The effects of brand revitalisation and retro branding on brand and purchase outcomes: the moderating roles of consumer nostalgia proneness and self-construal

ABSTRACT

The present study designed two studies with different research designs to test the effects and boundary conditions of brand revitalisation and retro branding strategies. Study 1 found that both brand revitalisation and retro branding strategies increase consumer brand attitudes and purchase intentions (compared to control groups). In addition, the effect of retro branding was stronger for nostalgia-prone consumers, whereas brand revitalisation was more effective when consumers were low in nostalgia proneness. Study 2 used incentive-compatible design and found that retro branding strategies can increase consumer-perceived self-brand congruence and willingness to pay (WTP) for consumers with interdependent self-construal. Brand revitalisation strategies, however, increase perceived self-brand congruence and WTP when consumers have independent self-construal.

KEYWORDS:

• Heritage brands
• brand revitalisation
• retro branding
• nostalgia
• self-construal

Acknowledgments

I thank the Editor Mark Tadajewski, the Associate Editor, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For more information of this product, please see the following link: https://read-a.com/drip-chicken-essence-taiwan-tian-yuan-xiang/

2. Since the original version of measures of brand attitudes, purchase intentions, and nostalgic proneness were developed in English, this study employed Brislin’s (1980) procedure for back-translation. Specifically, the researcher and one PhD student who majored in consumer behaviour translated the original version of the scales into Chinese and then asked four bilingual experts to translate the Chinese scales back to English. When disagreement occurred during the back-translation process, the researcher and the PhD student reviewed the appropriateness of the translation and then retranslated the items again. This process was repeated until the consensus of back-translation was achieved. Finally, five consumer behaviour and marketing scholars reviewed the translation to ensure the content validity of the translated measures.

3. It is plausible that demographic variables such as age and gender might influence individual nostalgia proneness. I address this issue in the following two ways. First, the results of correlation analysis indicated that age and gender were unrelated to nostalgia proneness (r = −.15 and −.08, all n.s.). Second, I have included age and gender as the covariates in subsequent analyses but the conclusions were unchanged. Overall, participants’ age and gender did not influence the results of hypothesis testing.

4. It is plausible that demographic variables such as age and gender might influence individual self-construal. Thus, I address this issue as follows. First, the results of correlation analysis indicated that age and gender were unrelated to self-construal (r = −.06 and .10, all n.s.). Second, the conclusions were unchanged when I included age and gender as the covariates in subsequent analyses. Therefore, participants’ age and gender did not influence the results of hypothesis testing.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pei-Chi Chen

Pei-Chi Chen is Assistant Professor of Department of Business Administration at National Dong Hua University, Taiwan. Her primary research focuses on brand management, customer relationship management, cause-related marketing, service management, and emotions in service encounters. Her work has been published in Journal of Business Research, Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Advertising Research, International Journal of Advertising, Psychology & Marketing, Human Performance, Personnel Review, and other outlets.