An Empirical Study On The Effects Of Brand Supporters' Social Identity Information On Purchase Intention

Research on consumer behavior based on social identity is a new academic branch related to sociology,psychology and marketing.Influenced by the offline identity marketing practice,previous research pays more attention to how the social identity information of spokespeople or advertising affects consumer behavior,ignoring the effects of the passive exposure to a brand supporters' social identity information in social media contexts.Different from the past research,this paper extends the consumer social identity research from offline to online social network electronic word-of-mouth area,exploring the influence of brand supporters' social identity information on purchase intention.Across two experiments,this paper discovers the boundary conditions and underlying mechanism of the effects of brand supporters' social identity information.Based on measuring chronic self-construal,study 1 reveals the social identity information congruency between brand supporters and consumers affects consumers' purchase intention.Compared to incongruent information,the congruent social identity information between brand supporters and consumers may increase consumers' purchase intention,especially for consumer with chronic interdependent self-construal,while this positive effects doesn't work for those with chronic independent self-construal.Consumer self-brand connection mediates the effects of brand supporters' social identity.To ensure the universality of the study and analyse the joint effects between moderation and mediation effect,study 2 primed participants' situational self-construal.Based on the 2(brand supporters' social identity information: congruent vs.incongruent)x 2(situational self-construal: independent vs.interdependent)two factor random experiment,study 2 further examines that the differential effects resulted from brand supporters' social identity information and consumer self-construal.The results consistent with study 1 and indicate the consumers with interdependent self-construal will more inclined to purchase the brands whose supporters' social identity are congruent with themselves,while,for those with independent self-construal,whether the social identity information is congruent or not,they will hardly inclined to purchase the brands.Results of study 2 also indicate self-brand connection mediated the moderation effect of self-construal.This study enriches consumer behavior research field based on social identity,and provides managerial implications on brand building and marketing communication in the environment of emerging social media.