Purpose

Consumers subscribe to different mindsets or implicit theories of personality malleability, namely, fixed and growth mindsets. This study aims to investigate how and why consumers’ mindsets can influence their word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions toward a brand and the consequent implications for a brand’s personality.

Design/methodology/approach

Three mall-intercept studies and one online study demonstrate the influence of consumers’ fixed and growth mindsets on their WOM intentions. The first two mall-intercept studies identify motivations underlying consumers’ WOM intentions as a function of their mindset orientations. The third mall-intercept study examines the implications of such mindset-oriented WOM intentions for a brand’s personality dimension and the underlying psychological mechanism. The fourth study tests the link between WOM intent and behavior.

Findings

Results show that fixed (growth) mindset individuals exhibit greater WOM intentions than growth (fixed) mindset individuals for motives of “impression management” (“learning and information acquisition”). Findings further demonstrate that brands that exhibit dual personality dimensions simultaneously, one salient and the other non-salient at any instant, garner equivalent WOM intentions from both fixed and growth mindset individuals, contingent on the fit between the salient brand personality dimension and the dominant consumer mindset. Finally, using a real brand, it can be seen that WOM intentions actually translate into behavior.

Research limitations/implications

The study measures offline WOM intent but not offline WOM behavior.

Practical implications

This study sheds new light on branding strategy by demonstrating how and why dual-brand personalities may attract consumers with both kinds of implicit self-theory orientations. Relatedly, it also demonstrates a technique of framing ad-appeals that support the dual-brand personality effect.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to propose and demonstrate the use of simultaneous dual-brand personalities as an optimal branding strategy.

中文翻译：

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内在的自我理论和双品牌个性如何提升口碑

目的

消费者赞同不同的心态或人格可塑性的内在理论，即固定和成长心态。这项研究旨在调查消费者的心态如何以及为什么会影响他们对品牌的口碑（WOM）意图以及对品牌个性的影响。

设计/方法/方法

三项购物中心拦截研究和一项在线研究证明了消费者固定的和增长的心态对他们的WOM意图的影响。前两项购物中心拦截研究确定了消费者根据他们的心智取向而产生的WOM意图的动机。第三项购物中心拦截研究研究了这种以心态为导向的WOM意图对品牌个性维度和潜在心理机制的影响。第四项研究测试了WOM意图和行为之间的联系。

发现

结果表明，出于“印象管理”（“学习和信息获取”）的动机，固定（增长）心态的人比增长（固定）心态的人表现出更大的WOM意图。研究结果进一步表明，品牌同时展现双重人格特征，在任何时候都同时具有一个显着性特征和另一个非显着性特征，这些特征都来自固定和成长型思维个体，并且具有同等的WOM意图，这取决于显着的品牌个性特征和主导消费者之间的契合度。心态。最后，使用一个真实的品牌，可以看出，WOM意图实际上转化为行为。

研究局限/意义

该研究测量脱机WOM意图，而不是脱机WOM行为。

实际影响

这项研究通过展示双重品牌个性如何以及为什么以两种隐性的自我理论取向吸引消费者的方式，为品牌战略提供了新的思路。相关地，它还展示了一种框架广告来吸引双品牌个性效应的技术。

创意/价值

据作者所知，这是首次提出并证明使用双品牌个性作为最佳品牌战略的研究。