Abstract

The emotional branding paradigm has received much attention in the literature over the years. The emergence of cultural branding as a competing paradigm to understand and explain consumers’ consumption behaviour calls for a comparison of the two paradigms to understand which more accurately describes consumers’ brand-related behaviours. This thesis examines whether emotional or cultural branding better explains consumers’ evaluation of a brand extension. American college football fans were recruited for an online survey that asked them to respond to two emotional branding scales, one cultural branding scale, and a question measuring their purchasing intentions towards a hypothetical new television channel dedicated to the broadcasting of their school’s football and varsity sports programming. Subsequent analysis examined which scales better predicted purchasing behaviour, and whether the effect was moderated by either the dedication of the fan in question or the respondent’s perception of the extension’s fit with the parent brand. Results indicate that the emotional branding scales were better predictors of purchase likelihood than the cultural branding indicators. Neither moderation hypothesis was confirmed. These results highlight the value of the emotional branding paradigm in explaining consumers’ responses to brands, but raise questions regarding the explanatory power of the cultural branding paradigm. This research also has managerial implications in that it ties emotional branding to purchase intentions.