State the Obvious

I do not know how much, but ask any professor in communication and s/he will tell you that any human being in the western world are attacked every day with different kinds of attention-seekers. Be it commercials, other humans, and what not.

Fredrik Törn released his doctoral thesis on “how established brands can enhance their strength, interestingness, and vitality.”

All in all, it is six articles and I do believe he might have broken some new grounds in this one.

Notes:

Incongruent: When ad and brand are not corresponding with each other.

Quote from Keller on the importancy on maintaining consistency in ads:

It is important when building it, however, not crushial

It takes time to understand the incongruency

To uphold realism in a brand study, one should follow what McQuarrie (1998) found in order to get a result as close to reality as possible, using the

The Six Factors of Reality

1. Advertisements are embedded and not the focus of attention
2. Advertisements attempt to influence choice
3. Advertisements are subject to competitive interference
4. Advertisements must influence choice after a delay
5. Advertisements may be repeated, and
6. Much advertising is for familiar brands
7. Effect of student sample (Fredrik Törn added!)

The methods which are successful to build brands equity (for new brands) may have to be revised when moved to enhance well established brands.

A brand with an incongruent connection between ad & brand will get more

• Attention,
• Emotional response,
• there is a more sophisticated process of brand association,
• a better brand recall
• it is more latched into the viewers memory, and
• the belief will be largely unchanged

Ad attitude and Brand attitude is weaker for familiar brands than for unfamiliar brands

An incongruent ad works less the second time, since the viewer has connected the ad to the brand, thus it is congruent in this person’s mind.

Though most studies done by mr. Törn showed that this will help a brand to be recognized and get attention, one study, however, showed that the brand attitude and the purchase intentions were remained unchanged.

Using an incongruent celebrity endorsement worked for market-leading brands, as well as for a second-tier brand, however, as with the other, the connection has to make sense. Tiger Woods being an endorser for diapers makes sense if people understand that he has children, but not if he’s a bachelor running around “getting tail and being protected”.