Seminar （Dept. of Marketing）

Theme：The Effect of Visually Simple Design on Perceived Brand Authenticity

Speaker：WANG Yan（Renmin University of China）

Time：2021-06-03 10:00

Address：Room 1007, Mingde Business Building

Language：Chinese/English

Abstract：

With increasing commercialization, we are now in an era where consumer trust has plummeted across all industries. Consequently, brand authenticity has emerged as one of the most important aspects that really matters while consumers make purchase decisions. To reflect the research trends, the current research documents a “simple = authentic” lay belief and proposes that consumers make inferences about brand authenticity based on whether the product/package design is visually simple (vs. complex), which in turn affects their subsequent categorization of brand status and purchase intentions. An implicit association test (IAT) provides support for the association between simplicity and authenticity (Study 1). Five experiments further demonstrate that consumers perceive the brand with visually simple (vs. complex) design as more authentic (Study 2a-c, 3) and subsequently they categorize the brand as in higher status and exhibit higher purchase intentions for the brand (Study 4). Moreover, this effect is attenuated when the decorating pattern of the complex design is framed as the brand’s innateness (Study 5). Our findings contribute to the literature of brand authenticity, aesthetics in product/package design, and sensory marketing. Managerial implications are also addressed.

Short biography：

Yan Wang is a doctoral student of marketing at Renmin Business School, Renmin University of China. Her research interests are mainly about sensory marketing, aesthetics, and brand authenticity.