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MASTER THESIS
The Relationship between Typefaces and Brand Building Criteria, and the Mediating
Effect of Brand Personality
University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Economy and Business Business Administration – Marketing Track
K.E. van Polanen Petel – 6044476 Date: 24-03-2017
Supervisor: Drs. Jorge Labadie MBM Version: Final
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Statement of Originality
This document is written by K.E. van Polanen Petel, who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its reference have been used in creating it.
The faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completions of the work, not for the contents.
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ABSTRACT
This thesis aims to investigate how typefaces and their design dimensions and characteristics, relate to marketing objectives in terms of consumer responses and is exploratory in nature. The customer-based brand equity (CBBE) framework discusses how brand knowledge affects brand equity via brand awareness and brand image. Keller introduced three brand building criteria for selecting brand elements in order to leverage CBBE namely memorability, likability and meaningfulness.
While some antecedents of visual brand elements, such as color, have been the topic of research in this context, typefaces have been overlooked. However, previous literature suggests that much like color, typefaces are capable of evoking associations and feelings that can influence the perceptions of the brand and thus might have a significant impact on consumer responses necessary for building brand equity. Currently, marketing professionals and designers make decisions regarding typefaces based on no empirical or theoretical foundation, which the current study tries to provide. This study explores how which typeface characteristic relates to which consumer response, while taking the five brand personality types, as proposed by Aaker, into account. Findings suggest that typefaces do have an effect on consumer responses and brand personality types, which can be partially explained by typeface characteristics. These findings lay a foundation on which, more focused, subsequent research can illuminate the effects at play and provide further evidence. Limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Keywords: typefaces, visual brand elements, brand knowledge, brand personality, customer based brand equity, brand building criteria, marketing communications, design, marketing
IV TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: Introduction ... - 1 - 1.1 General Introduction ... - 1 - 1.2 Problem Definition ... - 4 - 1.3 Research Gap ... - 5 - 1.4 Research Question ... - 7 - 1.5 Contribution ... - 7 - THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ... - 9 -
CHAPTER 2: Brand Equity ... - 9 -
2.1 Customer Based Brand Equity ... - 9 -
2.2 Brand Knowledge ... - 10 -
2.3 Consumer Associative Network ... - 11 -
2.4 Brand Awareness & Brand Salience ... - 12 -
2.5 Brand Image... - 13 -
CHAPTER 3: Building Brand Equity ... - 15 -
3.1 Customer Based Brand Equity Pyramid ... - 15 -
3.2 Potential Beneficial Outcomes of CBBE ... - 16 -
3.3 Possible Strategies for Building CBBE ... - 18 -
CHAPTER 4: Brand Personality ... - 20 -
4.1 Brand Personality Types and Dimensions ... - 20 -
4.2 Brand Archetypes ... - 22 -
4.3. Brand Personality and Consumer Responses ... - 23 -
CHAPTER 5: Visual Brand Elements ... - 26 -
5.1 Color as Antecedent of Visual Brand Elements ... - 26 -
5.2 Brand Building Criteria and Visual Brand Elements ... - 28 -
5.3 Congruity in Visual Brand Elements ... - 28 -
5.4 Attention to Visual Brand Elements ... - 30 -
CHAPTER 6: Typeface as Brand Building Tool ... - 32 -
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6.2 Effects of Typefaces ... - 32 -
6.3 Typefaces and Personality... - 33 -
6.4 Typefaces in Marketing ... - 35 -
CHAPTER 7: HYPOTHESES DEVELOPMENT ... - 39 -
7.1 General Research Question ... - 40 -
7.2 Propositions regarding Typefaces ... - 41 -
7.3 Hypothesis 1: Brand Personality and Consumer Responses ... - 44 -
7.4 Hypothesis 2: Typeface Characteristics and Mediation of Brand Personality Types ... - 45 -
7.5 Conceptual Framework ... - 47 -
CHAPTER 8: METHODOLOGY ... - 49 -
8.1 Stimuli Selection ... - 49 -
8.2 Sample... - 51 -
8.3 Variables and measurements ... - 51 -
8.4 Procedure ... - 56 - CHAPTER 9: RESULTS ... - 57 - 9. 1 Participants ... - 57 - 9.2. Prior to Analysis ... - 57 - 9.3 Exploring Propositions ... - 58 - 9.4 Testing Hypotheses ... - 70 -
CHAPTER 10: DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ... - 78 -
10.1 Findings ... - 78 -
10.2 Research suggestions ... - 80 -
10.3 Conclusion ... - 84 -
REFERENCES ... - 86 -
APPENDIX ... - 94 -
Appendix I: Typefaces Indexing (as received from Prof. J.A. Cote) ... - 94 -
Appendix II: Table 6 EPA-ratings (Bottemley & Doyle, 2010) ... - 100 -
Appendix III: Visual Stimuli ... - 102 -
Appendix IV: Full Questionnaire ... - 105 -
- 1 - CHAPTER 1: Introduction
1.1 General Introduction
Brands and their relationships with its consumers has been undergoing significant changes over the last decades. Whereas the interaction originally merely existed as an exchange between the product or service on one side, and monetary value on the other, over the past decades the relationship has grown more complex. Companies and brands now have to differentiate themselves from their competitors to best serve the consumers’ needs and thus enhancing the importance of the customer relationship. From a consumer standpoint, customers also receive more than just the offered product or service. By purchasing from a certain brand, they gain social, emotional and personal benefits from said purchase and being part of the brand community to the point where the overall value of the product is more than just its utilitarian value.
This enhanced customer value can be derived from the brand or company through branding. It allows the company not only to differentiate themselves, but simultaneously enhance customer value by building their brand value or brand equity. The brand can be communicated to the consumer in various different ways, including the use of color, typefaces, and other graphic design features in the visual brand elements such as the brand name, logo, or even the personification of the brand in a brand character.
These visual cues of the brand have had an increasingly large role within branding (Henderson, Giese & Cote, 2002; Childers & Jass, 2002), which is mirrored by the increasing amount of literature in this field as well as the increasing deemed importance companies consider these cues to have. For instance, more and more companies or brands adopt a single ‘house-style’ which, more often than not, also includes a specific typeface that is used for all written
- 2 - communication. Some companies even invest in the development of their own trademark font instead of an existing typeface, such as the Dutch telecom-provider KPN (see Figure 2) or the San Francisco typeface exclusively developed by and for Apple’s iOS 9 and Smartwatch (see Figure 1).
Besides the growing scientific and corporate interest in typefaces as a branding tool, instances where corporations have invested in a brand logo with a change in typeface that have been deemed as mistakes, are also easy to find. For example, Business Insider (Feloni, 2015) introduced an article in which several of the ‘worst logo changes of 2015’ are discussed, (See Figure 3) .
The logo change for Lenovo could be perceived as less ‘technological’ and more budget-oriented due to the change in color and reversing the slanted letters. Verizon also decided to eliminate the cursive font, and got rid of the distinguishable red ‘z’ and faded typeface. Due to these changes, Verizon misses one recognizable brand feature which might have an impact on
Figure 1:San Francisco typeface Figure 2: KPN typeface
- 3 - the overall brand recognition, but more importantly might also have lost the association with speed in the new logo. However, the easiest mistake to spot is the change of the TBS logo, which is an American TV-channel mostly known for their sitcoms and comedic talk-shows such as Conan O’Brian. The new logo with the bold, square typeface and frame, as well as the lack of color, doesn’t communicate comedy or cheerfulness anymore. This is even further diminished by the loss of the subliminal ‘smile’-shape in the half circle that TBS incorporated in their old logo, which is what TBS used in a short animation after commercial breaks.
On the other hand, Business Insider (Feloni, 2015) also published an article about the best logo changes for the past year (see Figure 4). Sbarro’s, New York City’s beloved pizza parlor, has shifted its focus from the Italian flag to the pizza slice itself, accompanied with a capitalized non-italic font. Google Ventures, the venture capital funding arm from Alphabet Inc. which is also the parent company behind Google, chose to deviate further from its search-engine counterpart. It would be interesting to see if the brand loses equity due to the loss of recognizability or if this
- 4 - might beneficial to the brand such as the designers strategized, by moving away from the Google search-engine image and targeting young tech-companies looking for funding.
Johnny Walker’s logo also underwent a change in typeface, moving from a rather curly, almost hand-written, slanted typeface to a capitalized non-italic font with only slight serifs. The typeface change can be seen or interpreted as modern, more sophisticated, masculine and
professional, or conversely as more distant, less friendly and losing character or heritage. Without research including these specific typeface features, brand managers lack clear guidance on which typeface characters help build their brand best.
However, the most interesting example to illustrate this point and also one of the most recognizable logo, is the change of the Google-logo. In September of 2015 the company
introduced a new logo that only had a change in typeface, from a Catull-like typeface with serifs, to a rounder Futura-like typeface. Other visual design elements of the logo remained the same. In order to assess what the effect of such a change will be on consumer responses, and therefore to provide knowledge on how to build brands best, research is needed to get a better
understanding of how these typeface characteristics influence the brand in the mind of the consumer and consequently, what that does for the brand building properties.
1.2 Problem Definition
Amongst graphic designers there seems to be a consensus on dislikes towards certain typefaces, such as the well-known, and one could argue; the overused, Comic Sans MS, and Papyrus. The notion to avoid these typefaces also seem to have leaked into the opinion of the
general public. However,both the worst and best typefaces changes in brand logos, do not have any basis in theoretical research. Therefore, since the redesigns are not research-based, marketers and graphic designers have no substantial evidence in assessing how these typeface changes
- 5 - affect their brand, as well as the consumer responses of their respective target audiences.
There is insufficient empirical research that connects the theoretical foundations of building and leveraging brand equity, with concrete visual aspects regarding typefaces on which marketing professionals can, and should rely. Such research would be much easier to adopt in to actual marketing practice and provide support for marketing managers and graphic designers, in making decisions on how and which typeface to incorporate. This can be used for design choices in either their logo, brand name, or in-house style, in such a way that it enhances the brand image they want to convey to their consumer base.
1.3 Research Gap
The lack of practical research-based literature available and lack of such research being used by marketing professionals regarding visual brand elements and typefaces, and more specifically how to use them best as a marketer or designer, is not due to the lack of theoretical foundation on which to build. There is literature available that could provide valuable insights into how typefaces affect the customer-based brand image and brand equity. By incorporating concrete visual design elements like typeface characteristics with these already established theoretical foundations, research-based knowledge becomes more easily adoptable within the marketing profession.
Aaker (1998) and Keller (2003) both provide the theoretical foundations that would be suitable and valuable to connect with typeface characteristics and features.
Keller developed a theory where six criteria are introduced that should be held in mind when selecting brand elements, in order to leverage customer-based brand knowledge and build brand equity. Linking these six criteria to design elements such as a typeface will give valuable
- 6 - a strong brand, and therefore enhance brand equity.
The three brand building criteria as proposed by Keller are memorability, meaningfulness, and likeability. Consequently, Keller also proposed three brand defending criteria which are transferability, adaptability and protectability. As the theory suggests, in order to build and enhance brand equity, brand elements should be in line with these criteria. However, knowledge is missing on what visual design features of brand elements promote these criteria. Since
typefaces are such a highly visible and basic aspect of brand communications, it would be of great value to know if typefaces can be used as a branding tool, promote the brand building ability of the brand element, and thus enhance brand equity.
Additionally, Aaker (1998) presented a theory that proposed that brands can have brand personalities in the mind of the consumer. These brand personalities are conceptualized into five personality traits or dimensions, namely, excitement, sincerity, competence, sophistication and ruggedness. Considering that it is widely accepted that a strong brand personality is linked to stronger brand evaluations (Aaker, 1996), it would be valuable to investigate if this is also the case when the brand personality is derived from design features such as typefaces.
Furthermore, it is likely that the perceived brand personality within the mind of the consumer can be altered or affected by the typeface style used. This consequently poses the question if the brand personality type is the driving force behind any effect between typeface and consumer responses. This will give insight into how typefaces influence consumer responses.
- 7 - 1.4 Research Question
To provide an answer to these matters, the research question in the proposed study is as followed:
How and to what degree do typefaces influence consumer responses in terms of brand building criteria, and how is this effect mediated by brand personality types?
1.5 Contribution
1.5.1 Theoretical contribution
Linking the fundamental theory of Keller’s criteria for selecting brand building elements to different antecedents of brand elements, like Bottomley and Doyle (2006) previously did with the usage of color, allows for a better understanding of the use of typefaces as a tool for leveraging brand equity. Additionally, the proposed study continues a valuable line in research, which in turn opens up new areas and lines of research that can help build towards a more holistic understanding of a variety of antecedents for brand elements, which can be used to leverage brand equity like Keller proposed.
1.5.2. Managerial contribution
From a managerial point of view, the contribution is quite clear, considering that a better understanding of consumer responses to certain typeface dimensions will help marketing managers in selecting typefaces within their communications or brand design, that are likely to convey the associations and impressions that are in line with their marketing strategy.
Furthermore, it will give marketing professionals more tangible guidance as the concrete characteristics of the typefaces is linked with the theoretical concepts. Since typefaces are so widely used and a large aspect of what a consumer sees of the brand, these theoretical contributions can be highly valuable. It also eliminates the likelihood of designers and
- 8 - management choosing the wrong typefaces for their designs, like the previously discussed
examples of TBS and Verizon, and therefore potentially losing brand equity and hurting the brand.
1.6 Structure
In the first chapters, literature regarding consumer knowledge, consumer responses and brand equity theories will be discussed. Secondly, brand building theories will be addressed, focusing on Keller’s theory on brand building criteria of brand elements. Furthermore, Aaker’s and related theories on brand personality will be introduced. In the following chapter previous research on visual brand elements and brand building are discussed leading into the last chapter where the focus will be on the use of typeface as a key feature in brand elements, and to what degree it can influence brand equity and other marketing objectives.
- 9 - THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Typefaces are a strong tool (Gump, 2001; Amare, 2012) for communicating certain feelings, associations or a general impression. However, as stated earlier, so far there has been limited research conducted with the aim to investigate these effects of typefaces on consumer responses and if these emotions and associations can, in fact, be leveraged as a brand building tool.
CHAPTER 2: Brand Equity
Within the marketing context it is crucial for a brand to provide value to its consumers, which can be achieved through a multitude of ways, such as enhancing product features through research and development, or by providing better service than potential competitors. Another possibility is to focus on the value of brand itself and the perceived image it has to the consumer. This value is referred to as brand equity, which Keller defines as the marketing effects that are uniquely attributable to the brand. (Keller, 1993). Brand equity is the most established way to express and capture the value a brand has to their consumers, which has been the focus of research and theories from either a monetary and financial point of view but also from a strategic marketing standpoint.
2.1 Customer Based Brand Equity
Brand equity theories for the purposes of this research are the most relevant when they are conceptualized around the mind of the consumer. Since the context of this research is the
influence brand elements can have on consumer responses, and consequently support the desired marketing outcomes, brand equity theories focusing on the consumer are the most valuable.
- 10 - The most well-known and established theory that fits this criterion is the customer-based brand equity (CBBE) model (Keller, 1993). The CBBE model discusses brand equity from the perspective of the consumer, and is built on the premise that the power of the brand lies within the mind of the consumer and all that they know, think and feel about the brand. According to Keller, CBBE is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer responses to the marketing of the brand (Keller, 1993). In other words, if the prospective consumers react positively towards the marketing communications used by a brand, more so than they would towards an unknown brand, said brand has positive customer-based brand equity.
There is a consensus that consumer mindset starts with the knowledge a consumer has about the brand. Without knowledge or any type of association regarding the brand, the brand itself can’t provide any value to the consumer. This ties into the notion that brand equity relies on two major sources, namely brand awareness and brand image (Keller, 1993), both of which are based on the consumer knowledge. So, in order to understand how marketing and branding strategies can affect the consumer and their mindset, a thorough understanding of consumer knowledge is necessary.
2.2 Brand Knowledge
Brand knowledge lies at the basis of the CBBE model, and is also the key driver for creating the differential effect that a brand needs in order to stand out amongst competitors (Keller, 1993; 2003). According to Keller, brand knowledge has eight dimensions that represent the different kinds of information that is stored in the memory of a consumer regarding the brand. These brand knowledge dimensions are as follows; awareness (i.e. category identification), attributes (i.e. descriptive features), benefits (i.e. personal value and meaning that is attached to the brand’s attributes), images (i.e. visual information), thoughts (i.e. personal cognitive responses), feelings (i.e. personal affective responses), attitudes (i.e. summary judgements and overall evaluation
- 11 - about the brand), and lastly experiences (i.e. purchase and consumption behaviors).
The information that is stored in the consumers’ mind has been researched through several theories conceptualizing the memory storage and retrieval processes, one of which being the associative network.
2.3 Consumer Associative Network
The consumer associative network theory (Henderson, Iacobucci & Calder, 1998) has its basis in cognitive psychology and gives meaningful insight on how cognition plays a role in brand preferences and choices. Their research is based on empirical evidence regarding consumer associative networks gathered through a variety of means, which is then used to detect branding effects and gain insights on the effectiveness of strategies.
In the cognitive psychology context, an associative network consists of links and nodes within the memory structure of an individual. The nodes are concepts that hold information, which are connected through links creating the associative network. The strength and structure of these links determine if activation of a certain node will lead to activation of certain other nodes. For instance, when the concepts of ‘red’ and ‘truck’ are triggered, this will often lead to activation of ‘firetruck’ (Collings & Loftus, 1975).Further spreading of activation within the knowledge structure is contingent on several other factors, such as the proximity to other nodes as well as interconnectedness.
In the context of marketing, the associative network is defined as a brand associative network. In this case, the nodes represent the brand and other associations, such as product category, features, people or usage situations, that a consumer might have stored in their knowledge about the brand. Each associative network differs from consumer to consumer, but generally there can be a consensus on the overall brand associative network amongst the
- 12 - consumer base, as well as a brand associative network of how the brand aims to be perceived. Branding tools and strategies can then be used to maximize overlap between the two networks. 2.4 Brand Awareness & Brand Salience
The knowledge stored within the consumer’s associative network needs to be related to brand awareness or brand image, in order for it to be contributing towards brand equity (Keller, 2003).
To start, brand awareness is often defined by brand recognition and brand recall, which entails the degree to which the consumer correctly recognizes a brand, or whether the consumer can recall the brand from a certain cue, such as a logo, color or product category, respectively. If a brand has strong brand awareness it is easily retrieved by the consumer, which is often referred to as being ‘on top of mind’.
Brand awareness has two important markers, the depth and the breadth of the brand awareness. Depth refers to how easily the brand can be recognized or recalled by the consumer, and is seen as the strength of the connection between the nodes and its associations. Breadth refers to the different purchase and consumption situations in which the brand knowledge can be retrieved. However, brand awareness is more than consumers solely knowing the brand and
recognizing it from certain cues. In later literature, brand salience is also often mentioned as an additional component of brand awareness, and refers to the ease of which the brand information can be retrieved and to what degree the brand can be linked to other associations within the memory of the consumer. Romaniuk & Sharp (2004) conceptualize brand salience as the
propensity of the brand to be thought of in buying situations and therefore, how easily the brand becomes part of the consideration set. This is further specified into the quantity and quality of the associations available in the memory network of the consumer. Many links within the
- 13 - association, as well as relevant and fresh associations will solidify the brand within the
consideration set and enhance the likelihood of the brand being chosen.
2.5 Brand Image
Besides the availability of the brand knowledge, the associations themselves are also crucial for brand equity, and an integral part of brand knowledge.
Whether or not consumers can recall or recognize the brand, the information stored in the brand knowledge speaks to the brand image as well. The brand knowledge model conceptualized by Keller introduces this best (see Figure 5). The model differentiates brand image by the type of brand associations it refers to. To specify, a consumer can have associations about the brands’ attributes, its benefits, or attitudes regarding the brand. For instance, a customer can have knowledge about product-related attributes, such as the materials that are used, or thinks about the functional benefits the brand has to them.
- 14 - Ideally, in order to create a strong brand image, the associations linked to the brand are strong, favorable and unique. These dimensions are often used in marketing research to assess and determine the strength of the brand and its image.
To sum up, brand equity is the main dimension in which the value of the brand can be assessed. The CBBE model looks at this brand value in terms of the consumer’s mindset, which is largely build upon the knowledge that the consumer has about said brand. Furthermore, the knowledge and the process in which information can be activated is represented through the brand associative network. When the nodes, which hold the brand information and associations, are in close proximity to each other and have strong interconnectedness, the information is easier retrieved by the consumer. This aids recall and recognition of the brand and thus enhances brand awareness. Furthermore, when brand awareness has both high depth, i.e. the ease of retrieval, and breadth, i.e. the variation in the situational context in which the brand can be retrieved, the brand is highly salient. Salience is also one of the markers for a strong brand.
Consequently, the brand image is made up out of the information itself that consumers associate with the brand. These associations can be different types, i.e. regarding attitudes, benefits and attributions. A brand profits from a strong brand image which consists of linked associations that are strong, favorable and unique.
All these aspects of brand knowledge can be influenced by marketing strategies and
communications, in order to evoke positive and desired associations whilst simultaneously trying to make them readily available to the consumer and thus eventually building consumer based brand equity.
The following chapter discusses further how marketing efforts can build brand equity and what consequences these efforts can have on marketing objectives and consumer responses.
- 15 - CHAPTER 3: Building Brand Equity
Since it has been established what constitutes the value of a brand, as seen from the consumer’s perspective, it is valuable to know how marketing efforts can be used to build this brand equity. The CBBE model by Keller discusses this as well.
3.1 Customer Based Brand Equity Pyramid
To have a better understanding on the multidimensionality of brand knowledge and how one can leverage this in the process of brand equity building, Keller conceptualized the CBBE pyramid, consisting of four brand building blocks (see Figure 6). The blocks represent four steps that brand should aim to answer for their consumer base (Keller, 2001). First off, the identity of the brand needs to be clear, which ties into the brand awareness and brand salience that it supports. Communication designed for this objective has to answer the question of ‘who’ the brand is, and make the brand more visible to the larger demographic.
Once the general awareness has been reached, the brand can then build the brand meaning, which involves creating a brand image by providing the consumer with associations that represent what the brand stands for in the eyes of the consumer. While a wide array of associations is possible, generally a distinction can be made within the brand meaning between associations that either promote the functional brand performance or the abstract brand image. Communications
- 16 - promoting brand performance are typically focused on features, reliability of the product, service effectiveness and price, to name a few. Brand imagery on the other hand is based on information surrounding user profiles, purchase and usage situations, personality, values and the brand’s history or heritage.
These brand associations making up the brand image, then lead into attitudes and evaluations that the consumer holds regarding the brand. The same distinction can be made in these brand responses, with on one side the cognitive, more practical and cognitive judgements, and on the other hand the more emotional and abstract feelings. Lastly, on the final level, brand relationship comes into play. This is defined as brand resonance and refers to how what the brand means to the consumer and how attached they are towards it. Brand resonance is described in terms of depth and intensity of the bond between brand and its consumers, and speaks to the degree of behavioral loyalty, emotional attachment, sense of community and active engagement that characterizes the consumer base.
3.2 Potential Beneficial Outcomes of CBBE
With the right marketing efforts, brands are able to achieve high brand equity through the CBBE pyramid model. However, another crucial step for marketers is how brand equity can be leveraged in order to facilitate brand value and other marketing objectives.
Keller & Lehmann (2003) introduced the Brand Value Chain theory that discusses how brands create value through different value stages. According to the theory, creating brand value and building brand equity starts with Marketing Program Investment which entails the amount of resources accessible to marketing, but also more qualitative aspects such as the clarity, relevance, uniqueness, consistency and integration of the program. In the next stage, the marketing
investments will lead to costumer related outcomes that the model describes as the customer mindset, which could also be explained in terms of customer-based brand equity as described
- 17 - earlier. This customer mindset in turn, leads to market performance, such as market share,
expansion success and price elasticities. The multiplier of market place conditions is also taken into account. Lastly, along with the multiplier of investor sentiment, the brand performance value stage will lead to shareholder value, such as the stock price and market capitalization.
In order to have a full grasp on how marketers can use marketing strategies and tools to enhance customer-based brand equity and achieve the desired marketing objectives, both the initial marketing program possibilities as well as potential outcomes of enhanced CBBE need to be discussed.
In the review of Hoeffler & Keller (2003), several potential benefits from enhancing customer-based brand equity are listed. In their research the major empirical evidence was gathered to establish a comprehensive overview of possible outcomes. Strong brands have advantages over lesser known brands as they aid the consumer during three different stages of consumer behavior, i.e. attention, interpretation, and choice. Furthermore, the benefits are
present across nearly every type of marketing activity, from higher overall- or attribute evaluations in product marketing, to higher preference in brand extensions. Strong brands also showed to evoke more favorable responses to either price increase and decrease. Strong brands are proven especially useful to consumers in more complex purchase situations, when the consumer experiences ambiguity surrounding the decision making, or when there is limited information available. This is supported by Keller (2003) who stated that brands with more CBBE are quicker adopted into the consideration set, and will help the consumer in low-involvement situations. Additionally, building the customer-based brand equity increases the probability of the brand being chosen, enhance consumer loyalty, while decreasing brand vulnerability to competitive marketing actions (Keller, 1993, 2003). Heightened CBBE is also said to support increased
- 18 - marketing communications efficiency and even support greater trade cooperation and other less obvious benefits such as attracting better employees and more interest from investors (Keller, 2003).
3.3 Possible Strategies for Building CBBE
Thus, across literature it has been shown that customer-based brand equity leads to several desired consumer responses and marketing outcomes. Practically speaking, on all level of the CBBE pyramid, marketing strategists can make choices on what information they wish to convey, as well as different ways to do so.
Keller (1993, 2003) distinguishes three ways in which marketing professionals can build brand equity and enhance brand value, which are first and foremost, choosing the right brand elements. Secondly, developing supporting marketing programs and lastly, leverage secondary associations. Within the context of this research, the focus lies on choosing the right brand elements as the primary way of building customer based brand equity. According to the theory, the right brand elements can build brand equity through the CBBE-pyramid, firstly by enhancing brand awareness. Consequently, they can facilitate strong, favorable and unique associations which in turn evokes positive brand judgements and feelings.
In his theories, Keller (2003, 2005) introduces six criteria for selecting brand elements, which are divided into three brand defensive criteria and three brand building criteria. The brand
defensive criteria, namely transferability, adaptability and protectability, focus on protecting the brand, and leveraging the brand elements in different contexts. The brand building criteria, namely memorability, meaningfulness and likeability, focus on building the brand by enhancing brand awareness or supporting favorable associations. Within the context of this research, the mind of the consumer is the general focus, as stated earlier. Therefore, the most meaningful insights will be gained by focusing on the brand building criteria, rather than the brand defensive
- 19 - criteria, since the latter moves the focus away from the consumer, towards the context that the brand operates in, e.g. the product category, culture or country. The first brand building criteria is memorability, which speaks to the degree in which the brand element is easily retrieved, both in brand recall as in brand recognition. Meaningfulness is defined as the degree to which the brand element conveys relevant information, such as the product category or the attributes and benefits of the brand. Lastly, likability refers to the degree to which the brand element is liked, or its overall aesthetic appeal.
Thus, to sum up, brand knowledge and brand image are important drivers of customer-based brand equity, which in turn can be built by enhancing brand awareness, and eliciting associations that are strong, favorable and unique. Heightened CBBE has an array of possible beneficial outcomes, such as increased customer loyalty and enhanced effectiveness of marketing
communications. Selecting brand elements according to Keller’s brand building criteria, is one of the established ways in which brands can build brand equity and evoke these desirable outcomes. However, there are more methods and theories available that are conducive to building brand equity, one of which is establishing a strong brand personality. Theories regarding brand personality will be discussed in the consecutive chapter.
- 20 - CHAPTER 4: Brand Personality
As mentioned before, the most important drivers of customer-based brand equity are brand knowledge and brand image. Enhancing the brand image can be done by providing new
information regarding the brands’ attributes, benefits or information that evokes desired
attitudes. Marketing efforts can be focused on product related information for instance, but also non-product related information, such as the user or usage image, feelings and experiences or by establishing a brand personality. The latter in particular has been thoroughly researched as a way of building and enhancing brand equity as well as the effect it has on consumer responses and marketing objectives.
4.1 Brand Personality Types and Dimensions
Aaker (1998) looked at brands from a perspective beyond the traditional positioning strategies, and assessed that brands are often perceived by their consumers in terms of humanistic personality traits which leads to the notion that brands can actually have a brand personality in the mind of the consumer. Brand personality in general has been proven to support self-expression of the consumer, (Belk, 1988), and helps brand differentiate from
competitors in the same product category (Halliday, 1996). At the time of said research however, there was no clear consensus on what brand personality actually is, nor was there a clear and generalizable way of measuring brand personality. In order to solve this dilemma, Aaker
compiled a set of 309 personality traits based of established personality from Psychology, such as the Big Five, and traits derived from HR and organizational psychology theories.
After evaluation and selection this resulted in a final set of 114 personality traits to describe brands, ultimately resulting in a Brand Personality Scale consisting of 42 items. Consequently, over 600 respondents were asked to rate several brands out of four brand groups, each consisting of 10 brands.
- 21 - This resulted in a large dataset which provided evidence for five dimensions after a factor analysis was computed. Aaker conceptualized these dimensions as five brand personality types, namely Sincerity, Excitement, Competence, Sophistication and Ruggedness. Sincerity consists of traits such as, down to earth, honest, wholesome and cheerful. ‘Dove’ as a brand provides a good example for this brand personality type. Secondly, excitement is defined as daring, spirited, imaginative, and up-to-date, of which RedBull is a prime example. Competence is construed as reliable, intelligent and successful, which can be seen in a brand such as Philips. The latter two brand personality types are less descriptive in nature, but speak more towards an aspirational goal that a consumer might have and conceptually differ more from the Big Five personality traits. The brand personality type of Sophistication is described as upper-class and charming, and most luxury brands such as Chanel and Lexus would fall in this personality type. Ruggedness consists of traits such as outdoorsy and tough. Example brands for this type are Landrover and Marlboro.
Other aspects of brand personality are investigated as well. For instance, Grohmann (2009) looked into the gender dimensions of brand personality. The definitions used are in line with those Aaker suggests, and refer to the human personality traits that are associated with
masculinity of femininity that are applicable to the brand. Said research resulted in a 12-item scale that could be used alongside Aaker’s brand personality scale. The findings demonstrate that gender dimensions can by shaped by marketers by selecting either masculine or feminine spokespeople in their advertisements. Gender dimensions within the brand personality have a positive effect on affective, attitudinal and behavioral consumer responses, as long as they are in line with the consumers’ identity which facilitates self-expression.
- 22 - 4.2 Brand Archetypes
Another way to look at brand personality is derived from the early work of philosopher Carl Jung. As one of the grounding fathers of psychology, his theories centered around understanding the human psyche and what moves them. He further identified that people tend to have a persona, which is the image one holds up towards the world and the internal shadow, that consists of subconscious motives, fears and other drivers. Regarding the unconscious, Jung stated that people have their personal unconscious, but are also part of a collective unconscious (Jung, 1916). This ‘collective mind’ consists of mythology, stories, fairy tales, dreams and fantasies that are shared across humanity. He used the term archetype to recognize any recurrent themes in the collective unconscious, such as literature. Working off of the Jungian archetype theories, Pearson and Marr (2002) developed a questionnaire that originally identified six archetypes, but was later enhanced to distinguish twelve archetypes (see Figure 7), with each their own motivations and characteristics.
- 23 - Current research has shown that these archetypes are also very applicable to brands. The research conducted by Woodside and colleagues (2008) proposes that marketing communication, including word-of-mouth, follows the same narrative as other methods of storytelling.
Furthermore, the research stated that brands can become anthropomorphic identities in the mind of the consumer, which is in line with Aaker’s work, and in turn helps consumer express
themselves. However, their argument goes further stating that when a brand creates a story within their marketing communications, where the brand itself is a supporting actor, such communication is likely to help build strong consumer-brand relationships (Woodside, Sood & Miller, 2008).
Additionally, even from a positioning point of view, the brand archetypes could give meaningful insight on how consumers perceive brands, and how this can be leveraged to build brand equity. Unfortunately, empirical research in this particular area is minimal, however plenty research exists linking brand personality dimensions with consumer responses and marketing objectives.
4.3. Brand Personality and Consumer Responses
Brands can adjust their marketing communications to enhance and activate associations related to these brand personality types. In prior research, it has been shown that a strong sense of brand personality has a positive effect on consumer responses. Research has indicated that exposing consumers to brand personality information is linked to more positive brand attitudes and higher purchase intentions. Furthermore, a strong positive brand personality leads to more favorable, unique and congruent brand associations, which are the basics of building brand equity (Freling & Forbes, 2013). This brand personality effect occurs despite the type of brand personality type that is offered to the consumer.
Similar results are found when the effect of brand personality on brand equity is compared with the effects of consumer promotion. Findings indicated that where brand personality has a
- 24 - positive effect on brand equity, consumer promotions can actually be harmful to brand equity in the long-term. However, the positive effect of brand personality is stronger than the negative effect of consumer promotions. (Valette-Florence, Guizani & Marunka, 2011).
The reason as to why brand personality is such a potent tool for building brand equity and enhancing favorable brand associations, has its basis in the cognition of consumers. Brand personality associations are linked to many other brand associations in the consumer memory network, which is accessible through activation spreading (Freling & Forbes, 2005) as discussed in the consumer associative network. Such interconnectedness promotes brand awareness and aides recall and recognition. Secondly, due to the people’s innate tendency to humanize objects, consumer react positively to brands with strong personalities.
Other research examined how brand personality affects the emotional brand attachment (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer & Nyffenegger, 2011). The degree to which it is beneficial for the brand personality to match the consumer’s self-perception or to match with their ideal self, seems to be complex and contingent on the context of the consumer, such as the involvement with the product and other individual differences. Overall, congruity with the brand personality to the actual self has the most impact on emotional brand attachment. Moderating variables such as product involvement, self-esteem and public self-consciousness alter the impact of congruity with the actual self, and congruity with the ideal self.
Thus, strong brand personalities are linked throughout research with several beneficial outcomes, such as influencing consumer preferences, transforming user experiences and as a building block for building the customer-brand relationship, loyalty and trust (Labrecque & Milne, 2012), as well as building strong, favorable and unique brand associations which supports brand equity. Furthermore, consumers are able to use the brand personality as way to express themselves as well.
- 25 - However, more knowledge about which brand elements, and which antecedents of those brand elements can be used within the marketing profession, to enhance the brand personality and other aspects of CBBE is needed. The following chapters discuss several antecedents of visual brand elements and how they can be used to leverage brand equity.
- 26 - CHAPTER 5: Visual Brand Elements
As Keller proposed, brand elements can be evaluated and chosen by assessing their performance on three brand building criteria. However, there is a variety of brand elements this could apply to, most of which are visual in nature. Brand elements such as logo’s, symbols, brand names, characters and even packaging can help the consumer identify brands and evoke positive overall brand judgements and feelings (Keller, 2001, 2003). One commonality across visual brand elements is the use of color, which has been shown to be an important antecedent for visual brand elements in previous research, as it is conveys inherent meaning and associations to the brand, and thus becomes a vital part of creating strong and effective brand identities (Farhana, 2012).
5.1 Color as Antecedent of Visual Brand Elements
Color usage has been a major focus in prior research, both in marketing contexts, as from a more psychological and even biological point of view. To illustrate, the link between red and perceived dominance has been found in several settings, from competitive interactions in both humans and in the animal kingdom, to the usage of red jerseys in sporting events. (Hill & Barton, 2005). Red has also shown to have a strong influence in sexual attraction. For example, men found women more sexually desirable and more attractive when women were viewed with either red clothing or shown within a red border. (Elliot & Niesta, 2008). Other colors, e.g. blue and green, also seem to have persuasive capabilities. Both these colors have been linked to positive content, such as openness and peace, and calmness and success, respectively (Mehta & Zhu, 2009, via Elliot & Maier, 2014).
However, in marketing research specifically, the focus tends to be around red and blue as benchmark colors, where red is usually associated with excitement and blue tends be seen as a
- 27 - sign of competence and calmness (Labrecque & Milne, 2012). The focus on these colors is not entirely surprising considering the fact that blue is the most used color is in logos of major corporations (Elliot & Maier, 2013). Research by Labrecque and Milne (2013) examined if other patterns -besides the often used blue- could be found in real world brands, also taking product category into account. Their findings show that norms indeed exist in the use of colors across different product categories, for example, the use of blue in the household, financial and electronic product categories, or red in the fast food product category. The findings further suggest that moving away from these norms as a way of differentiating the brand can be
beneficial in brand equity performance in certain product categories, e.g. in the product category of credit cards or certain pharmaceuticals. However, deviating from the norms can also pose as a risk to the brand equity, especially so when the product category already has a dominant market leader.
In earlier research Labrecque & Milne (2012) the authors dived deeper into the effects of different colors and how they can influence the consumer’s perception of a brand. Their research examined the effect several hues of color has on the perceived brand personality. Based on the already existing evidence, it was hypothesized that white, yellow and pink enhances perceived sincerity of a brand, whereas orange, red and yellow was linked to excitement, and blue or brown hues were thought to have an effect on perceived competence. Sophistication was linked to hues as black, purple and pink and lastly ruggedness was said to be enhanced by browns and greens. The results showed partial or full support for these hypotheses, and also showed significant differences in familiarity and likability driven by the combination of logo shape and color. The differences found in familiarity and likability show applicability of Keller’s criteria, as they could be interpreted in terms of Keller’s memorability and likability respectively. This
- 28 - suggests that incorporating Keller’s brand building criteria in empirical research provides further insight on how these brand elements, as well as its antecedents can build brand equity.
5.2 Brand Building Criteria and Visual Brand Elements
In research conducted by Bottomley and Doyle (2006), the brand building criteria proposed by Keller are already deemed valuable within the application of the model to brand elements and visual design features. Said research links the brand building criterion of meaningfulness within the brand logo, i.e. the brand element, and focused on color as the antecedent as well.
In their research the product category in which the brand is active was also considered and consequently, how this interacted with the type of color being used, for which red and blue were selected since red is considered a sensory-social color, and blue is seen a functional color. The results showed that products in a functional product category benefit from the use of a functional color, i.e. blue, whereas products in a sensory-social product category benefit from the use of a sensory-social color, i.e. red. Additionally, they found that ambiguous brands, that do not quite fit into either category, can be seen as more functional or more sensory-social by using the appropriate color. Therefore, the study supports the theory that an antecedent of a brand element can be a powerful tool in leveraging brand equity via Keller’s criteria.
These findings illustrate how antecedents of brand elements, in this case color, can be very applicable to the marketing profession as a persuasive brand building tool. Therefore, it would be interesting to see if similar effects are found when other aspects of brand elements are used, such as typefaces.
5.3 Congruity in Visual Brand Elements
Another aspect of visual brand elements that has an effect on brand equity and consumer responses is the degree to which there is congruity in the brand elements used. The value of such
- 29 - research is further underlined by the increasing amount of companies introducing a distinct brand house-style that is used across all communication purposes.
Rompay and Pruyn (2011) investigated the effects of congruency in visual design elements, such as shape of the product or package and typeface, on consumer brand perceptions as well as price expectations in the mind of the consumer. The study argues that congruence between shape and typeface facilitates stimulus processing and therefore positively affects the perceptions of brand credibility, brand aesthetics and brand value, i.e. price expectations. These hypotheses were supported by their findings which showed overall positive effects of congruence on
perceptions of brand credibility and price expectations. Furthermore, the results also showed that perceived brand aesthetics was partially mediated the congruence effects on price expectations. This suggests that consumers expect to pay more for products congruent in shape and typefaces, because of their aesthetic appeal.
Orth and Malkewitz (2008) looked into several types of package design, and degree to which these holistic packaging designs can affect consumer brand impressions. Five types of holistic packaging were distinguished, namely massive, contrasting, natural, delicate and non-descript. They found that similar to brand personality, the holistic packaging design can help convey brand impressions, and that certain personality types as proposed by Aaker (1998) are aided by specific types of package design, e.g. sincere brands with natural designs and rugger brands with massive or contrasting packaging designs.
Their research is similar to research conducted by Henderson and Cote (1998), which focused on providing marketing professionals with guidelines for selecting logo’s as brand elements. During their research they conceptualized 13 main design characteristics, including natural, harmony, elaborate, parallel, repetition, proportion and round. Their findings suggested that depending on the goal or conditions for the logo at hand, such as high recognition or low
- 30 - involvement, different design characteristics are best suited. When similar research was
conducted in Asia, the same results were found in China and Singapore as within the United States, in terms of what type of logo designs works best for specific objectives. For instance, elaborate, natural and harmonious designs were found to be seen as most conducive to positive affect, quality perceptions, clear meaning and true recognition (Henderson, Cote, Leong & Schmitt, 2003). Therefore, logo design effects don’t seem to have a major cultural discrepancy. These findings suggest that logo’s as brand elements can also be actively used to enhance a certain image and help reach specific marketing objectives in order to maximize brand equity. 5.4 Attention to Visual Brand Elements
Pieters and Warlop (1998) investigated how visual attention amongst consumers with different motivations or opportunity differs when looking at advertisements, via tracking of eye-movement. Under time constraints, and thus limited opportunity, textual elements were skipped more often. Consumers with high task motivation on the other hand, took more time to acquire information and fixed longer on the brand elements. Consequently, when motivation was high, the pictorial elements were skipped more, whereas the brand names were skipped less, in comparison to the other groups. These results provide evidence that consumers systematically adjust the way information is processed and acquired during increased motivation or decreased opportunity. Thus, this information can very well be applied to adjust the brand elements to the consumer in purchase situations where motivation tends to be high, or opportunity tends to be low.
In 2004, the authors build upon this research by looking into the effects of brand, pictorial and text-size elements of ads on attention capture. They found that the pictorial draws a significant amount of the baseline attention, regardless of the size of the pictorial. Interestingly however, in regards of incremental attention, i.e. the attention that an ad captures beyond the
- 31 - baseline amount of attention due to the increase in surface size, text showed to be superior. When a larger portion of the surface is used for text, a substantial positive effect was found on the amount of attention spend on the entire ad. (Pieters & Wedel, 2004).
One could argue, that since an increase in the ad’s real estate spend on textual information showed a positive effect on incremental attention, typefaces, as an integral part of the text, might very well be worth prioritizing during marketing communications design. Even if in certain situations, the actual textual information is skipped, the pictorial information and the associations that the typeface itself evokes might still register with consumers. On the other hand, when consumers actively read the text, the typeface is also clearly present in the visual attention field. Therefore, from the point of view of these researches, marketers might benefit from prioritizing proper typeface selection in branding and marketing communications. However, more research is needed to support such as claim.
Thus, since typefaces can be seen as both visual and textual, it would suggest that focusing on typeface selection as the major antecedent of brand elements would be the ultimate point of focus for building brand equity. Additionally, in a way typeface is just as an integral part of marketing communications and design as color is, which is why it’s unfortunate that the empirical research in this area is lacking. Furthermore, just as color, typefaces seem to carry intrinsic meaning and associations as well, which in turn is likely to help build strong brand identities and support brand equity. Prior research focusing on typefaces specifically will be discussed in the following chapter.
- 32 - CHAPTER 6: Typeface as Brand Building Tool
As mentioned earlier, most of the brand elements are visual in nature, such as the logo, characters, packaging, signage, letterhead, in-house communication style and so forth. Besides color usage, another commonality that these brand elements share is that they are often, either fully or at least partially made up out of a certain typeface. This poses the question if typefaces itself can be used to build brand equity and leverage brand value, via the selection criteria for brand elements as proposed by Keller.
6.1 Typefaces Defined
To clarify, typeface is a term used in typography and design, that refers to the specific design of an alphabet and usually consists of a family of fonts. Whereas a font specifies features such as size, weight and italicization, typeface refers to the entire group of the same design. For example, ‘Times New Roman’ is a typeface, and ‘Times New Roman, 12 point, italic’ is a font. This
distinction has its origin when each typeface had different rows of fonts that were used in the age of printing. The introduction of desktop publishing and digital typography has created confusion between the two terms, which caused them to often be used interchangeably, however
incorrectly so. Further information regarding typeface terminology and definitions will be provided during the stimuli selection portion of this research.
6.2 Effects of Typefaces
Some research has been conducted in terms of the effects on consumers and their responses and the usage of typefaces. Certain letter shapes of a typeface can affect the overall feeling of a text (Oyama, 2003, via Brumberger, 2003a), for example rounded typefaces being more
associated with happiness and sharp, angular typefaces suggest anger. Parker (1997, via
- 33 - attitude. Amare & Manning (2012) build upon these findings by examining if typeface
characteristics hold a systematic explanation as to the emotions they evoke, which will support purpose-driven typeface selection. Findings suggest that sans-serif typefaces are emotionally seen as more organized and focused, more so than they are seen as calmed. Serif typefaces are seen as more focused and organized but also seen as more calmed. Also, serif typefaces have a significant calmed response, and script typefaces have a significant, yet small, spike in calmed responses. Interestingly, readability between serif and sans-serif typefaces does not seem to differ significantly, even though this is commonly hold as true.
Gump (2001) looked into the readability of typefaces and also examined if there is a consensus in the emotion associated with each typeface. There seems to be a consensus in the mood or emotion that consumers associate with four out of ten typefaces researched. These were followed: Arial (65.5% selected “plain”); Bernhard Modern (63.1% selected “elegant”); Alternate Gothic 2 (52.4% selected “rigid”); and Stymie (51.2% chose “friendly”). However, no clear consensus was found in the overall most legible typeface, the least legible typeface or the favorite typeface.
These findings suggest that typefaces do evoke and convey certain meaning and emotions, however, this is not necessarily due to the readability of a typeface nor seems there to be one clear answer as to what the general population favors. This is in line with findings concerning color as the antecedent of brand elements, since the effects of color usage is also complex and dependent on a variety of situations and objectives, suggesting that typefaces can be used as a brand building tool in the same way color can.
6.3 Typefaces and Personality
Other research investigated the degree to which typeface has a certain personality and persona, and if so, what effects that might have on the consumer. Wright (1994, via Brumberger
- 34 - 2003a) stated that each typeface has a distinct persona, which can be confident, casual, bold, elegant, romantic, friendly, nostalgic or modern to name a few possibilities. Other research concludes that the shape and weight of typefaces is a major factor in what type of persona it evokes. To illustrate, rounded serifs are seen as friendly, whereas squared serifs are seen as official. Additionally, lighter typefaces, i.e. typefaces with less thickness in strokes, are seen as more gentle, delicate and feminine. Conversely, heavier typefaces, i.e. with thicker strokes, are seen as more strong, aggressive and masculine (Parker, 1997).
Due to minimal amount of current empirical research and an overly reliance on intuitions and aesthetic judgements within the industry, Brumberger (2003a, 2003b) set out to conduct research to serve as empirical support for these judgements of the persona of typefaces. Her research found three distinct personas of typeface, namely elegance, directness and friendliness (2003a), which supports the notion that people systematically assign certain personality attributes to specific typefaces. The same procedure was used to establish whether text can have similar personas, which was supported by her findings resulting in three distinct text personas, namely, professional, violence and friendliness.
These findings provide a solid starting point in empirical research for the link between typefaces and perceived persona. Furthermore, other research by Brumberger (2003b)
investigated the appropriateness of typefaces, taking the persona of the typefaces as well as the persona of the text into account. The results indicate that readers are indeed aware of
mismatches between the text and typeface personas, however the typeface persona does not seem to have significant effect on the text persona. This could be due to the discrepancy between the two is not large enough to produce a significant effect, or perhaps the visual persona of typeface can’t overrule the verbal persona of a text.
- 35 - convey meaning and other emotional associations, but also show tendencies to produce a distinct personality or persona. This poses the question whether the typeface associations are transferred to the brand as well. Furthermore, since typefaces do have a personality, it would be valuable to see if these personality attributes can be used to build the brand personality as well. The persona of the typeface might have difficulty overcoming the verbal persona of the text, but it is plausible that the personality attributes can transfer to the visual aspects of brand image and personality.
6.4 Typefaces in Marketing
Fortunately, some empirical research exists, that looks at typeface from a marketing perspective. One vital research is the research conducted by Bottomley and Doyle (2004), in which they investigated typeface selection and the effects it has on important marketing
objectives. Their research conceptualized typeface as a component of visual brand equity, i.e. the look and feel of a brand, much like color, shape and symbols. The study hypothesized that appropriateness of font choice influences the degree to which a brand is investigated and how often it is chosen. Font appropriateness was operationalized during a pre-test in which people were asked to rate the appropriateness of 27 fonts with 32 products. The results provide strong support for the notion that appropriate fonts indeed have a positive effect on brand choice, since appropriate fonts were chosen significantly more often than inappropriate fonts. These results were still present when more connotative rather than neutral names were shown, as well as when the respondents were exposed to an actual choice (i.e. between boxes of chocolates), as opposed to a hypothetical situation. Another conclusion worth mentioning, is that even in situations where the brand name is highly appropriate, typeface selection still might have a significant influence (Bottomley & Doyle, 2004). This assumption is based on the theory that font and brand name might be processed via different routes, i.e. central and peripheral routes as
- 36 - cues might be processed less elaborately, which gives the possibility of influencing the consumer beyond the influence of the brand name.
Henderson, Giese and Cote (2004) took it one step further and investigated the specific design features and characteristics of several typefaces, and what effects these might have on the consumer. In order to do so, a selection of 210 typefaces were rated by a group of 82 graphic designers on 24 design characteristics, which were both universal typeface design characteristics as well as specific design characteristics. The same procedure was used to select a variety of impression responses, such as innovative, calm, formal, honest and so on. Consequently, after principal component analysis (PCA), six typeface design dimensions became clear, namely elaborate, harmony, natural, flourish, weight and compressed, as well as four impression dimensions, namely pleasing, engaging, reassuring and prominent. A full overview of each typeface and the design dimensions can be found in Appendix I.
Results of the study provides evidence that typefaces can, in fact, be used as a tool to elicit certain brand impressions, since the strength of the relationship between typeface design and the resulting impressions is significant and show the amount of control marketers can have over the evoked impression via typeface design and selection. The results showed that certain design dimensions are more strongly related to certain impressions than others. To illustrate, natural and elaborate typefaces create more engaging brand impressions, whereas natural and script typefaces evoke more reassuring and pleasing impressions. Finally, the findings were compiled into several response-profile options that can be used by marketers as a guideline for typeface selection.
Even though Henderson and colleagues made the strategic choice not to use Osgood’s affective meaning approach (Osgood, 1952), because the focus of their research was on
impressions used for marketing specifically, the approach does pose an interesting alternative for looking at typefaces and other visual brand elements. Bottomley and Doyle (2010) incorporated
- 37 - Osgood’s affective meaning in the evaluation of an array of logos, colors, products, names and typefaces. Osgood’s method is based on the duality of adjectives used to describe concepts, e.g. heavy and light, strong and weak, beautiful and ugly. Rather than using these semantics as a dichotomous concept, Osgood conceptualized them as a bipolar continuum. In later research three distinct components were found to be sufficient to describe the majority of adjectives, namely evaluation, potency and activity (Osgood, Suci & Tannenbaum, 1957). Evaluation (E) was characterized by pairs such as good and bad, beautiful and ugly. Potency (P) was defined by semantic pairs like, strong and weak, heavy and light, and lastly Activity (A) consists of pairs like, fast and slow, active and passive. Bottomley and Doyle used this method to rate 102 typefaces on their overall affective meaning via EPA-scores (i.e. Evaluation Potency Activity- scores, see Appendix II for the full list and scores). The benefits of using Osgood’s technique is that it covers all affective meaning and is applicable across cultures and countries, as well as different applications ranging from colors to logos to typefaces (Bottomley & Doyle, 2004).
Research conducted by Childers and Jass (2002) focused on the effects that semantic meaning associations of typefaces has on important marketing variables, such as brand perception and consumer memory. In their study they looked into to what degree typeface semantic associations affect the formation of brand perception, and to what degree consistency in the typeface’s semantic association with the overall content of the ad, had an effect on recall. It was conceptualized that typeface semantic associations influenced brand perceptions and memory storage via three variables, namely verbal stimuli processed for meaning, visual stimuli processed for meaning and lastly the consistency among the components. This is in line with other previously discussed notions that typefaces can have both a visual, as well as a verbal or textual component that can influence consumers. Furthermore, it poses involvement as a moderating variable. The results of the two experiments provide evidence that typefaces convey
