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How Visual Brand Identity Shapes Consumer Response

Article in Psychology and Marketing · March 2014

DOI: 10.1002/mar.20689

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How Visual Brand Identity Shapes
Consumer Response
Barbara J. Phillips
University of Saskatchewan

Edward F. McQuarrie
Santa Clara University

W. Glenn Griffin
University of Alabama

ABSTRACT

Most brands are represented visually in print advertisements, and these visual representations must
consistently identify the brand to the consumers who encounter it. At the same time, some of the
particular visual elements used to represent the brand must change over time, because it is not
acceptable to run the same ad year after year without refreshing its visual content. To explore these
issues, a qualitative exploration was conducted with ad agency art directors and ordinary
consumers. The focus was the criteria used by each group to determine when changes in the visual
representation of the brand succeed, by staying consistent with the brand’s identity, or fail, by
violating expectations. Professionals, with their greater aesthetic sensitivity, had a more narrow
latitude of acceptance for changes. A follow-up experiment with consumers showed that aesthetically
aware consumers were likewise more sensitive to alterations in visual brand identity than
consumers for whom aesthetics were not central. Results are interpreted in terms of assimilation
effects and degree of incongruity along with the moderating effect of aesthetic skill. C 2014 Wiley
Periodicals, Inc.

Why can consumers identify a television commercial for set of associations that a company aspires to cre-
Target within a few seconds without seeing the brand ate and maintain (Alselm & Kostelijk, 2008; Esch,
name? Would a consumer notice if a Microsoft logo were 2008). Brand identity helps create relationships be-
placed in an Apple ad? Consumers often can identify tween the company and consumers (Fournier, 1998),
the brand sponsor of an ad with a quick glance, even and can lead to perceptions of brand personality (Aaker,
before the logo is glimpsed and without reading any 1997; Aaker, Fournier, & Brasel, 2004). When con-
of the text. A beach scene in a beer ad elicits Corona; sumers interact with brands, they are exposed to vi-
a mother and child in a soup ad calls out Campbell’s. sual stimuli such as logos, colors, shapes, typefaces,
This suggests that nonverbal elements play a promi- characters, styles, and other brand-image elements
nent role in branding. However, not much attention (McQuarrie & Phillips, 2008; Schroeder, 2004). Any
has been paid to the holistic visual style of the brand of these visual elements may come to be associated
in academic research. This paper explores the concept with the brand and serve to identify it. However, mar-
of visual brand identity (VBI) using a new definition keting scholars know little about how these individ-
adapted from legal scholarship. First, consumers’ un- ual bits and pieces of the brand’s visual image com-
derstanding of VBI is compared to the perceptions of bine together to convey brand associations and mean-
professionals who create brand identity on Madison Av- ings (Keller, 2003; Keller & Lehmann, 2006; Schmitt
enue. This comparison sets the stage for an experiment & Simonson, 1997). What has been lacking is a def-
that examines consumer response to VBI as a function inition of VBI that is not tied to or limited by any
of incongruity and aesthetic sensitivity. particular visual element that might be used to ex-
press that identity, such as a color or font. A theo-
retical definition may be derived, however, from legal
VISUAL BRAND IDENTITY scholarship, where litigation to protect brand Web sites
from copycats has driven the courts to conceptualize
A brand’s identity is comprised of characteristics and visual identity in a holistic, rather than a piecemeal,
attributes of the brand that cohere into the unique fashion.

Psychology and Marketing, Vol. 31(3): 225–236 (March 2014)

View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/mar

C 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/mar.20689

225
Tertium Quid being dependent on any one of them. Thus, VBI can
be thought of as the holistic visual style that identi-
Obtaining legal protection for Web sites has been prob- fies the brand—a recognizable something that cannot
lematic because traditional intellectual property laws be decomposed into a list of its visible parts.
only protect certain aspects of the Web site: the verbal An illustration of VBI is presented in Figure 1 in the
content and specific images are protected by copyright two Skyy vodka ads. Both ads have a similar layout,
law, the logo and brand name are protected by trade- with the product package as the dominant ad element
mark law, and the functional product itself may be pro- centered on the page. These ads use a bright, vibrant
tected by patent law (Perkins & Lin, 2009). Thus, it is color palette, and thin, modern typography that mim-
unclear what legal reasoning could be used to protect ics the font on the bottle label. In addition, both ads
the Web site as a holistic entity—the look and feel of the use extreme closeups of women’s body parts in hyper-
Web site that produces an overall impression, gestalt or sexualized, but also tongue-in-cheek, visual displays. It
style (Perkins & Lin, 2009). To protect this gestalt, le- is easy to see why Skyy ads might be recognizable to
gal scholars adapted the concept of trade dress (Warlop consumers even with the brand name masked, because
& Alba, 2004), which originally referred to the packag- the individual ad elements are so similar between ad
ing of a product, including nonfunctional (decorative) executions.
aspects of the product itself. Over time, the concept of VBI is not solely about duplicating specific ad ele-
trade dress evolved to protect any means used to iden- ments, though. Consider the two Malibu rum ads in
tify the source of goods and to distinguish those goods Figure 2. Both ads have a similar layout, with a recipe
from competitors’ goods (Cohen, 2010). in the top right corner, the product package in the mid-
Subsequently, court judgments expanded the mean- dle of the page, and the tagline and logo in the bottom
ing of trade dress beyond its traditional application. right corner. However, many of the ads’ visual elements
The expanded definition makes reference to a tertium are quite different. The ad on the right features a large
quid that may be present in representations of the package shot as a dominant element, and there are
brand and protected by law (Anderson, 2007). Tertium many bottles in the ad; the ad on the left shows a dis-
quid is Latin for “third thing”; Webster’s online dic- tant image of one bottle alone, with its label removed.
tionary defines it as “a third something that fails to fit The ad on the right is set at a club or bar; the ad on
into a dichotomy.” Perhaps its most familiar application the left on a beach. Despite these differences, Malibu
can be found in assertions such as “the whole is greater rum is a brand that has a strong and consistent visual
than the sum of its parts.” In a key Supreme Court identity. Both Malibu ads use the visual rhetorical fig-
case involving Wal-Mart, the court used the term to al- ure of personification (Delbaere, McQuarrie, & Phillips,
lude to an amalgam of product packaging and product 2011), where the product comes alive, to convey the
design that combined to form a new, emergent factor, message that the rum mixes well with fruit juice. This
recognizing that the whole of the brand’s visual iden- personification links the ad executions by visual theme
tity was greater than the sum of its individual elements instead of specific visual elements. Thus, VBI goes be-
(Anderson, 2007). In consequence, the legal definition of yond the sum of the individual visual elements of an
trade dress has expanded, as presented by Cohen (2008, ad, to the tertium quid of the holistic visual style of the
pp. 145–146): brand arising from both.

Trade dress involves the total image of a product

and may include features such as size, shape, color
Consumer Processing of VBI
or color combinations, texture, graphics, or even par-
ticular sales techniques . . . It is the manner in which With VBI defined as a complex whole whose meaning
the goods and services are presented to prospective is partially independent of the individual elements that
purchasers to indicate source. Trade dress encom- may contribute to it, psychological research on factors
passes the arrangement of identifying characteris- that might determine how consumers process such a
tics or decoration connected to a product, whether complex whole are next discussed. Two key theoretical
by packaging or otherwise, intended to make the concepts in this regard are familiarity and congruence.
source of the product distinguishable from another
and promote it for sale. Familiarity. Consumer brand knowledge is the per-
This definition of trade dress is adapted for the pur- sonal meaning of a brand stored in consumer memory,
poses of this paper1 to define VBI as the tertium quid which includes both descriptive and evaluative brand-
that arises from the combination of all of the visual related information (Keller, 2003). Brand knowledge
brand elements used to represent the brand, without is stored in memory as a schema: a relatively stable
mental framework for organizing knowledge in com-
plex structures. Schemas contain both visual and ver-
1
Trade dress now has a specific judicial meaning tied to the four bal information: feelings, cognitions, and experiences
legal requirements of (a) distinctiveness, (b) secondary meanings,
(c) nonfunctionality, and (d) consumer confusion (see Anderson,
(Esch, 2008). Schemas are developed through repeated
2007 for an explanation of these conditions); thus, this paper uses exposure and experience within a domain, and it seems
the term visual brand identity instead. likely that regular exposure to advertising that repeats

226 PHILLIPS, McQUARRIE, AND GRIFFIN

Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
 Figure 1. Skyy vodka ads with strong VBI.

Figure 2. Malibu rum ads with strong VBI.

certain themes and elements plays a central role in presented to an individual for processing, the intercon-
building brand schemas (Goodstein, 1993). nection strength causes the rest of the pattern to be
Prior research applying schema theory to market- reinstated (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1985). The ease
ing has found a strong familiarity effect (Pandelaere, with which a familiar pattern can be processed is an
Millet, & Van den Bergh, 2010). Ease of processing fa- instance of fluency (Schwartz, 2004).
miliar information already stored in a schema leads to Any variable that increases fluency also increases
a feeling of liking. In psychological terms, a schema liking because fluent processing is marked as pleasant
is a pattern of activation of connections between as- and mediates evaluative judgments. Perceivers tend
sociated concepts. When part of a known pattern is not to attribute this pleasure to fluency, but rather to

VISUAL BRAND IDENTITY 227

Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
the object being processed (Cho & Schwartz, 2010). A cally examined. Among the visual elements that have
general consensus among researchers is that numer- been studied one at a time are brand logos (Henderson
ous variables can affect fluency; one key factor is rep- & Cote, 1998; van Riel & van den Ban, 2001), typog-
etition of a stimulus (Labroo, Dhar, & Schwartz, 2007; raphy (Childers & Jass, 2002; DeRosia, 2008; Doyle
Lane, 2000). Based on the above explanation, it is pos- & Bottomly, 2006; Henderson, Geise, & Cote, 2004;
sible that ads with a strong VBI could be perceived as McCarthy & Mothersbaugh, 2002), colors (Bottomley
more familiar, with their brands evaluated more posi- & Doyle, 2006; Gorn, Chattopadhyay, Yi, & Dahl, 1997;
tively, than ads where the brand’s visual elements have Labrecque & Milne, 2012, 2013; Meyers-Levy & Per-
changed in a more helter-skelter fashion over time, and acchio, 1995; Orth & Malkewitz, 2008), background
been repeated less often. images (Mandel & Johnson, 2002), and product shape
(Veryzer & Hutchinson, 1998; Westerman et al., 2012).
Congruence. Another factor that may influence con- Despite broad recognition that individual brand ele-
sumer perceptions of VBI is congruence. As reviewed ments influence consumer processing, little is known
by Fleck and Quester (2007), congruence has multi- about how these visual elements combine in brand ad-
ple meanings in marketing scholarship, including “fit” vertising, where the VBI perceived by the consumer will
(e.g., co-branding), “typicality” (e.g., brand extension), be a function of both the individual elements and the
and “similarity” (e.g., celebrity endorsements). A series gestalt they make up. Previous research regarding the
of marketing studies demonstrate that consumers eval- verbal components of advertising indicates that verbal
uate congruent products more positively than incongru- elements have combinatory effects (e.g., Mothersbaugh,
ent products. For example, Campbell and Goodstein Huhmann, & Franke, 2002). Based on the tertium quid
(2001) find that, in all the buying situations tested, definition of VBI, visual elements may likewise combine
congruent brand extensions are liked more than in- to influence consumer response in emergent ways.
congruent brand extensions because of the lessened Two studies were conducted to examine these is-
risk and uncertainty in the purchase decision. Walchli sues. First, a brand was selected that is familiar
(2007) similarly reports that under low-involvement and popular, with a well-developed positive brand
conditions, congruent co-brands are preferred over in- schema—Campbell’s soup (Kervyn, Fiske, & Malone,
congruent co-brands because brand associations can be 2012). In Study 1, a Campbell’s soup ad was shown to
determined more easily. In a television advertising con- both professional art directors and ordinary consumers
text, Goodstein (1993) found that shampoo ads that (Figure 3). Pretesting had identified this particular ad-
are congruent with product category expectations (e.g., vertisement as incongruent with Campbell’s strong pre-
showing women washing their hair) are liked more existing VBI,2 and Study 1 compares the reactions of
than incongruent ads when prior category affect is pos- art directors and consumers to this incongruent ad. In
itive. Congruence research thus suggests that existing Study 2, ads for two liquor brands were selected (Skyy
brands with a strong VBI may be liked better because vodka and Malibu rum), each with its own strong VBI,
their ads are perceived by consumers as congruent with and key visual elements were swapped between them
brand expectations. As most advertising is processed to manipulate incongruity.
under low-involvement conditions, a strong VBI may
lower perceived purchase risk, make it easy to grasp
positive associations, and lead to increased liking when STUDY 1
prior brand experience is positive.
In summary, previous marketing research on con-
Method
sumer processing suggests that advertisements with
consistent (familiar) visual elements may lead to pro- As part of a larger study, 15 individual in-depth in-
cessing fluency and liking; visual themes that are con- terviews of about one hour were conducted with art
gruent with expectations also may lead to liking when directors in advertising agencies and design firms in
prior brand evaluation is positive. Theories of famil- New York City (Table 1). Art directors were chosen be-
iarity and congruence would suggest that ads with a cause these individuals have primary responsibility for
consistent VBI over time would be liked more than ads the visual aspects of an ad campaign (Young, 2000). All
where the elements making up VBI, however positive in had consumer brand experience but none had worked
themselves, have been altered in a novel or unfamiliar for Campbell’s soup. The art directors discussed the
way. Campbell’s soup ad in terms of its individual visual ele-
ments, visual themes, perceived match with Campbell’s

RESEARCH OVERVIEW 2
In a pretest of 125 undergraduate students, participants were asked
to search for two print ads in the same product category—one brand
While many visual brand elements have been studied with a strong VBI and one brand with a weak VBI. Strong VBI was
in previous research, they usually have been studied defined quite loosely as “knowing the ad is for a specific brand
even when you cover up the brand name and logo.” Participants
in a piecemeal fashion in isolation from other brand submitted their ads with a written explanation for course credit.
elements (Burmann, Hegner, & Riley, 2009). This iso- These pretest participants did not participate in the other pretest
lation means that tertium quid has not been empiri- or studies.

228 PHILLIPS, McQUARRIE, AND GRIFFIN

Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
 be able to discuss VBI in technical terms, and because
verbal methods may not tap visual brand associations
(Koll, von Wallpach, & Kreuzer, 2010; Reavy & John-
son, 2008), consumers were asked to individually com-
plete a collage task before discussing the Campbell’s
ad with the researcher. Collage is a projective tech-
nique that helps uncover nonverbal brand knowledge
stored in memory as images (Koll, von Wallpach, &
Kreuzer, 2010; Zaltman & Coulter, 1995). Participants
were presented with a white poster board with the
Campbell’s color logo printed in the center of the board
and asked to think about all of the visual associations
they had with that logo. Participants proceeded to cut
out pictures that matched their associations from a
large supply of magazines and glue them on the poster
board to make a collage, while drawing on the board
any associations that they were unable to find in the
magazines.
After participants explained their collages to the re-
searcher, they were presented with the Campbell’s ad in
Figure 3 and asked for their impressions, evaluations,
and ideas about it. To probe for VBI, participants iden-
tified aspects of the ad that were similar to or different
from their collage. The collage making and interview
took between one and two hours and participants were
paid for their time. The responses of both art direc-
tors and consumers were analyzed using the grounded
theory method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), with partic-
Figure 3. Campbell’s soup ad with moderately incongruent ular attention to visual thematic analysis (Gleeson,
VBI. 2011).

Table 1. Description of Art Director Participants.

Results
Years of
Experi-
Art directors. Robert spoke for all the art directors in
Name Gender Work Place ence
describing the brand:
Tom Male Worldwide agency 14
Emma Female Worldwide agency 12 Campbell’s is a classic brand. They’re something
Brooke Female Worldwide agency 8 that’s been around for a while. They’ve been able
Connor Male Design firm 7 to retain their look. I feel like they can own that.
Sophia Female Design firm 6
Mark Male National agency 5 The art directors had a specific image of Campbell’s
Amy Female Worldwide agency 5 VBI in mind, based on the holistic combination of visual
Ryan Male National agency 5 elements, as summarized by Ian:
Jake Male Design firm 5
Ann Female Regional agency 4 I think the iconic pieces of the Campbell’s campaign
Eric Male Freelance 4 are the close up of the can, especially that logo, and
Christopher Male Worldwide agency 3
the colour palette of that warm red—and the white—
Kyle Male Worldwide agency 2
and also the soup shots.
Ian Male Worldwide agency 1
Robert Male National agency 1 Thus, familiarity with Campbell’s advertising led
Note: Names have been changed to protect confidentiality. the art directors to associate the visual elements of
the can, the color red, and the images of soup with the
Campbell’s brand, and to believe these elements should
existing VBI, and perceived effectiveness, following in- remain consistent between ads over time.
terview guidelines set out by Kover (1995). Fourteen of the 15 art directors felt the ad in Figure 3
Subsequently, 15 individual interviews were com- did not match the expected VBI of Campbell’s soup and
pleted with ordinary consumers (undergraduate stu- was too incongruent with the brand’s VBI to be effec-
dents enrolled in a Midwestern University; 10 females tive. The art directors pointed to several different visual
and 5 males). All had bought and used the Camp- elements that seemed misaligned with Campbell’s VBI.
bell’s soup brand. Because consumers are unlikely to First, although the ad uses the package element of the

VISUAL BRAND IDENTITY 229

Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
can, the art directors felt the can should not be cut in Consumers. In terms of individual visual elements,
half. Connor explained: consumers stated that Campbell’s VBI was composed
of a prominent picture of a bowl of soup (present in 14
I really can’t believe that they cut the can off of 15 collages), the color red (12), and the can (9). These
halfway. I feel like there must have been a thou- elements are the same as those identified by the art
sand fights and a thousand meetings over that one directors. In contrast to the art directors, consumers
decision alone. And I don’t even think it is working perceived that the ad in Figure 3 was congruent with
for them. Campbell’s VBI in depicting the can, the color red, and
the soup. Thus, while art directors were dismayed at
In addition, although the ad had the familiar red
how these elements were presented (e.g., can cut in
color at the bottom, the use of so much white space
half), consumers were reassured because the familiar
seemed incongruent. Use of a great deal of white space
elements were present (in whatever form). Not surpris-
in print advertising typically conveys upscale, elegant,
ingly, no consumer mentioned typography choices or
and powerful meanings (Pracejus, Olsen, & O’Guinn,
use of white space, consistent with the idea that ordi-
2006); however, art directors did not find these mean-
nary consumers lack the aesthetic expertise to call out
ings congruent with Campbell’s established VBI.
such elements.
Another visual problem identified by the art direc-
The visual themes that consumers associated with
tors is that the ad did not showcase the product, the
Campbell’s are presented in Table 2. Consumers felt
soup. Art directors indicated that the soup should be
that family and warmth were primary visual themes for
larger, take center stage, and be depicted attractively
the Campbell’s brand; art directors identified the same
as “food porn” [Emma]. Sophia captured the general
themes.3 Three of the consumers did not understand
disappointment:
the visual metaphor of the painter’s palette. For the
remaining 11 consumers, the primary visual theme in
It doesn’t feel particularly appetizing . . . I think this
the Campbell’s ad did not match their expectations for
brings it down. It brings it down to a 79 cents-a-can
Campbell’s VBI.
level.

Finally, the typography irritated the art directors, It’s different from what I was thinking because it’s
as they found it misaligned and poorly sized. more about focusing on the soups and the differ-
Beyond these individual visual elements, the ad’s ent colors . . . I always pictured them focusing more
primary image does not show people consuming the on the emotional aspect of it, with the family stuff
product, but uses a visual rhetorical figure (i.e., a vi- and bringing everyone together. That’s what I al-
sual metaphor) to convey its main message (Phillips & ways thought . . . It’s something different from what
McQuarrie, 2004). This metaphor compares Campbell’s I would expect from them [Jennifer].
soup to the paint on a painter’s palette; by eating more
soup, one can “live a more colorful life.” The art direc-
tors agreed that this visual treatment failed to match Discussion
the usual visual themes of Campbell’s VBI and seemed Ordinary consumers and professional art directors
overly “cute” [Emma]. The current ad misses the mark shared a common view of the elements and themes that
because: comprise Campbell’s VBI. This is important in so far as
it shows that the tertium quid theorized to underlie
It doesn’t have that warm, cozy mom-at-home, sick VBI is phenomenologically visible during both the ex-
with a bowl of chicken noodle soup feeling, which I pert production and naive reception of visually styled
definitely associate with the brand [Brooke]. brand communications. Where art directors and con-
It doesn’t feel as down-home and grounded as a sumers differed was in their evaluation of and response
Campbell’s ad would be [Ian]. to the Campbell’s ad in Figure 3. The professionals
saw substantial departures from and even violations of
In summary, art directors were able to reproduce Campbell’s historical visual identity, and responded
from memory both specific visual elements associated negatively as a result; ordinary consumers saw enough
with Campbell’s VBI, and its holistic visual represen- familiar and expected specific elements to accept the
tation or tertium quid. They reacted negatively to the ad’s visual execution as congruent with Campbell’s
particular Campbell’s ad shown because, although it established brand identity. Professional art directors,
did include some individual elements historically as- with their higher level of aesthetic training, also were
sociated with Campbell’s, overall it was judged to be able to discuss Campbell’s VBI in more fine-grained de-
discrepant from the established tertium quid that vi- tail, including elements such as typography, to which
sually identified the Campbell brand. The problem was ordinary consumers appeared oblivious.
compounded by the fact that Campbell’s chose a visual
rhetorical figure as the main image in the ad, a bit of 3
Although the visual theme healthy was present in the same num-
cleverness that the art directors felt had strayed too far ber of consumer collages as warmth (11), it was almost always a
from Campbell’s core visual themes of family, home, secondary or minor theme, not a primary theme, as explained by
and warmth. the participants.

230 PHILLIPS, McQUARRIE, AND GRIFFIN

Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
Table 2. Consumers’ Visual Collage Themes for Campbell’s Brand.
Number of Collages
with This Theme
Theme Examples of Collage Images that Illustrate the Theme (n = 15)

Family Mother cooking in kitchen with children 14

Family sitting around table, eating
Children laughing
Warmth Snow falling as viewed through a window 11
Family skating
Fireplace
Healthy Woman exercising 11
Bag of vegetables
Red bicycle
Soup situations Chicken casserole (soup used in recipe) 8
Sandwich
Pot
Convenience A clock 5
A kitchen (save time in the kitchen)
Affordable Dollar sign 3
Dollar bill
Variety Different bowls of soup 3
Different vegetables
Negative Associations Herd of dirty cows (industrialized meat) 2
Empty white plate (plain and bland)

A second observation from Study 1 is that consumers aesthetically skilled consumers. Two hypotheses are
appear less able to comprehend complex visual images tested:
and themes than art directors; whereas all of the art
directors understood the visual metaphor in the Camp- H1: Consumers will react negatively to a visual
bell’s ad, three consumers did not. This lack of visual execution that is highly incongruent with a
aesthetic sophistication had an unexpected positive out- brand’s existing VBI.
come for the brand; it appeared to make consumers less
sensitive to small changes in brand elements than art H2: Aesthetic sensitivity will moderate the effects
directors. A majority of art directors and a majority of incongruity: at high levels, perceived incon-
of consumers agreed that the Campbell’s ad did not gruity will be accentuated, and hence, more
meet their visual expectations in terms of the primary negatively evaluated.
theme of the painter’s palette. However, for art di-
rectors, small alterations in the ad’s visual elements
exacerbated the incongruence of the overall visual
theme. For consumers, the familiar can, color, and prod-
STUDY 2
uct shot were enough to reassure them that despite its
incongruent theme, the ad was still a “Campbell’s ad,” Method
leaving them unperturbed by other alterations to indi-
vidual elements. This is similar to the positive assimila- The Study 2 experiment used real ads for actual brands
tion effect noted by Lane (2000) for repeated exposure to that had been identified by consumers in the qualitative
incongruent brand extensions. Because of the assimila- pretest as containing strong positive VBI: Skyy vodka
tion effect, consumers may have experienced the Camp- (Figure 1, left) and Malibu rum (Figure 2, left).4 In an
bell’s ad as only moderately incongruent, which led to a additional experimental pretest of 63 undergraduate
general liking of it; art directors did not experience this students of legal drinking age, there was no difference
assimilation effect and expressed general dislike of the
Campbell’s ad. 4
In the qualitative pretest, no other soup brand besides Campbell’s
Given these disparate reactions to perceived incon- was identified as having a strong VBI, so a different product cate-
gruity, Study 2 manipulates VBI to be strongly incon- gory was chosen for the strongly incongruent experimental ads in
gruent, while distinguishing between more and less Study 2.

VISUAL BRAND IDENTITY 231

Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
 Figure 4. Strongly incongruent experimental ads.

in liking for these ads or the brands (p > 0.10). The ads; the first and third ads served as fillers and were
experimental pretest participants did not participate not used in the analysis. The remaining two ads were
in the other pretest or studies. the experimental ads. Half the subjects saw brand-
To create a strongly incongruent VBI, the brands’ congruent versions of an ad for Skyy vodka and for
packages were switched from one ad to the other. That Malibu rum (i.e., the original ads). The other half saw
is, the Skyy vodka bottle was placed in the Malibu rum the altered, brand-incongruent version of each ad, in
ad, and the Malibu rum bottle was placed in the Skyy which the branding information for the one (bottle with
vodka ad (Figure 4). Each of these liquor ads contains brand label) was inserted into the visual representation
consistent and positive visual elements and themes for for the other (Figure 4). Within the conditions, the pre-
its target audience when associated with the correct sentation of the ads was counterbalanced to control for
brand (identified through the visual cue of the pack- possible order effects. Participants were asked to look
age). When associated with a different brand, the VBI at each ad as if they were viewing it in a magazine.
is strongly incongruent because none of the visual cues After each ad, participants indicated their attitude to-
in the ad are associated with that brand. Because liking ward the ad by rating it on three 7-point semantic dif-
for the ad with the correct package is positive, differ- ferential scales: appealing/unappealing, good/bad, and
ences in consumer liking for strongly incongruent ads, likable/unlikable, with alpha = 0.93. Then participants
if obtained, can be attributed to unmet expectations of completed the CVPA scale (Bloch, Brunel, & Arnold,
VBI, and not to the use of differently liked visual ele- 2003), with alpha = 0.77, followed by demographic
ments. questions.
Centrality of visual product aesthetics (CVPA) was
included as a moderating variable (Bloch, Brunel, &
Arnold, 2003) in the experiment. CVPA was developed Results
to measure the importance of the visual aspects of prod-
ucts in consumers’ experiences. CVPA is the overall The hypotheses were tested using a 2 (congru-
level of significance that visual aesthetics holds for a ent/incongruent) × 2 (high/low CVPA score, split at
particular consumer and is a general trait. If it is true the median) between-subjects MANOVA design, with
that art directors’ sophisticated understanding of vi- scores for the two test ads averaged within each cell.
sual aesthetics helps them distinguish between consis- As predicted, liking for the congruent ads was greater
tent and inconsistent VBI, then CVPA may likewise (Mcongruent = 4.92, Mincongruent = 4.59). However, this
moderate ordinary consumers’ response to strongly in- mean difference was driven by the responses of the
congruent ads. high CVPA group, as seen by the significant interac-
Participants were 146 undergraduate students of tion with aesthetic centrality F (1, 142) = 4.68, p <
legal drinking age who received course credit. Each 0.05, two-tailed), which is fan-shaped (Figure 5). The
participant received a booklet of four full-page color simple main effect for congruity within the low CVPA

232 PHILLIPS, McQUARRIE, AND GRIFFIN

Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
 6

Aad

5
Congruent

incongruent

4
lo CVPR hi CVPR

Figure 5. Interaction between brand congruence and aesthetic centrality: Aad.

condition was not significant (Mcongruent = 4.46, heavy angular font versus a light curved font (Hender-
Mincongruent = 4.54, F < 1), while the simple main effect son, Geise, & Cote, 2004). What the literature has not
within the high CVPA group was significant (Mcongruent addressed is how these visual elements combine into
= 5.37, Mincongruent = 4.66, F (1, 142) = 7.43, p < 0.01). a cohesive brand image, and how consumers respond
The second hypothesis concerning moderation by CVPA when these elements are all processed at the same time.
was thus supported: participants low in aesthetic cen- This paper drew on legal scholarship to define VBI as
trality did not see much difference between congruent the tertium quid that arises from the combination of
and incongruent ads, while participants high in aes- all the visual brand elements used to represent the
thetic centrality liked the congruent ads significantly brand, without being dependent on any one of them.
more. This combination represents the holistic visual style
of the brand that cannot be encapsulated by a list of
its visible parts. An exploratory qualitative study sup-
Discussion ported the idea that, for familiar brands, both visual
experts and ordinary consumers hold this type of VBI
The results suggest that visual elements and themes in in memory as an expected schema. A simple experiment
ads that are perceived positively by consumers are liked demonstrated that visual elements that are generally
more when they are congruent with visual brand expec- perceived positively nevertheless are liked better when
tation than when they are incongruent. However, this they match the tertium quid of specific visual brand ex-
effect appears to be driven by individuals with CVPA pectations, especially for consumers high in aesthetic
scores above the median. These experimental findings sensitivity.
parallel those of the qualitative study comparing or- The findings also suggest that individual visual el-
dinary consumers to art directors. Just as art direc- ements may play a compensatory or assimilative role
tors are highly sensitive to the visual aesthetics in VBI for ordinary consumers. This assimilation process may
while ordinary consumers tend to view it more super- explain why brands can produce variations in their ad-
ficially, within consumer populations it appears that vertising executions year after year: these visual de-
more aesthetically aware consumers may be sensitive partures may be assimilated by consumers who are
to and positively influenced by VBI in a way that less reassured by the consistent elements that do reappear
sensitive consumers are not. in the ads. Thus, this research highlights the impor-
tance of examining visual elements within a tertium
quid relationship, rather than as isolated drivers of
GENERAL DISCUSSION consumer response.
A final contribution is the discovery that the CVPA
An extensive scholarly literature exists to explain con- for a particular consumer maybe an important indi-
sumer response to individual visual elements in ad- vidual difference factor in a consumer’s judgment of
vertisements: for example, the effect of choosing a red visual (in)congruity. Just as visual experts (i.e., art
versus blue background (Labrecque & Milne, 2012) or a directors) noticed and were more critical of moderate

VISUAL BRAND IDENTITY 233

Psychology and Marketing DOI: 10.1002/mar
visual incongruity in brand advertising, consumers that plays an important role in Berlyne’s (1971) ex-
with a greater appreciation for visual aesthetics noticed perimental aesthetics. Future research might consider
and were more critical of strong visual incongruity. other contexts and stimulus properties where differ-
ences in aesthetic sensitivity may moderate consumer
response.
Limitations and Future Research
The findings are limited by the small number of brands Conclusion
and products examined, and by the nature of the manip-
ulation in Study 2. Soup and liquor are specific types of In a world flooded with imagery, visual aspects of
products, and Campbell’s, Skyy, and Malibu may be id- branding have become more central, even as branding
iosyncratic brands. Future research could examine a set itself has become ever more crucial to marketing suc-
of brands and products structured by built-in contrasts, cess. Every established brand has a VBI, built up over
such as packaged versus durable goods, brands that dif- time at considerable cost, whose constraints must be
fer along specific personality dimensions (Aaker, 1997), respected without allowing the brand to become stag-
or brands that elicit different kinds of consumer rela- nant or stale. Brand teams and agency art directors
tionships (Fournier, 1998). Future research also could have struggled with the dilemma on a practical level
modulate the manipulation in Study 2, which took the for some time. The present research contributes by ar-
form of a wholesale swap of visual elements. A more ticulating the idea of tertium quid, and showing the de-
fine-grained test of the assimilation effect might remove gree to which VBI depends on the presence of many vi-
visual elements one by one, and seek the tipping point sual elements in combination. This paper suggests that
at which assimilation fails. Such research might be able consumer assimilation effects allow brand managers to
to construct a hierarchy of visual elements (e.g., color change visual advertising elements with positive re-
vs. typography vs. visual theme) that distinguishes ele- sults. However, more aesthetically aware consumers
ments crucial to maintaining existing VBI from others show greater sensitivity to alterations in VBI, and react
that are peripheral and can be altered with greater negatively to strongly incongruent brand depictions.
impunity.
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