Why ‘Fast Food’ Triggers ‘Mcdonald’S’ and ‘Burgerking’ Triggers ‘Fast Food’: Antecedents of Brand Typicality and the Relationship Between Category and Brand

Very typical brands are assumed to be categorized faster upon a brand cue (brand-to-category direction) and to be recalled faster upon a category cue (category-to-brand direction) than less typical brands. We, however, propose that brand typicality effects are asymmetric in the brand-to-category and category-to-brand direction. We examine to what extent two different antecedents of brand typicality drive this asymmetry, namely family resemblance (FR) and frequency of instantiation (FOI). Three studies examine the relationship between FR and FOI, and their impact on the link between brand and category, in a context of real brands. The findings reveal that FR is more important in determining how fast a brand is categorized given a brand cue, whereas FOI is more influential in determining the speed of brand recall in the presence of a category name.

Citation:

Jia Liu, Els Gijsbrechts, and Dirk Smeesters (2009) ,"Why ‘Fast Food’ Triggers ‘Mcdonald’S’ and ‘Burgerking’ Triggers ‘Fast Food’: Antecedents of Brand Typicality and the Relationship Between Category and Brand", in NA - Advances in Consumer Research Volume 36, eds. Ann L. McGill and Sharon Shavitt, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 1003-1003.