| While many advertisements make reference to the featured brand in third person, some ads refer to the brand in first-person terms. That is, different ways exist in terms of how the brand is deliberately referenced in an ad, and these differences have an impact on ad effectiveness. Drawing on brand relationship and self-awareness literature, this dissertation proposes two competing mechanisms for the effect of brand referencing---the intimacy-enhancing mechanism and the attention-shifting mechanism. The intimacy-enhancing mechanism suggests that first-person brand referencing, as compared to third-person brand referencing, tends to lead consumers to perceive a greater sense of intimacy with the brand, and to consequently form favorable evaluations toward the brand. On the other hand, the attention-shifting mechanism proposes that first-person (versus third-person) brand referencing positively affects consumer judgment by switching consumer attention from their own self-concepts to the brand.; Furthermore, this dissertation examines if, when, and how first-person (vs. third-person) brand referencing may generate differences in consumer responses. The two mechanisms predict that under circumstances involving different motivation (i.e., self-consciousness), opportunity (i.e., processing resources), and ability (i.e., knowledge of product features), the effectiveness of first-person (as compared to third-person) brand referencing tends to vary. The two mechanisms point to the same three factors as moderating the brand referencing effect, but predict opposing moderation patterns.; A series of experiments in this dissertation test the model through three moderation tests and one mediation test. The experiment results support the intimacy-enhancing mechanism, suggesting that first-person (vs. third-person) brand referencing is likely to increase a consumer's sense of intimacy with the brand and thus lead to more favorable consumer responses, when (a) the consumer is self-conscious to perceive the self-brand interaction, (b) the consumer has sufficient mental resources to process the self-brand interaction, and (c) the ad message focuses on symbolic versus functionalfeatures of the brand, which allows the consumer to assess the self-brand interaction in a more positive manner. |
