브랜드 진정성이 구전 및 구매의도에 미치는 영향: 노력 절감과 브랜드 신뢰의 매개효과

Recently, many corporates, for example Aveda, Lush, Kiehl’s, make a great effort to promote their brand’s authenticity to enhance the corporate-customer relationship, which in turn improve consumers’ brand loyalty and purchase. This study focuses on the mediators which influence the effect of brand authenticity on consumers’ responses. When consumers perceive that brand has authenticity, they are likely to perceive low risk on the choice of the brand because they judge the brand is trustworthy, which means the consumers save their effort to judge and choose the brand. According to prior research, when consumers feel that they make less effort (e.g., time, money, cognition, etc.), they are satisfied with the target more. Fluency literature also shows that the ease with which individuals perceive a target leads to more favorable attitudes toward the target. In the perspective of effort saving strategy, individuals often evaluate the level of trust of a target using various heuristics which are inexpensive processing strategies. Based on literature, the authors expect that brand authenticity positively affects the perception of effort saving, in turn, increases trust on the brand, because brand authenticity helps consumers to use efficient strategy. In the experiment using an advertisement and consumer review, we investigates whether consumers’ effort saving perception and trust on brand mediate the effect of brand authenticity on word of mouth (WOM) and purchase intention. Results show that the brand with (vs. without) authenticity leads more positive effect on WOM and purchase intention. Moreover, this process is mediated by participants’ effort saving perception and trust on the brand. Specifically, Contrast reveals that <brand authenticity à effort saving à brand trust à DVs> is stronger than <brand authenticity à brand trust à DVs>. These findings demonstrate that effort saving plays a very significant role in the relationship among brand authenticity, brand trust, and consumer responses. Based on our findings, implications are discussed and research ideas for further research are suggested.