市场营销系学术讲座系列第一百零七讲

主 题：Sizes Are Gendered: The Effect of Size Cues in Brand Names on Brand Stereotyping

主讲人: 李少波(南方科技大学)

时 间：2019-04-08 10:00

地 点：明德商学楼1008室

语 言：中文

The use of size cues in brand names (e.g., Mini Cooper, Xiaomi) is increasingly common in the industry. However, despite its prevalence, scant research has investigated whether and how the use of such size cues influence consumers’ perception. In the current research, we hypothesize that size cues in brand names can evoke gender associations, which subsequently affect consumer perceptions toward the warmth and competence of the target brand. Across different product categories and cultural contexts, we provide converging evidence that brands with a size cue of smallness (bigness) in the name are perceived to be warmer but less competent (less warm but more competent), and this effect is mediated by the gender association evoked by the semantic size cues. Further, we show that the downstream consequence of size cues in brand names on overall brand evaluation depends on the relative importance of warmth and competence in the consumption context. Specifically, size cue of smallness (bigness) in brand names leads to more favorable brand evaluations when consumers have a communal (agentic) goal and when the brand has a feminine (masculine) gender positioning.