Thesis advisor: Celeste Wells / This paper explores how the visual components of product placement in film contribute to the goal of generating a positive brand attitude. Past research in this field has overlooked the visual aspects of product placement in favor of focusing on consumer recall. To address this gap, this study looks at three recent films, and evaluates them using visual analysis. Analysis revealed that visual components of film such as color, contrast, and lighting, as well as the positioning of the product, such as focus, motion, and camera angle, directed viewers’ attention to encourage cognitive processing of the branded area of the visual. This study also found that the visual components strengthen the association between the product and the protagonist, which is essential to generating a positive brand attitude. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Departmental Honors. / Discipline: Communication.

In the present study, using both implicit and explicit measures, we addressed the issue of whether strongly developed relationships towards brands could be modified through the use of evaluative conditioning. Using an online survey, individual participant brand lists were created, and formed the basis of this experiment. Participants were then exposed to conditioning during a longitudinal study. Throughout the experiment, a combination of explicit and implicit measures was used to assess changes in attitude. Specifically, participants were asked to rate the brand names on a Likert-type scale. Simultaneously, changes in the brains electrical activity in response to the brands were recorded via electroencephalography (EEG). Upon completion of this task, participants underwent two Implicit Association Tests (IAT; one for liked brands and one for disliked brands). There were two main findings of this study. Firstly, no significant changes in attitude were observed via the use of explicit measures, and those that were found relating to the IAT were regarded as questionable. Secondly, EEG presented consistent results which showed that conditioning elicited changes in cortical activity towards both liked and disliked brands, which suggest it may be a useful tool in measuring the impact of evaluative conditioning that is not reflected in verbal responses.

Because the fresh milk market is growing gradually to be mature in Taiwan, the major firms of the fresh milk industry try to find the other way to make profit. They try to segment the fresh milk market by the higher price or some new functions of fresh milk. This study is to discuss the consumer¡¦s behavior in fresh milk market. According to the attribute of buying effecting factors, it can class the consumers as 1.group of product-distinction; 2.group of marketing-distinction; 3.group of subjectivity-distinction. These groups can be helpful to understand consumer¡¦s buying effecting variables and the acceptance to higher price fresh milk. The conclusions of this study are presented as follows: 1.Fresh¡BHigh Quality and 100¢H Nature, these three factors of buying effecting are most important to the fresh milk consumers. 2.Leading firms in fresh milk industry actively promote their higher price products, but the consumer can¡¦t aware these products easily and keep low will to buy that. 3.According to the attribute of buying effecting factors, it can class the consumers as 1.group of product-distinction; 2.group of marketing-distinction; 3.group of subjectivity-distinction. The conclusions above are significant to the management in the following aspects. 1.Understanding the consumer¡¦s behavior, the firms could match the real needs of the consumers. 2.To launch a new product must have the unique selling proposition (USI), and you can earn the consumers. 3.The firms in fresh milk industry could make different marketing strategies to the distinct consumer groups.

This thesis is about the customer experience in hotels. The thesis evaluates the customer experience in relation to the antecedents of behavioural loyalty. Behavioural loyalty is evaluated in relation to customer satisfaction, brand trust and brand attitude. Customer satisfaction is also evaluated in relation to the antecedents of hotel performance, service quality and perceived value. The broad research underpinning this research is: How do consumers perceive and relate to luxury and first class hotel brands? The hotel industry is a large and highly diverse industry that includes a wide range of property styles, uses and qualities (Chon & Sparrowe, 2000; Go & Pine, 1995; Olsen, 1996; Powers & Barrows, 1999). The industry covers the spectrum of small, medium and large enterprises (Brotherton, 2003; Jones, 2002) and makes a significant contribution to national and international economies. The research incorporated data collection in three stages. The first stage was a qualitative study of consumers who self selected as first class or luxury consumers. The data from the focus groups were used to develop items for inclusion in a survey instrument. The focus groups data, together with information gathered from a literature review, were used to develop scales across a number of hotel performance dimensions. In addition scales were included in the survey instrument on customer satisfaction, perceived value, brand trust, brand attitude and behavioural loyalty. The second stage of the research was a pilot study with the survey instrument being distributed to a convenience sample. The data collected at this stage were used to purify and refine the survey instrument. The final stage was data collected from consumers in a number of Australian hotels. The resultant data set comprised 693 completed and useable responses. The data were examined using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to confirm the hotel performance and other dimensions. The resultant dimensions showed good psychometric properties. A number of hypotheses were proposed in the thesis and examined using structural equation modelling. Although two hypotheses were rejected the resultant structural model showed strong relationships between the dimensions included. The research identified that service quality is a strong contributor to behavioural loyalty. The stronger pathway from service quality to behavioural loyalty was through customer satisfaction ( = 0.63) although the pathway through brand attitude ( = 0.22) was also significant. Both customer satisfaction and service quality had a significant effect on brand trust and service quality also influenced brand attitude. A number of recommendations for further research were made. These included the replication of this study in different geographic and industry contexts.

The expansion of Internet promotes the rise of social media. The appeal of social marketing leads the enterprises start to set up fanpage on Facebook to interact with their members.This study discusses whether the messages¡¦ emotion or the managers¡¦ emotion result in members¡¦ emotion in fanpage,and furthermore to find out the connection between members¡¦ emotion and brand attitude. This research adopts experimental method and distributes on-line questionnaire, retrieving 384 samples and analyze the data with SPSS 17.0. The results shows that the display of messages and the menagers¡¦emotional expression certainly affect menbers¡¦ positive emotion, and directly affect the menbers¡¦ brand attitude to the enterprises.This study points out the importance influence of emotion in marketing research,and provides some practical suggestions to enterprises to develop a new strategy.

¡§Giant¡¨ is the study case of this research, which attempts to establish what influences consumers¡¦ attitude to brand extension and brand attitude when Giant promoted extension of its brand. The study also investigated the influence of brand image and product involvement on attitude to brand extension. The methodology of the study includes in-depth interview and questionnaire survey. Consumers with high and low levels of product involvement were interviewed. An understanding of their perspective on brand image was gained. Interviewers¡¦ free thoughts of potential brand extensions were gathered. These were used in the brand extension items of the questionnaire. It is found from the study, with respect to the influence of brand image on product and service extension, functional brand image bears significant influence on product and service extension. In other words, consumers have positive responses to functional product (the bike and personal gear) and service (bike repair, assembly tuitions and exercise courses) extensions. Secondly, high and low consistencies both bear significant influence on the service extension. Consumers have the greatest response to highly consistent service extension (bike repair, assembly tuitions and exercise courses). Consumer response to low consistent service extension (bank and insurance) is the lowest. Furthermore, with respect to the influence of involvement in high and low consistent service extension, those with high involvement have significant influence on high consistency service extension (bike repair, assembly tuitions and exercise courses). The level of involvement has not significant influence on product extension and low consistency. With respect to the influence of involvement on brand image, those with high involvement has more positive response on functional, symbolic and experience brand image.

The communication means used by marketers has fundamentally changed with the rise of social media, however social media has also created a landscape that is hard for the companies to manage. What the employees says on these medias could influence the brand and therefore, companies have formulated guidelines for social media in order to minimize the risk of damaging the brand. The purpose of this study is to explain how employees’ actions on their private social medias change consumers’ brand attitude negatively.This study uses a quantitative approach with a cross-sectional research design. The study uses primary data which was gathered through a questionnaire and was later analyzed through the use of descriptive statistics, ANOVA and Cronbach’s alpha. It was concluded that the results from this study show a negative change in brand attitude in all of the three presented hypotheses. Hence, employee actions on their private social media can change brand attitude negatively.

<p><strong><p>Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if and how the presence of Fairtrade promotion can change the attitude towards the stores, ICA and Lidl. <strong></strong></p><p><strong>Background: People‟s attitude towards the brand Fairtrade is predominantly positive and by providing these socially beneficial products, stores wish to strengthen their brand image by communicating their social responsibility through the message of Fairtrade. Previous research has shown that the socially responsible actions of a company can result in an enhanced brand attitude, but also in some cases, the actions taken have had a diminished effect on the attitude towards a brand. It is therefore of interest to research which stores that can gain from Fairtrade promotions in terms of an improved attitude towards the brand. </strong></p><p><strong><strong>Method: To answer the purpose, a mixed method sequential explanatory design was applied, by collecting quantitative data from an experiment, and qualitative data from a follow-up interview. The emphasis was put on the quantitative phase, where four different experimental groups were manipulated with different internet advertisement; ICA and Lidl, with the presence and absence of Fairtrade promotion. </strong></strong></p><p><strong><strong><strong>Conclusion: The outcome of the study signified that the attitude towards Lidl was somewhat negative with the absence of Fairtrade and declined with the presence of Fairtrade promotion while the attitude towards ICA did not change regardless of promotion. The results indicate that Fairtrade can not be successfully used as a system of changing brand attitude of a store, if customers do not consider it to be congruent with the initial brand image. It is supported that consistency is the key to success for a brand to be believable and enhance the brand attitude. </strong></strong></strong></p></strong></p>

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate if and how the presence of Fairtrade promotion can change the attitude towards the stores, ICA and Lidl. Background: People‟s attitude towards the brand Fairtrade is predominantly positive and by providing these socially beneficial products, stores wish to strengthen their brand image by communicating their social responsibility through the message of Fairtrade. Previous research has shown that the socially responsible actions of a company can result in an enhanced brand attitude, but also in some cases, the actions taken have had a diminished effect on the attitude towards a brand. It is therefore of interest to research which stores that can gain from Fairtrade promotions in terms of an improved attitude towards the brand. Method: To answer the purpose, a mixed method sequential explanatory design was applied, by collecting quantitative data from an experiment, and qualitative data from a follow-up interview. The emphasis was put on the quantitative phase, where four different experimental groups were manipulated with different internet advertisement; ICA and Lidl, with the presence and absence of Fairtrade promotion. Conclusion: The outcome of the study signified that the attitude towards Lidl was somewhat negative with the absence of Fairtrade and declined with the presence of Fairtrade promotion while the attitude towards ICA did not change regardless of promotion. The results indicate that Fairtrade can not be successfully used as a system of changing brand attitude of a store, if customers do not consider it to be congruent with the initial brand image. It is supported that consistency is the key to success for a brand to be believable and enhance the brand attitude.

This thesis empirically investigates the impact of an individual’s dominant independent self-construal, interdependent self-construal, cosmopolitan and local orientation on the effect of the four self-congruity types (actual, ideal, social, ideal social) on brand attitude. A widely used practice among marketers focuses on communicating the notion that using their brands will bring consumers closer to how they would like to see themselves, their ideal self-concept (e.g. being a slim person like the models in the ads), instead of how they actually see themselves, their actual self-concept. However, recent research shows that there is no “universality” of a superior self-congruity effect. Specifically, individual-level characteristics (e.g. public self-consciousness) determine whether actual or ideal self-congruity impacts brand perceptions more strongly (Malär et al., 2011). This study extends that research by considering (a) all four self-congruity types and (b) additional individual-level characteristics (independent and interdependent self-construal, cosmopolitan and local orientation), which are valuable for segmenting consumer markets within and across countries. Survey data from a non-student sample were collected in two countries (the US and India). After performing data cleaning procedures, over 800 usable responses in each country were analysed with the use of PLS-SEM. The findings show that, as expected, these individual-level characteristics have an impact in regard to which of the four self-congruity types has the strongest effect on brand attitude. For instance, for individuals with a local orientation or interdependent self-construal, actual self-congruity has the strongest effect on brand attitude. These findings extend self-congruity theory by considering how an individual’s dominant independent and interdependent self-construal, cosmopolitan and local orientation impact the effect of the four self-congruity types on brand attitude. Moreover, the findings offer marketers insights into which self-concept type they should try to match with their brand communications when targeting these specific consumer groups. Details on the contributions as well as managerial implications are presented.