Salient Cultural Identities and Consumers’ Valuation of Identity Congruent Brands: Consequences for Building and Leveraging Brand Equity

Abstract

Results from five studies demonstrate that a salient cultural identity can increase consumers’ valuation of well-established identity-congruent brands. Compared to a baseline condition, consumers with a salient cultural identity were more likely to promote, to pay a higher price for a branded product, to accept a high stretch extension, and to exhibit stronger self-brand connections in the context of identity-congruent brands. These effects seem to occur rather unconsciously, triggered by fluency when processing a salient identity-congruent brand. They dissipate when consumers’ attention is drawn to the source of fluency (i.e., the salient identity). Findings in this research highlight the theoretical importance of understanding the nature of a brand’s connections to a consumer’s identity for predicting consumer valuation of well-established brands and their leveraging actions.