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Powerful brand influentials: conceptualization, measurement, and distinctiveness of a brand’s influential consumers

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Title	Powerful brand influentials: conceptualization, measurement, and distinctiveness of a brand’s influential consumers
Author	Wan, Zhong (Heather)
Author email	heather.wan@unilever.com;heer330@gmail.com
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Document type	Dissertation
Degree program	Business Administration
School	Marshal School of Business
Date defended/completed	2012-08-17
Date submitted	2012-12-10
Date approved	2012-12-10
Restricted until	2012-12-10
Date published	2012-12-10
Advisor (committee chair)	MacInnis, Deborah
Advisor (committee member)	Park, Choong W. Ulkumen, Gulden Cody, Michael
Abstract	This article focuses on a unique and important consumer construct, a brand’s influential consumers, namely “the powerful brand influential”. In the marketplace, influential consumers designate those who exert exceptional influence on other consumers’ decision making. Extant literature has established opinion leaders as influential consumers of a specific product category and market mavens as influential consumers of the general marketplace. Although the existence and power of a brand’s influential consumers are well-documented and the designations of these consumers are proliferated, we have limited understanding about these consumers. The conceptualization of a brand’s influential consumers, the distinctiveness of the construct from existing concepts, and the measurement for the construct are largely missing. ❧ Drawing from various domains of literature, this article provides a systematic conceptualization of a brand’s influential consumers that reflects four defining components. Corresponding to these conceptual properties, the powerful brand influential is defined as consumers (1) who are strongly attached to a given brand and (2) who have high tendency to influence other consumers’ brand decisions through (3) a high engagement of (4) passionate and emotionally evocative word-of-mouth about the brand. This article then details the differentiation of the new construct from six conceptually related constructs and posits a set of corresponding propositions. Study 1 develops a 6-item measurement, the Powerful Brand Influential Scale (PBIS), to represent each of the four conceptual properties. Study 2, 3, and 4 provide converging support that the powerful brand influential construct is theoretically and empirically distinguishable from the six constructs including market maven, opinion leader, brand attachment, brand ambassador, brand attitude strength, and brand satisfaction. Our proposition testing substantiates the distinctiveness and added value of the powerful brand influential construct – demonstrating that this new construct better predicts many key brand outcomes including brand word-of-mouth, intrinsic pleasure derived from brand word-of-mouth, brand advocacy behavior, tendency to influence others’ brand decision, brand loyal behavior, actual brand purchase as well as desirable emotional and word-of-mouth responses toward a positive brand event than the related constructs examined. Moreover, using different samples and brands from diverse product categories, the four studies establish the reliability, robustness, known group, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of the PBIS. The article concludes by discussing theoretical and managerial contribution, findings, and implications of the powerful brand influential construct and the PBIS along with limitations and areas of future research.
Keyword	influential consumers; brand influentials; word-of-mouth; interpersonal communication; brand attachment; brand advocacy; influential consumer measurement scale; opinion leaders; market mavens; brand ambassador; brand attitude strength; brand satisfaction
Language	English
Part of collection	University of Southern California dissertations and theses
Publisher (of the original version)	University of Southern California
Place of publication (of the original version)	Los Angeles, California
Publisher (of the digital version)	University of Southern California. Libraries
Provenance	Electronically uploaded by the author
Type	texts
Legacy record ID	usctheses-m
Rights	Wan, Zhong (Heather)
Access conditions	The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given.
Repository name	University of Southern California Digital Library
Repository address	USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA
Repository email	cisadmin@usc.edu
Archival file	uscthesesreloadpub_Volume6/etd-WanZhongHe-1383.pdf