The Influence of Service Employee Characteristics on Customer Choice and Post-Choice Satisfaction
Nancy J. Sirianni, Iana Castro-Nelson, Andrea Ketcham, Gavan J. Fitzsimons · 2009
Study 2 Study 2 examines how, when the direct route to spelling is inhibited, increased semantic elaboration can lead to greater spelling accuracy and higher evaluations. We expect that, for inconsistent brands, semantic elaboration will only enhance brand evaluations when the direct route is facilitated by priming. Method. Seventy-five undergraduate students participated in the study. We designed a 2 (Semantic elaboration: elaboration or no elaboration) x 2 (spelling prime: prime or no prime) between-subjects experiment. Semantic elaboration was operationalized by changing the word used in the priming sentence to be congruent (e.g., fuel) or incongruent (e.g., staff) with the product category (e.g., cars). We used study 1’s inconsistent brand names. The procedure and measures were the same as in study 1. Results. Results showed that both elaboration and spelling prime had significant main effects on spelling accuracy (F (1, 74)=4.54, p<0.05 and F(1, 74)=18.45, p<.01, respectively). Those effects were qualified by a significant interaction of priming and elaboration on brand evaluations (F(1, 74)=5.75, p<0.05). As expected, when primed, participants in the elaboration condition had higher brand evaluations than those in the no-elaboration condition (F(1, 74)=4.10, p<.05). In the no-prime condition, however, there was no effect of elaboration on brand evaluations (F(1, 74)=1.816, p=.18). Finally, spelling accuracy proved to be a significant predictor of brand evaluations (F (1, 74)=5.99, p<0.05). Conclusion By exploring the underlying mechanisms of sound-to-writing processing, we develop a greater understanding of how consumers process brand names auditorily and how can these processes be facilitated and affect brand evaluations. References