IDC Revision

Week 3 · Hong et al. (2022)

Sharing Consumers' Brand Storytelling — Influence on Brand Attitude via Emotions and Cognitions

Sharing Consumers' Brand Storytelling: Influence of Consumers' Storytelling on Brand Attitude via Emotions and Cognitions

Part of: Digital Marketing Topic 3 — Formation of Campaign Strategy · Reading Citation: Hong, J. (Jenny), Yang, J., Wooldridge, B. R., & Bhappu, A. D. (2022). Sharing consumers' brand storytelling: influence of consumers' storytelling on brand attitude via emotions and cognitions. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 31(2), 265–278. Key concepts: Brand Storytelling, Brand Attitude, Narrative Transportation, Word of Mouth, Consumer-Generated Content, Self-Referencing

TL;DR

Brand storytelling builds strong brands — but does a story told by other consumers work better than one told by the firm? Across three experiments the authors show that consumers' brand storytelling produces more favourable brand attitudes than a firm-created Brand Story. The mechanism is a dual mediation: consumer storytelling triggers both deeper cognitive processing and stronger positive emotions, which together drive the more favourable attitude. Consumer storytelling is also rated as more authentic and more shareable.

Why It's on the Reading List

For Topic 3 (Formation of Campaign Strategy), it teaches where persuasive narrative power comes from in a campaign: encouraging and amplifying consumer-told stories (UGC) rather than relying only on polished firm narratives. It supplies the cognition + emotion mechanism and the conceptual distinction between brand story, WoM and consumer brand storytelling.

Background & Research Question

Stories "move people." Brand Storytelling — a compelling story creating emotional connections between brand and consumer, with plot, actors, causality and chronology — is an effective branding tool. But two sources exist:

  • Brand story = firm-created, controlled, one-to-many (ads, packaging, founder/CEO stories). Consumers are passive recipients; they may discount it as a sales tactic.
  • Consumers' brand storytelling = created, elaborated and shared by consumers from their own experience; a narrative form of Word of Mouth (but distinct from WoM because it has narrative structure — chronology and causality).

Research question: Does consumers' brand storytelling raise brand attitudes more than a firm brand story, and why (through cognition and/or emotion)?

Key Concepts & Definitions

Definition — Consumers' brand storytelling

A narrative format of a consumption experience, created and shared by consumers. A distinct sub-category under the umbrella of Word of Mouth — WoM is broader and need not be structured as a story.

Definition — Narrative transportation

"A convergent process, where all mental systems and capabilities become focused on events occurring in the narrative" (Green & Brock, 2000). Stories transport audiences into the events.

Definition — Self-referencing

Processing information by relating it to oneself or one's own experiences. Consumer stories are similar to the reader (peer reference group), so they trigger more self-referencing and familiarity.

Cognition vs emotion (Chaudhuri, 2006)

Cognition = sequential, analytical processing of product information (costs/benefits/attributes). Emotion = holistic, synthetic integration of sensory data. Brand attitude is a function of both the rational and emotional evaluation.

Main Arguments / Findings

The hypotheses:

H Statement
H1 Consumer storytelling → higher cognitive processing than a brand story
H2 Consumer storytelling → greater positive emotions than a brand story
H3 Consumer storytelling → more favourable brand attitude than a brand story
H4 The storytelling → attitude effect is mediated by higher cognition and greater positive emotions

Study 1 results (n = 200; coffee shop & airline-mileage brands):

  • Cognitive processing higher for consumer storytelling (M = 2.8 vs 2.1) — supports H1.
  • Positive emotions higher (M = 4.8 vs 4.2) — supports H2.
  • Brand attitude higher (M = 5.2 vs 4.6) — supports H3.
  • Parallel mediation (PROCESS Model 4): both cognition and positive emotions significantly mediate → supports H4. No interaction with product category.

Study 2 (n = 117; different measures — cognitive personalisation and a 7-item positive-emotion scale; controls for prior experience and involvement) replicated the effects and added two confirmations: consumer storytelling drives higher motivation to share (M = 4.7 vs 3.5) and greater authenticity (M = 5.4 vs 4.3). Mediation through cognition and emotion held.

Why consumer stories win

Because the source is similar to the reader, consumers feel more familiarity and favourability, engage in more self-referencing and narrative transportation, see the message as less biased, and experience stronger emotions from "real" rather than "artificial" stories. Firm stories, once recognised as a sales tactic, can trigger correction/reverse behaviour (e.g. discounting Walmart's "Save Money. Live Better").

Methodology

Three between-subjects experiments. Core design: 2 (story: consumers' brand storytelling vs firm brand story) × 2 (product: coffee shop vs airline mileage).

  • Real-but-unfamiliar brands (Angel-in-us coffee; Emirates Skywards) used so prior experience ≈ zero, removing brand bias; only positive valence studied.
  • Manipulation checks confirmed perceived source (consumer vs company).
  • Brand attitude measured on 4 semantic-differential items; positive emotions and cognitive processing/personalisation measured separately.
  • Mediation via Hayes PROCESS Model 4 (10,000 bootstrap samples). Prior experience and involvement used as controls in Studies 2–3.

Framework / Model

Dual-mediation model:

Consumers' brand storytelling → ↑ Cognitive processing → ↑ Brand attitude Consumers' brand storytelling → ↑ Positive emotions → ↑ Brand attitude

(vs a firm-created brand story as the comparison condition.)

Implications for Marketers

  • Encourage loyal customers to tell their own stories and give them comfortable platforms (social media, brand communities) to do so.
  • Consumer storytelling on social media is more persuasive than traditional firm channels and drives more sharing — capitalise on the UGC trend.
  • Applications beyond products: internal branding (employees prefer fellow-employee stories to management narratives), tourism/hospitality (guest reviews/experiences), and destination branding (co-creation by visitors).
  • Brand managers can no longer ignore consumer voices; treat consumers as co-creators of the brand.

Exam Takeaways

Likely exam points
  • Three constructs: brand story (firm, controlled, one-to-many) vs consumers' brand storytelling (consumer-created narrative) vs WoM (broader, not necessarily narrative).
  • Consumer storytelling beats firm story on brand attitude.
  • Dual mechanism (H4): mediation by cognitive processing AND positive emotions.
  • Why it works: similarity → self-referencing, narrative transportation, perceived authenticity, less perceived bias, higher motivation to share.
  • Method: 2×2 between-subjects experiments + PROCESS mediation.

Summary

  • Consumer-told brand stories outperform firm-told ones on brand attitude.
  • The effect runs through both deeper cognition and stronger positive emotion.
  • Consumer storytelling is more authentic and more shareable.
  • Strategic lesson: facilitate and amplify consumer storytelling as a campaign tool.