts, customers’ perceptions of the brand should only vary with respect to the “ruggedness” dimension, but not to the unrelated dimensions. Sample and procedure This study took place in a mono-brand fashion retail store in the center of a German city on two consecutive weekday afternoons. The retail brand is internationally known, and the store sells fashion items for both men and women. We employed a 2-cell (sitting hard vs. soft), between-subject design. Sixty customers (33 males, Mage = 37 years) were recruited for the study at the store and randomly assigned to the conditions (Nhard = 30). At the beginning of the study, participants were invited to take a short survey and led to a place to sit down. Participants sat on either a hard stone block or on a soft leather sofa. Both seats were part of the original store decoration, allowing a very subtle manipulation and averting potential demand effects. All participants completed the same one-page survey while they sat. Participants rated their perceptions of the retail brand including the dimensions “ruggedness,” “sophistication,” (Aaker 1997) “competence,” and “warmth” (Aaker et al. 2012) on a sevenpoint scale (1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree). They also answered control questions about their gender, age, and their current feelings about how they were seated to check the success of the manipulation (sitting hard vs. soft, embedded among three filler items related to current mood, ambient temperature, stress). After completing the survey, participants were debriefed and dismissed. In the debriefing, none of the participants were able to correctly identify the purpose of the study.

J. Möller, S. Herm / Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438–446

Results and discussion Manipulation check As expected, participants who sat on the hard stone block rated themselves as sitting harder (M = 5.16) than participants sitting on the soft sofa (M = 2.62, F(1,58) = 37.14, p < .01). We did not find any differences on the filler items. Brand personality perception Participants’ reported brand personality perceptions were collapsed to create a composite measure of each dimension. Factor analysis revealed successful measurements (Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .72 to .96). The ANOVA on “ruggedness” indicated that participants in the “sitting hard” condition perceived the retail brand as more rugged (M = 4.11) than those who sat soft (M = 3.21, F(1,58) = 12.13, p < .01). As expected, participants did not differ in brand personality perceptions regarding the dimensions “sophistication,” (Mhard = 4.77; Msoft = 4.57, F(1,58) = .75, ns) “competence,” (Mhard = 5.02; Msoft = 5.03, F(1,58) = .00, ns) and “warmth,” (Mhard = 3.66; Msoft = 3.05, F(1,58) = 3.01, ns). Additional 2 (condition: sitting hard vs. soft) × 2 (gender: male vs. female) ANOVAs on “ruggedness,” “sophistication,” “competence,” and “warmth” showed no significant interactions with gender nor significant main effects of gender. Also ANCOVAs with further controls (mood, temperature, stress) indicated no significant effects of potential covariates. Consistent with our main proposition, findings from Study 1A indicate a metaphor-specific transfer of bodily experiences to brand personality perceptions. In particular, bodily experiences of hardness influenced the brand personality perception of the metaphorically related dimension “ruggedness” (H1). Importantly, the manipulation did not impact unrelated dimensions, which supports the idea of a metaphor-specific transfer of experiences on brand perceptions. Study 1A finds initial support for the hypothesis in the natural setting of a retail store. The bodily experience was able to change actual customers’ brand perceptions of a real retail brand on the dimension “ruggedness.” The next study examines the mechanism behind the effect. Study 1B The previous study found that bodily experiences transfer metaphoric meaning to brand personality perceptions. The purpose of Study 1B was twofold: First, we directly tested for a priming effect of the concept of “ruggedness” evoked by bodily experiences in the retail setting. We expected that when someone experienced a “hard” store decoration element, it would activate the metaphorically related brand personality concept of “ruggedness,” but experiencing a soft store decoration element would not have an influence on the activation of “ruggedness.” We used a lexical decision task that is a standard procedure in psychology to test for the activation of concepts that have been primed. The task is based on response time measures. Activation makes concepts easier to process; thus participants are supposed to respond faster to words that are related to the activated concept than participants that have not been primed. Second, we aimed to broaden

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the managerial scope of our research. In Study 1A, participants sat on store furniture. But in retail practice not all customers sit down in stores. Study 1B investigates whether the simple sight of hard versus soft store furniture triggers the bodily priming effect. Literature on simulation theory suggests that the mere act of seeing another person’s behavior or emotional state can induce mimicry of the same experiences in oneself (Chartrand and Bargh 1999). In Study 1B we adopted this idea and we manipulated the bodily experience of hardness by showing pictures of hard and soft store furniture. Importantly, participants in Study 1B were not sitting; instead they stood in front of a computer screen while viewing the pictures and completing the lexical decision task. This setting was supposed to induce the simulation of the bodily experiences of hardness and reflect that customers commonly see store furniture while standing upright in stores. H2. Seeing a hard piece of store furniture decreases the time to respond to words that are related to the concept of “ruggedness” compared to control words. The time to respond to “ruggedness”-related words and control words does not differ when seeing a picture of a soft piece of store furniture. Sample and procedure The study used a 2-cell (visual display of a hard versus soft piece of store furniture), between-subjects design. Sixty-four students (36 females) were recruited at a major German university. Photographs of the store furniture used in Study 1A served as stimuli. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the following conditions: Participants were shown a picture of a hard piece of store furniture (concrete block, Nhard = 32) or a picture of a soft piece of store furniture (leather sofa). After completing the lexical decision task, participants rated the piece of store furniture along the item hardness (1–7 scale, 1 – hard, 7 – soft) for the purpose of a manipulation check. Participants performed a lexical decision task based on the procedure by Holland, Hendriks, and Aarts (2005). They were asked to indicate as quickly and as correctly as possible whether a letter string appearing on a computer screen for 250 ms was an existing word. Participants responded by pressing a “yes” or “no” key on the keyboard. They participated in a total of 58 trials. After six practice trials, 26 real words and 26 nonwords were presented in random order. Thirteen of the real words were “ruggedness”-related words (e.g., robust, adventurous, tough). The other 13 real words were not related to “ruggedness” (e.g., contemporary, narrow, discrete) and served as control words. Experimental and control words were matched on the number of letters and the number of syllables. We changed one letter in each real word to create nonwords. Results and discussion Manipulation check Results indicate a successful manipulation. Participants rated the hard piece of store furniture as harder than the soft piece

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of store furniture (Mhard = 1.62; Msoft = 5.53; F(1,62) = 240.48, p < .01). Concept activation For analysis, we removed responses by two subjects because of a very high error rate. As suggested by the literature (Holland et al. 2005), we removed extreme responses from the remaining participants. Responses less than 200 ms (9.21 percent) and more than three standard deviations from the mean (1 percent) were excluded from the analyses, as were incorrect responses to words (15.2 percent). These extreme responses and errors were evenly distributed across the two types of words and conditions. As is typically the case, our response-time data were right-skewed. For a better approximation of a normal distribution, we submitted the data to a natural log transformation. The response times on the 13 target trials were averaged, as were those on the control trials. These mean response latencies were subjected to a 2 (condition: seeing hard vs. soft piece of store furniture; between subjects) × 2 (word type: ruggedness vs. control; within subjects) analysis of variance. The analysis showed a condition × word type interaction (F(2,121) = 4.40, p < .05). Planned contrasts revealed that participants responded faster to hardnessrelated words when they saw the picture of the hard piece of store furniture (M = 466.4 ms) than when they saw the picture of the soft piece of store furniture (M = 549.6 ms, F(1,60) = 4.26, p < .05). Response times for control words did not differ across the conditions (F(1,60) = .41, ns). Study 1B provides support for the notion that the mere sight of store elements that elicit bodily experiences primes semantically related concepts in customers’ memory. Seeing hard store furniture activated the concept of “ruggedness,” which is a condition for the metaphoric transfer from bodily experience to brand personality perception as shown in Study 1A. The previous studies focused on the bodily experience of hardness and the brand personality dimension “ruggedness.” However, the bodily experience of hardness might be special in its ability to transfer to brand perceptions compared to other experiences. For further generalization, Study 2 investigates the experience of temperature. In addition, Studies 1A and 1B employ a specific measurement of the brand personality dimension “ruggedness.” It is possible that the wording of the scale items is particularly sensitive to the bodily prime of hardness. Study 2 uses different measures to rule out this explanation. Study 2 Study 2 aims at two goals. First, the study introduces the feeling of warmth to generalize the previous findings in terms of the operationalization of the bodily experiences. Several interviews with retail store managers revealed that store temperature is an important variable in retail settings. However, temperature is a neglected issue in retail literature. The Journal of Retailing has published only one study that controlled for—but did not manipulate—temperature. Wakefield and Baker (1998) asked customers if the temperature in a mall was comfortable and formed an ambient factor by combining this judgment with other customer experiences (music, lighting). Study 2 investigates the

unique influence of temperature on customer perceptions with an experimental approach. Specifically, we assume a metaphoric transfer of the experience of warmth to the perception of a brand as possessing a warm personality. H3. Experiencing a warm (vs. cold) environment increases (decreases) customer’s perception that the retailer’s brand personality is warm. The second goal of this study is to employ different measures of the dependent variable to rule out item-specific effects. We used three alternative scales that differ in their wording to measure the brand personality dimension “warmth.” We invited participants to a lab study and asked them to evaluate three major, nationwide-operating shoe retailers with regard to their brand personality. For shoe retail stores, temperature is an important ambient factor because customers take off their shoes when trying on different products and become particularly sensitive to the store temperature. Bodily experiences were manipulated by inviting participants to one of two lab rooms that differed in temperature. We expected participants in the warm room to rate retail brands as having a warmer personality than participants who did not experience warmth. Sample and procedure This study employed a 2-cell (cool vs. warm), betweensubjects design. Seventy-five students (43 females) at a major German university were recruited to participate in a lab study. Participants were randomly assigned to complete a survey with multiple tasks either in a warm room (temperature 25 ◦ C = 77 ◦ F) or in a cooled room (temperature 20 ◦ C = 68 ◦ F, Ncool = 37). Aside from the temperature, the two lab rooms were identical. At the beginning of the study, participants were exposed to the temperature in the room for a few minutes while they answered filler questions about recent consumer experiences. Next, participants rated their perceptions of the brand personalities of three major, nationwide operating shoe retailer brands. Participants were instructed to only rate brands they were familiar with. Each brand was rated along three scales that measured the brand personality dimension “warmth” along trait items, but differed in wording. The scale suggested by Aaker et al. (2012) consists of the items “warm” and “friendly,” which have an obvious semantic relationship to “warmth.” Further, each participant rated retail brands along a scale by Kervyn et al. (2012) that captures the nature of being warm in a more abstract way. The two items ask if the brand “has good intentions toward ordinary people” and “consistently acts with the public’s best interests in mind.” Finally, we employed Aaker’s (1997) scale of the dimension “sincerity,” which is conceptually similar to “warmth” (Aaker et al. 2012; Kervyn et al. 2012). The scale includes eleven items such as “honest,” “sincere,” and “sentimental.” Participants also rated the control dimensions of “ruggedness,” (Aaker 1997) “competence,” (Aaker et al. 2012) and “aggressiveness” (Geuens, Weijters, and De Wulf 2009) on a seven-point scale (1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree), and answered control questions about their gender, age, and their current perception of temperature in order to check the success of the manipulation

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(estimation of room temperature in ◦ C, feeling warm, 1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree; embedded among seven filler items, e.g., current mood, sitting hard, stress). At the end of the survey, participants were asked about the purpose of the study. Four participants identified the purpose and were excluded from data analysis.

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across different scales that measured the dependent variable “warmth.” To capture the metaphoric transfer, it was not necessary to use trait words that were semantically very close to the concept of warmth, but that capture the meaning of “warmth” as a personality dimension in a more general way. Hence, the bodily experience of warmth activates the concept of “warmth” in a broader sense.

Results and discussion General discussion Manipulation check In line with our expectations, participants in the warm room rated the room temperature as warmer (M = 22 ◦ C = 72 ◦ F) than participants in the cooler room (M = 17 ◦ C = 63 ◦ F, F(1,69) = 53.22, p < .01) and rated themselves as being warmer (M = 4.76) than participants in the cooler room (M = 2.38, F(1,69) = 41.24, p < .01). We did not find any differences on the filler items. Brand personality perception Participants’ brand personality perceptions were computed for every dimension of each of the three retail brands. Factor analysis revealed successful measurements (Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .72 to .96). Next, we averaged the ratings of each personality dimension across the three brands. One participant was not familiar with one of the retail brands and was excluded from the analysis. To test for the metaphor-specific transfer, we first analyzed the effect of the temperature manipulation on the rating of the “warmth” dimension as measured by Aaker et al. (2012). In line with our hypothesis, participants in the warm room evaluated brands to be warmer (M = 4.00) than participants in the cooler room (M = 3.11, F(1,68) = 21.43, p < .01). Next, we conducted the same analysis with the two “warmth” dimensions that were semantically less close to the concept of “warmth,” but that still captured the meaning of the concept (warmth as measured by Kervyn et al. 2012 and sincerity as measured by Aaker 1997). ANOVAs on these warmth scales indicated that participants in the warm room evaluated brands to be warmer (M = 3.64) and more sincere (M = 4.25) than participants in the cooler room (Mwarmth = 3.10, F(1,68) 4.60, p < .05; Msincere = 3.77, F(1,68) = 10.07, p < .01)2 . As expected, brand personality perceptions did not differ between conditions with respect to the control dimensions “ruggedness,” (Mwarm = 3.17; Mcool = 2.95, F(1,68) = 1.45, ns) “competence,” (Mwarm = 4.79; Mcool = 4.56, F(1,68) = 1.50, ns) and “aggressiveness” (Mwarm = 2.46; Mcool = 2.35, F(1,68) = .23, ns). The results replicated our previous findings that bodily experiences transfer in a metaphoric way to brand personality perceptions. Participants who experienced warmth perceived retail brands to be warmer than participants who did not experience warmth. The findings were consistent across three different retail brands. This indicates a generalizable effect of a transfer across different bodily experiences. Further, the effect appeared

2 We used purchase frequency at the retailers as a control variable and the results do not change.

Customer experiences as well as brand personality are concepts that promise value when strategically applied in retail branding (Ailawadi and Keller 2004). Independent research about each of the concepts is rich. Considerable interest has been devoted to the general role of experiences and how they shape people’s interpretations and evaluations of objects (e.g., Baker et al. 1992; Hoch and Deighton 1989; Holbrook and Hirschman 1982; Puccinelli et al. 2009). Similarly, the theoretical and managerial relevance of retail and product brand personality has inspired widespread studies in marketing (e.g., Aaker 1997; Das et al. 2012; Labrecque and Milne 2011; Geuens et al. 2009). We merge these research streams to investigate the relevance of bodily experiences for retail brand personality perceptions. The present research identifies a relationship between customers’ bodies and brand perceptions. In particular, we show that bodily experiences operationalized as hardness of in-store furniture (Study 1A) and warmth as ambient temperature (Study 2) influence consumers’ retail brand personality perceptions in a metaphor-specific way. Our theoretical contribution is to conceptualize the metaphor-specific transfer of bodily experiences on retail brand personality perceptions. Our research can generalize across two relevant ambient factors in retail settings, across different retail brands, and across different brand personality dimensions. The effect appeared in the field with actual customers in a natural retail setting and was successfully replicated in a laboratory study. In Study 2 we used various measures of the brand personality dimension “warmth” to ensure that the effect was attainable with varied wordings. Overall, our studies indicate a generalizable effect of bodily experiences on brand personality perceptions. We also demonstrate that the mere sight of a hard piece of store furniture activates the concept of hardness (Study 1B). This finding is particularly important because not all customers make use of available store decoration elements; they simulate experiences automatically. Understanding this process adds to academic knowledge about retail branding and is valuable for retail brand managers. Even if managers do not actively generate favorable personality perceptions, they need to understand that store environments can automatically shape customers’ brand perceptions. Theoretical implications Research in retailing has started to apply the concept of brand personality as part of retail branding and calls for theoretical insights into specific antecedents of retail brand personality (Ailawadi and Keller 2004; Grewal and Levy 2007). Studies

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in social psychology have shown that bodily experiences influence perceptions of human traits (Ackerman et al. 2010). However, these findings have not been integrated nor discussed in the retailing context. By examining how bodily experiences influence customers’ perceptions of a retail brand personality, our work contributes to the literature streams on customer experience management and on retail branding. Our results suggest that bodily experiences transfer to customers’ brand perceptions in a metaphor-specific way. This implies that brand perception and human perception share bodily experiences as an antecedent. Thus, our research adds to the debate on the similarity between brands and humans (Fournier 1998) and makes a case for similarity. This finding inspires theorizing on other parallels between humans and brands. For example, research on human relationships might indicate antecedents that can be included to conceptualize relationship building and loyalty in retailing. Furthermore, our research adds to the work of Meyers-Levy et al. (2010) that manipulates the concept of “hardness” by varying the hardness of flooring, which is another relevant ambient factor in retail settings. Meyers-Levy et al. (2010) focus on the influence of flooring on concrete product evaluations (the firmness or appeal of a vase or a chair), but do not assess any transfer of bodily experiences to consumers’ retail brand perception. Their work offers initial support for the potential of somatosensory experiences to serve as an antecedent to customer perceptions. The current research demonstrates that such bodily sensations can shape abstract retail brand personality impressions. Managerial implications Managers should actively plan, execute, and control retail brand personalities (Malär et al. 2012). This research introduces bodily experiences as a lever for retail branding. From a managerial perspective, we see three major implications. First, brand managers can use our findings to create store environments that elicit desired brand perceptions. Our research shows that bodily experiences activate metaphorically related concepts that transfer to customers’ retail brand personality perceptions. Concept activation was even present when customers merely saw store decoration elements. Our research provided practical guidance by demonstrating that hardness and temperature are bodily experiences that managers can manipulate to affect customers’ perceptions of retail brands. However, our theoretical conceptualization may also be generalizable. Hence, other bodily experiences that elicit metaphoric meaning in line with retail brand personality are promising tools for retail brand management. Bodily experiences such as touch, acceleration, sound, smell, and vision can be tapped. For example, brands that wish to be associated with traits like sophistication, upper class, and glamor might consider placing velvet fabrics on store shelves or in fitting rooms that are touched by customers who are examining products. Second, since bodily experiences and simulated experiences (e.g., evoked by pictures) automatically transfer their meaning to customers’ perceptions of retail brand

personalities, managers need to control their store environments for stimuli that elicit undesired metaphoric links to certain brand personality dimensions. Thus our research advises brand managers to pay attention to the bodily experiences induced by the store environment—even if the environment is not intentionally managed (according to our interviews with store managers, this is the status quo). For example, a brand that strives to communicate a rugged brand personality might not want to use soft, thick carpet in the stores; managers might consider installing hard wood or stone as flooring. Third, the results of our studies indicate that the retail environment can elicit bodily experiences and brand perceptions in very subtle ways. The relationships between particular bodily experiences (sitting hard, being warm) or visual stimuli and the retail brands were not obvious to participants. On the one hand, brands can use subtle cues that provide unobtrusive ways to influence customers’ retail brand perceptions, which help to overcome possible forms of subjective reactance (Friestad and Wright 1994). On the other hand, the meaning might still transfer when customers are aware of the bodily stimuli in a store environment. Depending on the branding goals, managers might use and combine bodily experiences that differ in subtleness to evoke desired brand perceptions. We also see some limitations in the practical implementation of our findings. Discussions with retail managers revealed that manipulations of the retail environment are often restricted in several ways. For example, high-speed escalators in a large store might evoke feelings of arousal and increase customers’ perceptions that a retail brand is exciting. But escalator speed is regulated for security reasons. In addition, store managers must balance branding goals and customers’ need for comfortable store environments. For example, the temperature in a clothing store must remain in a range that invites customers to enter the fitting room. In our study we varied temperature from 20 degrees Celsius (68 degree F) to 25 degrees Celsius (77 degree F), which is a realistic range in store settings. Store managers we interviewed agreed that it was feasible to shape retail brand personality perceptions by temperature, but also pointed out some restrictions, like energy saving plans and the technical capacities of air conditioning. Limitations and further research Our findings suggest several directions for future research. First, customers are likely to vary in the quantity and quality of their bodily experiences with certain brands; for example, their experiences may vary due to physical conditions, like eyesight and motor skills, personal characteristics, or their need for touch (Peck and Childers 2003). Similarly, customers differ in their shopping goals, whether they are task-oriented versus experientially oriented, and depending on their general preferences for the environment and optimal level of stimulation (Steenkamp and Baumgartner 1992). Future research might focus on customers’ individual differences to derive potential moderators of the influence of bodily experiences on their perceptions of retail brand personalities.

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Second, further research is needed to investigate the relative strength of bodily experiences on retail brand perceptions compared to other marketing mix factors, like price levels. It would be interesting to compare the longterm effect of bodily experiences on retail brand personality perceptions and with long-term effects of other levers in retail branding. Third, since the priming effect can occur automatically, customers cannot necessarily focus their perceptions on the brand that is responsible for the experiences. Further research should investigate if bodily experiences elicited by products (product brand personalities) and stores (retail brand personalities) interact and whether bodily experiences transfer meaning from the product to the retailer and the other way around. Our research is not without limitations. Our studies did not cover the full range of brand personality dimensions, but selected the dimensions “ruggedness” and “warmth.” Future research might include more dimensions that can be influenced in retail settings. For example, can the experience of soft, rich fabrics in a changing room evoke the perception of sophistication? Moreover, in our studies we selected bodily experiences of hardness and temperature to highlight their importance and subtlety in retail environments. It would be interesting to test for the effect of additional common bodily experiences that retail environments elicit to examine their ability to transfer meaning to customers’ perceptions of retail brand personalities. Overall, our results indicate that exploring the relationship between customer experiences and branding is a fruitful avenue for research. We believe more research in this area can create a deeper understanding of customers’ retail brand perceptions. The current research provides an initial step in that direction. Acknowledgements We thank C. Miguel Brendl (Northwestern University), Angela Y. Lee (Northwestern University), Alfred Kuß (Freie Universität Berlin), Jan Kratzer (Technische Universität Berlin), Brian Sternthal (Northwestern University) as well as Shankar Ganesan and two anonymous reviewers for their many constructive comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. References Aaker, David A. (1996), Building Strong Brands, New York, NY: The Free Press. Aaker, Jennifer L. (1997), “Dimensions of Brand Personality,” Journal of Marketing Research, 34 (3), 347–56. (1999), “The Malleable Self: The Role of SelfExpression in Persuasion,” Journal of Marketing Research, 36 (1), 45–57. Aaker, Jennifer L., Susan Fournier and S. Adam Brasel (2004), “When Good Brands Do Bad,” Journal of Consumer Research, 31 (1), 1–16. Aaker, Jennifer L., Emily N. Garbinsky and Kathleen D. Vohs (2012), “Cultivating Admiration in Brands: Warmth, Competence, and Landing in the Golden Quadrant,” Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22 (2), 191–4. Ackerman, Joshua M., Christopher C. Nocera and John A. Bargh (2010), “Incidental Haptic Sensations Influence Social Judgments and Decisions,” Science, 328, 1712–5. Ailawadi, Kusum L. and Kevin L. Keller (2004), “Understanding Retail Branding: Conceptual Insights and Research Priorities,” Journal of Retailing, 80 (4), 331–42.

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