What makes a brand interesting? Why care?

Abstract

Purpose Despite the common understanding of what interestingness is, few people can explain what makes something interesting. The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical foundation of interestingness and test if it has merit in the branding context. It aims to help practitioners understand how to make a brand interesting and what outcomes to expect from it. Design/methodology/approach Three preliminary studies (Studies 1, 2 and 3) provide proof of concept. Study 4 tests the antecedences and outcomes of brand interestingness (BI) across 66 brands by accounting for individual and brand variations. Study 5 examines the moderating effects of brand use and brand familiarity on BI and its outcomes. Findings A broad literature review reveals that interestingness is an emotion and is, therefore, an affective state. The findings from two exploratory studies show that customers naturally associate interestingness with specific brands and interesting brands are associated with novelty. Study 3 demonstrates that from all affective states arising from the evaluation of a brand (i.e. easiness, pleasantness, interestingness, challenge and difficulty), BI has the highest effect on purchase intention (PI). Study 4 demonstrates that the antecedents of BI are the novelty associated with the symbolic and functional aspects of a brand, and also the ability to cope with those novelty components. Two positive outcomes of BI are PI and word of mouth (WOM). Study 5 demonstrates that brand familiarity and brand use moderate the effect of BI on purchase intent and WOM. The research concludes with an operational definition of the BI concept and future research suggestions. Originality/value The research introduces the interesting concept in the brand context. Based on a broad literature review and several studies, it identifies the antecedents and outcomes of BI. It helps practitioners understand how they can increase the interestingness of brands and what outcomes to expect.