Consumer evaluations of brand imitations

Reports a common occurrence in the marketplace: brand imitation. A total of 160 consumers participated in an experiment where goodness of imitation, presence/absence of the imitated brand, reputation of the store and type of product (convenience/luxury) were manipulated. The results show that consumer evaluations of brand imitations do not depend on how good the imitation is. The better the image of the store in which brand imitations of luxury products are distributed, the more positive consumer evaluations. In the case of convenience goods however, the impact of store image on consumer evaluations depends on the presence or absence of the imitated brand. Four consumer characteristics were found to correlate negatively with evaluations of brand imitations: product category involvement, product familiarity, brand sensitivity and generalised brand loyalty.