Heritage Associations of the Corporate Brand: Compensating Effect for Weakness in Brand Credibility
Copyright 2011 THE KOREAN ACADEMIC SOCIETY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Firms increasingly employ heritage-related marketing activities to associate heritage to an individual or a corporate brand to enhance consumer support. However, establishing the heritage association demands much effort and costs despite the uncertainty of success, opening up when and how the benefits of heritage association are augmented. We suggest that the effect of heritage association on the consumer’s purchase behavior is more significant for a brand suffering a lower level of credibility. In a study conducted in the Korean context, we found that the effect of heritage association compensated for low brand credibility in increasing purchase intention. In another study conducted in the American context, we replicated the previous findings. Further, the compensatory effect of heritage association was indirect through the consumer’s self-identification with the corporate brand associated with heritage.
Keywords:
heritage association, corporate brand, self-identification, brand credibilityReferences
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∙ The author Hyerin Ryu is graduated from the Graduate School of Sungkyunkwan University and is a Ph.D. candidate majoring in Marketing at Sungkyunkwan University. She specializes in consumer behavior and has research interests in sustainability, self-theory, and brand legitimacy.
∙ The author Jaewook Jo is an assistant professor at the KC University. He graduated from Hongik University and obtained his master's and doctoral degrees at the Graduate School of Sungkyunkwan University. His research interests include consumer behavior, ICT marketing strategy, Metaverse, augmented reality, and virtual reality.
∙ The author Hwa-jin Lee is a researcher fellow at the Institute for Industrial Policy Studies and an adjunct professor at Seoul Business School, aSSIST. She obtained her master's degree from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and Ph.D. from Sungkyunkwan University. Major areas of research are brand valuation, brand strategy, and design policy.
∙ The author Sunkyu Jun is graduated from Sungkyunkwan University and obtained Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is a marketing professor at Sungkyunkwan University, with research interests in consumer behavior, consumer culture, and brand legitimacy.