Image transfer between brands in the broadcasting system An explorative research on image transfer and spillover effects between brands in the broadcasting system Student name: Sander Borghouts Student number: 10659099 Supervisor: Roger Pruppers Second corrector: Jorge Labadie Amsterdam Business School, Faculty of Economics and Business University of Amsterdam Master Thesis Date: August 8 2014 1 Table of Contents 1. SO MANY BRANDS, SUCH AN OBTUSE PASTIME ......................................................................................... 4 1.1 BRANDS IN THE BROADCASTING SYSTEM ............................................................................................................................ 4 1.2 BROADCASTING BRANDS IN THE CURRENT EVENTS .......................................................................................................... 5 1.3 PROBLEM DEFINITION ............................................................................................................................................................ 6 1.4 CONTRIBUTIONS ....................................................................................................................................................................... 7 1.5 GENERAL OVERVIEW ............................................................................................................................................................... 8 2. BROADCASTING COMPONENTS AS FULL-FLEDGED CONSUMER BRANDS ....................................... 10 2.1 CLASSIC BRAND DEFINITION ............................................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 BRAND IMAGE BUILDING IN PRACTICE .............................................................................................................................. 11 2.3 BRAND EQUITY SELLS .......................................................................................................................................................... 12 2.4 POSITIVE EVALUATIONS CREATE IRREPLACEABLE BRAND EQUITY ............................................................................. 13 2.5 BROADCASTING COMPONENTS FIT THE BRAND DEFINITION ........................................................................................ 14 3. BRANDS AS AN ASSOCIATIVE NETWORK .................................................................................................... 15 3.1 THE BASICS OF ASSOCIATIVE NETWORKS ......................................................................................................................... 15 3.2 APPLICATION OF THE BRAND CONCEPT MAP AND ITS FIT TO BROADCASTING BRANDS ........................................... 17 3.3 THE STRONGER THE ASSOCIATION, THE GREATER THE IMPACT ON IMAGE ................................................................ 18 3.4 HOW FAVORABILITY AND UNIQUENESS IMPACT ASSOCIATIONS ................................................................................... 19 4. THE CONSUMER'S DISPOSITION TO PROCESS MULTIPLE BRAND CUES. ......................................... 22 4.1 BRAND ARCHITECTURE ........................................................................................................................................................ 22 4.2 STRENGTH OF LINKAGES AND SPILLOVER EFFECTS ........................................................................................................ 25 4.3 SPILLOVER EFFECTS AND IMAGE TRANSFER .................................................................................................................... 27 5. PROPOSITIONS .................................................................................................................................................... 29 5.1 PRIMARY VS. SECONDARY ASSOCIATIONS ......................................................................................................................... 30 5.2 PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS MENTIONING >1 BRANDS (STATION AND PRESENTER AS DRIVER ROLE) ........ 32 5.3 TWO-WAY SIMILARITY OF % MENTIONING CORRESPONDING BRAND ........................................................................ 33 5.4 CORRECT INCOMING ASSOCIATIONS .................................................................................................................................. 34 6. DATA EN METHOD .............................................................................................................................................. 36 6.1 CUE DEVELOPMENT ............................................................................................................................................................. 37 6.2 PRE-TESTING ......................................................................................................................................................................... 41 6.3 SCENARIO DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................................................................................... 42 6.4 QUESTIONNAIRE DEVELOPMENT ....................................................................................................................................... 43 6.5 DATA STRUCTURING AND METHOD OF ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................ 44 7. RESULTS ................................................................................................................................................................. 46 7.1 PRIMARY VS. SECONDARY ASSOCIATIONS ......................................................................................................................... 46 7.2 PERCENTAGE OF RESPONDENTS MENTIONING >1 BRANDS (STATION AND PRESENTER AS DRIVER ROLE) ....... 52 7.3 TWO-WAY SIMILARITY OF % MENTIONING CORRESPONDING BRAND ........................................................................ 57 7.4 INCOMING ASSOCIATIONS .................................................................................................................................................... 59 8. DISCUSSION .......................................................................................................................................................... 63 8.1 INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS ........................................................................................................................................... 63 8.2 INTERESTING FINDINGS APART FROM THE PROPOSITIONS ........................................................................................... 67 8.3 THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS ............................................................................................................................................. 69 8.4 MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS .............................................................................................................................................. 70 9. CONCLUSIONS ...................................................................................................................................................... 73 9.1 LIMITATIONS .......................................................................................................................................................................... 74 9.2 FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS ....................................................................................................................................... 75 10. REFERENCES ...................................................................................................................................................... 77 11. APPENDICES ....................................................................................................................................................... 81 2 3 1. So many brands, such an obtuse pastime Millions of people around the world end their working day by watching some television as a relax- ing and enjoyable pastime, a staggering 3 hours and 39 minutes a day according to Eurodata TV. Relaxing as it may be, viewers get to process an enormous amount of information while watching television. Four basic factors with which viewers are confronted while watching television, apart from commercials, are: the broadcasting station, broadcasting channel, program and the presenter. Making a leap forward, one could argue that the viewer gets to process four brands simultaneously. This makes it a case of intense and complex brand processing for the consumer and it would be intriguing to know how the consumer processes all four brands at the same time. Moreover what effects do these four broadcasting elements have on each other's image after being processed simul- taneously? 1.1 Brands in the broadcasting system The American Marketing Association (1960) defines a brand as “A name, term, design, symbol, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from competitors.”, and by this definition one could argue that all of the mentioned four broadcasting elements are brands. Take the memorable HBO jingle as an example, even when the television show is aired by a different (foreign) channel, the well-known sound of the HBO jingle alone is enough to quickly prime people that it is an HBO show. Or consider Simon Cowell, who is known for being a member of the jury in virtually every talent show from Pop Idol, Il Divo, The X Factor till the Got Talent shows. He obviously is very good at