Research Article
The Effect of Art Infusion on Buying Intention: Focusing on the Mediating Roles of Luxury and Cognitive Flexibility
NICE R&C
Published: January 2013 · Vol. 17, No. 3 · pp. 1-26
Full Text
Abstract
Understanding consumers' evaluation of brands and extended brand is of critical importance to marketing practitioners and academics alike. Consequently, a great deal of research in marketing has been conducted to enhance this understanding. Meanwhile, corporations which try to develop high-class brand images have directed their attention to art in recent years. Following this research stream, this research is to investigate the art infusion's effect on brand evaluations(purchase intention of parent and extended brand). Especially, this research has expanded from the existing research project, which proved the role of parameter of luxury in art infusion, to include the role of parameter of cognitive flexibility between the existence of art and consumers' brand evaluation. Furthermore, it also investigates the moderating effects of consumers' need for uniqueness and perceived fit between the brand and extension category. The research was organized as two studies and the results are summarized as follow. First, the main results of two experiments demonstrate that the presence of art favorably influences the perceptions of luxury and enhances consumer's cognitive flexibility, resulting in more favorable brand evaluations. Second, when a brand is associated with art, consumers' brand purchase intention varies depending on the consumers' need for uniqueness. More specifically, consumers with high need for uniqueness show purchase intention better than consumers with low need for uniqueness. Third, the moderating effect of category fit(high vs. low) reveals that the presence of art enhances brand extension evaluation is high compared to a brand without art. These results support those of the previous studies that the presence of art has a favorable influence on the evaluations of parent brand and extended brand through a content-independent spillover effect.
