The triadic influence of brand personality, culture and social media usage on consumer attachment to iconic brands

While iconic brands are influential in practice, marketing research on iconic brands has been scarce. To understand better how consumers favour certain iconic brands, this paper identifies three groups of factors influencing consumer’s iconic brand attachment. First, it is hypothesised that strong brand personality dimensions (composed of sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and ruggedness) perceived by consumers explain why consumers are attracted to iconic brands. Secondly, the paper hypothesises that consumers with increased social media activity tend to hold decreased preferences for particular iconic brands because of their diversified interests in various brands. Thirdly, the paper hypothesises how cultural dimensions (individualism, power-distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation) influence consumers’ iconic brand preferences. Further, the paper theorises three interaction effects of these stated factors: (1) brand personality × masculinity; (2) social media activity × uncertainty avoidance; and (3) brand personality × age. Using the survey method, the paper provides empirical support for our hypotheses.