The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate how product experiences with a new product affect consumers attitudes toward the brand, the products country of origin (CO), and the other brands competing in the same market place. The dissertation is composed of two essays. Using direct...

Purpose: Copycat brands offering improved product quality pose serious challenges to original brands. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of why consumers prefer copycat brands with superior product attributes and how original brands can shift this preference back by strategically...

Purpose: This research aims to examine how credence, search and experience attributes compete with suggestive brand names that are incongruent with the attributes they cue (e.g. expensive EconoLodge Motel, short-lasting Duracell battery and joint-stiffening JointFlex pill)....

Drawing on numerical cognition research, weidentify a set of multi-context numbers (MCN) that originatefrom the decimal (10), duodecimal (12) and sexagesimal(60) numeral systems frequently used in numerousdomains (e.g., 10, 12, 20, 24, 60, 360, 100). We proposeand show that inclusion of MCN in...

We show that consumers' intra-brand choices (e.g., Mercedes C330 vs. C340) can be affected by exposure to a competitor alphanumeric brand name that forms an incidental trend with the numbers in the focal brand names (e.g., BMW350i). We propose and test two mechanisms. First, when no attribute...

This research shows that round numbers (e.g., 10, 50, 100) are strongly associated with completeness perceptions and consumers view them as thresholds for reaching certain completeness levels. In nine empirical studies, we demonstrate that round numbers in brand names, i.e., Round Alphanumeric...