ERP evidence for consumer evaluation of copycat brands.

ABSTRACT: Copycat brands mimic brand leaders to free ride on the latter's equity. However, little is known regarding if and how consumers confuse copycat as leading brand in purchasing. In this study, we applied a word-pair evaluation paradigm in which the first word was a brand name (copycat vs. normal brand both similar with a leading brand in category), followed by a product name (near vs. far from the leading brand's category). Behavioral results showed that, when the product is near the leader's category, the copycat strategy (CN) was more preferred compared to the normal brand (NN) but not different in the far product condition (CF and NF). Event-related potential (ERP) data provided further insight into the mechanism. The N400 amplitude elicited by the CN condition was significantly smaller t

SUBMITTER: Shang Q 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5842871 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature