Democratic Brands: a Framework and Empirical Test

Citation: Neeru Paharia, Vanitha Swaminathan (2014) Democratic Brands: a Framework and Empirical Test. NA-Advances in Consumer Research Volume 42 (RSS)
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Democratic Brands: a Framework and Empirical Test
Download: http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/v42/acr v42 17828.pdf
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Summary

Investigate democratic (inviting input from consumers) or undemocratic (completely controlled) brands. Pilot study of nine well known technology brands found Wikipedia perceived as most democratic, Microsoft as least. Five subsequent studies explored further, including using hypothetical more and less democratic brands in other industries, e.g., cheese.

Quote:

We make four contributions to the literature: (1) we conceptualize and test the concept of democratic vs. undemocratic brands, (2) we show that preference for democratic brands is mediated through greater perceptions of warmth, (3) we show that for people who value hierarchies (high in SDO), or in situations where hierarchy is relevant, democratic brands are valued less, and (4) we show that for those high in SDO, competence mediates preference for the undemocratic brands.