Sources of Brand Decline Open Access

Abstract

Sources of Brand Decline
By: Adina N. Barbulescu
Brands are important assets for companies and contribute significantly to
company revenues. Firms, however, need to steadily preserve and nurture brands in order
to continue to appropriate a brand's value.Brand decline refers to the weakening of the brand in
consumers' minds in terms of consumer attitudes and intentions to purchase a brand.
While a number of factors may lead to a brand's decline, I focus on two sets of factors.
The first factor relates to consumers' knowledge of the brand and its structure. The
second factor revolves around consumers' experiences with a brand over time. I
investigate these two issues in two essays that comprise the dissertation.
In Essay 1, I argue that different knowledge structures consumers have for brands leads
them to be differentially vulnerable to competitor actions, resulting in greater or lower
change in brand attitude. Consumers' knowledge of brands is comprised of brand
associations (or nodes) and potential causal linkages among these nodes. I argue that in
the absence of causal linkages, consumers are more likely to negatively change their
attitude towards the brand following a competitor challenge on one of the brand's nodes.
A brand need not decline only under the pressure of competitors. In Essay 2, I argue the
pattern of consumers' sequence of experiences with a brand can lower the likelihood of
brand repurchase. A brand becomes increasingly weak when consumers expect low levels
of brand performance in the future (i.e., point expectation) or considerable variability in
the level of these performances (i.e., range expectation) (Rust et al. 1999).
I extend this stream of literature and argue a brand's decline, measured as low likelihood
of brand repurchase, is also determined by the distribution of consumers' range
expectation above and below the point expectation of brand performance.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents: Chapters


Contents
Page

Essay 1: Changes in Brand Attitude in Response to Competitor Claims: The Role

of Brand Knowledge Structure

Abstract
1

Introduction
3

Human Memory for Causal Relations
5

The Structure of Causal Relations among Brand Nodes
6


Absence vs. Presence of Causal Linkages
7


Directionality of Causal Linkages
8


Multiplicity of Causal Linkages
9

Study 1
10


Method
11


Results
15


Summary
18

Competitor Appropriation
18

Relative Importance of the Challenged Brand Node
19

Study 2
20


Method
20


Results
21


Summary
22

Study 3
23


Method
23


Results
25


Summary
25

Node Importance
26

Discussion
27

Contribution and Future Research
28

References
31
Table of Contents: Tables


Contents
Page

Essay 1: Changes in Brand Attitude in Response to Competitor Claims: The Role
of Brand Knowledge Structure

Table 1: Manipulation Criteria
34

Essay 2: Asymmetry of Consumer Uncertainly and Its Impact on Brand Decline

Table 1: Trend (Increasing and Decreasing) vs. No Trend
93

Table 2: High Contrast Peak vs. Low Contrast Peak
93




Table of Contents: Figures


Contents
Page

Essay 1: Changes in Brand Attitude in Response to Competitor Claims: The
Role of Brand Knowledge Structure

Figure 1: A Consumer's Brand Knowledge of Activia (yogurt)
35

Figure 2: A Consumer's Brand Knowledge of Stoneyfield (yogurt)
35

Figure 3: Types of Causal Structures
36

Figure 4: Experimental Design of Study 1
37

Figure 5: Treatment Conditions of Study 1
38

Figure 6: Study 1 - The Effects of Directionality and Multiplicity of Causal 39
Linkages on Brand Attitude Change

Figure 7: Study 2 - The Effects of Multiplicity of Causal Linkages on Brand 40
Attitude Change

Figure 8: Study 3 - The Effects of Multiplicity Competitor Appropriation
41

Figure 9: Study 1 and Study 2 - Relative Importance of Energy Efficiency
452

About this Dissertation

Rights statement

• Permission granted by the author to include this thesis or dissertation in this repository. All rights reserved by the author. Please contact the author for information regarding the reproduction and use of this thesis or dissertation.

School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Business
Degree	PhD
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Business Administration, Marketing
Keyword	branding, knowledge structure, order effects
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Bharadwaj, Sundar, Emory University Kohli, Ajay, Emory University
Committee Members	Towry, Kristy, Emory University Barsalou, Lawrence, Emory University

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