By: Bernie DeGroat, U-M News Service
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The world of branding is full of iconic characters, images and logos that help hawk a company's wares, but those that seem to have little in common with its product may be the most effective, a U-M researcher says.
"Among marketers, there has been a trend to employ unusual visual identifiers that have little, if anything, to do with the product," says Norbert Schwarz....
In a forthcoming article in the Journal of Consumer Research, Schwarz and colleagues Aparna Labroo of the University of Chicago and Ravi Dhar of Yale University conduct three studies that show consumers prefer a product with a visual identifier on its label or logo over those without one, provided the identifier is easy to process....
"Consider the case of a consumer with a young son who loves Kermit the Frog," says Schwarz, who also is a professor of psychology and research professor at the Institute for Social Research. "She is buying a wine online and encounters a wine bottle that features a label with the image of a frog.
"Neither Kermit nor other frogs have much to do with wine, but the increased exposure to Kermit may facilitate the visual processing of a label that features a frog and increase its aesthetic appeal. This increased appeal of the label, in turn, may increase the consumer's preference for the 'frog wine' over a wine that features a different label."...
You can read the entire article on the University Record website at http://www.ur.umich.edu/0708/Mar10_08/20.php.
