Consumer interpretation of brand prominence signals: insights for a broadened typology

Purpose: Brand prominence describes the conspicuousness of a brand on a product. The purpose of this research is to investigate the types of brand prominence variation. Design/methodology/approach: Utilizing an exploratory approach, 20 in-depth interviews were conducted where respondents created five outfits for anticipated social scenarios. The prominence of brands on these outfits were photographed, catalogued and qualitatively analyzed for thematic variation. Then, the brand prominence data points were quantitatively content analyzed. Findings: The results from the qualitative analysis is an organizing framework describing three major types of brand prominence variation: brand visibility, brand frequency and brand distribution. In addition, heat maps were generated to visually display the prominence of brands distributed on the individual’s body. Subsequent results from the quantitative content analysis revealed that brands on shoes and pants were most likely to display significant levels of prominence in relation to frequency and visibility dimensions. Significant differences across participant demographic groups were also found in terms of the brand visibility. Practical implications: This new information on brand prominence variation provides business brand managers with insight on how to measure and monitor their own levels of brand prominence displays. They, in turn, can engage in more strategic placement and prominence of their brands in the future production of fashionable clothes, shoes and accessories. Originality/value: The conspicuous consumption literature has long been interested in studying how consumers display their brands. The current study demonstrates how consumer researchers can measure brand prominence variation and therefore gain better insight on the consumer who engages in conspicuous consumption via brand prominence variation.