“权力”的游戏:品牌标识中字母大小写对消费者态度的影响

Capital Letter=Power?The Influence of Letter Case on Brand Logo

基于符号联想理论,通过两组实验探讨感知权力倾向在字母大小写对消费者态度影响中的中介作用和品牌奢侈程度的调节作用。研究发现:(1)大写字母会提升消费者对品牌权力展示倾向的感知,进而提高消费者对品牌的态度;(2)感知奢侈程度在字母大小写对消费者态度的影响中起正向调节作用。对于高感知奢侈程度的品牌,大写字母标识会获得更好的消费者态度;对于低感知奢侈程度的品牌,小写字母标识会获得更好的消费者态度。

Brand logo is considered as a key visual representation of a brand.Letter case,as an important element of logo design,plays a vital role in determining consumers’attitude.Yet,few researchers have studied the influence of letter cases on the consumers’brand perception,and the potential moderators in such effect.Based on the Symbolic Association Theory(SAT),this research used 2 experiments to test the correlation between letter cases,customer perceived brand power and attitude.Existing theories have focused on the impact of brand logos'color,shape,size,clarity,border,italics,and other visual elements on consumers’perceptions,but few have focused on the impact of letter cases on consumers’perception and attitude.Three gaps remain in existing literature.First,most of the studies explain the influence of letter cases based on the perceivedfluency,arguing that the use of upper case letters in sentences reduces reading efficiency and thus affects readers’behavior.But such conclusion can only explain the consumers’unwillingness to engage in upper case letters in longer verses,while in brand logos,the length of the texts is usually limited.It has also been proved that upper case logos are more recognizable and memorable than lower case logos,which contradicts with existingfindings.Second,prior studies can only explain consumers'preference for lower case letters but cannot explain why consumers sometimes prefer upper case logos.Third,due to the lack of relevant studies,the boundaries of the letter case effect remain unclear.Based on these research gaps,we focus on 3 research questions.First,how letter cases affect consumers'attitude?Second,what is the psychological mechanism involved?Third,what is the potential moderator?This study used three separate sets of experiments to test the proposed hypotheses.Experiment 1 examined the main effect of letter cases on consumers’brand attitude and the mediating effect of perceived power.Experiment 2 examined the moderating effect of perceived luxury.This research proves that consumers prefer brand logos composed of upper letter case only when the brand has a relatively higher perceived level of luxury,while for brands that are of lower level of luxury,upper case logos may have a negative impact on consumers’attitude.This research not only expands and enriches the scope of SAT but also provides constructive guidelines for logo design.