1、标题： Consumer personality and other factors in situational brand choice variation 原文： INTRODUCTION Past research and empirical evidence indicate that individual behaviour varies across situations. More specifically, research into consumer behaviour has shown how individuals prefer different brands fo
2、r different consumption occasions.This variation in consumer choice has been reported for branded products such as clothing, snack foods,4 mineral water, soups and sodas, candy, fragrancesand wine. Although a significant amount of research has examined drivers of situational variation, past studies
3、almost exclusively focused on product attributes and failed to establish links to brand equity dimensions in terms of the benefits desired by individuals in brands. Closing this knowledge gap is important because for many product categories consumers buy brands rather than products. Accordingly, bra
4、nd managers need to know how to design and deliver brand messages that are either robust across a number of consumption occasions or are specifically tailored to a distinctive situation, where they outperform more general brand designs. Long-term objectives of this research thus aim at a better unde
5、rstanding of the consumer situationbrand interactions in consumer choice. More immediate objectives focus on the examination of how consumer personality and other factors influence desired brand benefits and choice when different consumption situations are salient. The central hypothesis is that con
6、sumer characteristics interact with situational characteristics in affecting the benefits that consumers desire in brands, and consequently their choice. BRAND BENEFITS AND CHOICE In the past, marketing researchers have focused on the relationship between consumers and the product class to predict b
7、rand choice. In particular, the product attributes desired by consumers attracted researchers interest, but researchers generally did not distinguish between the effect caused by the brand name and the effect originating in the product in terms of attribute level combinations. More recently, scholar
8、s have advanced the idea that the product as well as the brand name is capable of contributing several types of benefits to the consumer. The theoretical and empirical literature on consumer-perceived or desired brand benefits suggests classifying those benefits according to a number of basic dimens
9、ions. Multiple- item scales for assessing individual perceptions and desired brand benefits have been developed with six distinct dimensions emerging, termed quality/performance, price/value for money, social, emotional, environmental and health benefits. Recent applications of these scales to brand
10、ed consumer goods have demonstrated that the basic dimensions are suitable for assessing brand images,16 brand positioning, and for predicting consumer preferences18 and No study could be found, however, applying the model to predict consumer choice, a variable of stronger interest for marketing man
11、agers than antecedent but unobservable perceptions, intentions or attitudes. Figure 1 shows the model utilised in this study. SITUATIONAL DRIVERS According to Hornik, neither individual differences (consumer personality) nor situational factors are assumed to be of exclusive importance in predicting
12、 situational variation in consumer behaviour. Instead, it is the person within a situational interaction that is expected to contribute most of the variance. The notion that consumer states, particularly their situational disposition, influence consumer behaviour is widely accepted. Consumer situati
13、onal dispositions are posited as significant mediators between situational stimuli and behavioural outcomes with personality traits and affective states being their antecedents. For various product categories, marketing researchers have demonstrated the effects of consumer dispositions such as indiv
14、idual inclination to take a risk, to seek variety and curiosity on acquisition behaviours including brand switching. For example, Mitchell and Greatorex have stressed the importance of risktaking and variety-seeking to consumer choice of wine brands. Dominating the current literature on consumer exp
15、loratory tendencies is Rajus conceptualisation of three situational dispositions. Risk-taking describes exploratory behaviour expressed through choices of innovative and unfamiliar alternatives that are perceived as risky. Variety-seeking is expressed through an individuals switching within familiar
16、 alternatives, including brand switching, and an aversion to habitual behaviour. Curiosity-motivated behaviour involves exploratory information-seeking, interpersonal communication and shopping. Consumer-perceived risk in wine buying situations has been related to functional (quality) and social bra
17、nd benefits.Scholars have also shown consumer information-seeking (curiosity-motivated behaviour) to be related to what benefits consumers desire in wine. Examining several other branded consumer goods including soups, sodas, beer and mineral water, Van Trijp reported that in addition to individual
18、differences in intrinsic desire for variety, expression of varietyseeking behaviour was also influenced by brand-related factors. High-involvement decisions usually entail a considerable degree of perceived risk in making a sub-optimal decision, a situation that hampers variety-seeking behaviour. On
19、 the other hand, for brand choices that are totally unimportant to the consumer, habit-based repetitive choice behaviour is by far the most efficient heuristic, and consequently variety-seeking is not likely to occur. Van Trijp et al. suggest that true variety-seeking is rooted in the need for chang
20、e in an attempt to resolve the boredom associated with a brand. Different from that is variety-seeking triggered by external factors such as impression-management concerns. Indeed, researchers have found that consumers incorporate more variety in their brand choices when their behaviour is subject t
21、o public scrutiny because they expect others to evaluate their decision more favourably if they choose variety. VARIATION IN DESIRED BRAND BENEFITS AND CHOICE An ample body of studies indicates that the awareness that others will observe ones decision induces impression-management concerns that lead
22、 individuals to alter their consumption choices. Experimental evidence has confirmed that reference groups influence both individual brand and product choices. The benefits desired by consumers in a brand have been found to play a role in this choice because they add to the self-expressive and symbolic value of the brand for the buyer, and thus to that buyers impression management efforts. Batra and Homer further demonstrated that
