What Makes a Brand Authentic and Why Should We Care? Investigating the Antecedents and Concequences of Brand Authenticity

摘要

Recent research has emphasized the increasing relevance of the brand authenticity (BA) concept for the marketing discipline. Statements such as "authenticity is one of the cornerstones of contemporary marketing" (Brown, Kozinets, and Sherry 2003, p. 21), or "Quality no longer differentiates; authenticity does" (Gilmore and Pine 2007, p. 23) demonstrate the potential that is ascribed to authentic brands. However, a key question that arises in the light of BA is what determines the perceived authenticity of a brand and which consequences can be attributed to BA? Thus, companies have no indication of the influencing factors that might be employed to promote BA, nor do they know whether or not BA affects consumer behavior. This knowledge is yet essential to confirm the relevance of BA as a target dimension of marketing management. Against the backdrop of the research gaps, the present paper aims at investigating the determinants of BA as well as the consequences that authentic brands exert on consumer behavior.