| dc.description.abstract | Extensive literature has been written on brand positioning and on the importance of
differentiation for its success. However, little research has been dedicated to understand how
differentiation works in the mind of consumers. In this thesis, we focus on bringing some clarity
to this gap by providing some insights on how preferred brands are differentiated from the rest.
Our research builds on Suppehellen’s (2014) theory, which states that differentiation is driven
by secondary associations. We seek to answer the following two questions:
In what sense does the preferred brand differentiate from acceptable brands?
To what extent is the differentiation of preferred brands moderated by the product
involvement?
We use the BCM method developed by John, Loken, and Kim (2006) in order to create
associative network for preferred and acceptable brands in the smartphone and beer categories.
By comparing the number of associations, their connectivity, and their content on preferred vs
acceptable brands we uncover important implications for theory on brand positioning and
differentiation.
We found that preferred brands are different from acceptable ones in the number of secondary
associations they have, but not on the number of primary associations. We also found that the
content for associations for preferred brands is moderated by the consumer’s level of
involvement, with preferred smartphone brands having more benefit associations, more
personality trait associations, and less negative associations, while preferred beer brands having
more attribute associations. Finally, we discovered that associative networks of preferred
brands have stronger links among its associations but no significant difference in the
interconnectivity of its associations in comparison with acceptable brands. | |
