The Benefits of Non-verbal Attitude Measurement for Brand Management

The thesis deals with the benefit of non-verbal attitude and image measurement (NVI) for brand management. In recent years many academic articles have called for the inclusion of pictures in terms of measuring brand strength. This is because the attitude towards a certain brand is mostly linked to pictures in the consumer’s mind. Reciting these memory images verbally is difficult for the consumer. The joint application of verbal and non-verbal attitude measurement serves best in this context as it does not only measure such facets of the attitude which the respondent is aware of and which can be communicated verbally but also ascertains hidden emotions. The thesis takes up the claimed involvement of pictures for brand strength measurement. An empirical study, in which twelve brands from the product group beer and the product group cars are tested, is implemented by the author based on the developed research model. In this context a methodical comparison of both attitude measurement approaches (i.e. verbal versus non-verbal) is applied by means of structural equation modelling (PLS). The results show that an additional contribution to important marketing variables (e.g. purchase intention, willingness to recommend) can be attributed to non-verbal attitude and image measurement.