مقاله سال ۲۰۱۶

For companies to maintain success in competitive markets, they need to be innovative and develop new products and ideas (Banerjee & Soberman, 2013; Carbonell & Rodriguez, 2006; Eisend, Evanschitzky, & Gilliland, 2015; Pauwels, Silva-Risso, Srinivasan, & Hanssens, 2004; Rubera & Kirca, 2012). Consumers value innovations highly, and innovative products have the potential to prompt purchases (Bartels & Reinders, 2011; Peres, Muller, & Mahajan, 2010; Steenkamp, Hofstede, & Wedel, 1999). As a part of a brand image, innovativeness has a significant impact on consumer decisions and is a key driver of economic success (Kaplan, 2009; Rubera & Kirca, 2012). Hence, it is not surprising that brand innovativeness has become an essential characteristic of brand image for many global companies (Dowling, 1988; Spector, 1961; Rust, Zeithaml, & Lemon, 2004).

A company’s investment in research and development forms the basis for perceptions of brand innovativeness (Evanschitzky, Eisend, Calantone, & Jiang, 2012; Rubera & Kirca, 2012). However, perceived brand innovativeness reflects more than investments in research and development and the number of innovative patents (Danneels & Kleinschmidt, 2001; Kaplan, 2009; Keller, 2013; Kunz, Schmitt, & Meyer, 2011; Schreier, Fuchs, & Dahl, 2012). Perceived brand innovativeness also encompasses consumers’ perceptions and subjective assessments of brands as being innovative (Beverland, Napoli, & Farrelly, 2010; Evanschitzky et al., 2012; Kaplan, 2009; Kunz et al., 2011; Ostlund, 1974; Rubera & Kirca, 2012; Schreier et al., 2012; Vandecasteele & Geuens, 2010). Prior research indicates that perceived brand innovativeness positively influences consumers’ attitudes toward a brand (Boisvert & Ashill, 2011; Gürhan-Canli & Batra, 2004), customer loyalty (Kunz et al., 2011), brand commitment (Eisingerich & Rubera, 2010), and the stability of a buyer–seller relationship (Falkenreck & Wagner, 2011). If the idea that objective measures of brand innovation are not always congruent with perceived brand innovativeness is taken into account, the question of how the company’s efforts to create innovative products can be transformed into perceived brand innovativeness then arises.

Considering the importance of perceived brand innovativeness, the fact that only a little is known about the processes that determine the perception of innovativeness is surprising. Therefore, this paper focuses on the brand’s flagship product as a key signal for perceived brand innovativeness. In particular, this paper studies a) the spillover of the perceived flagship product innovativeness to perceived brand innovativeness, and b) conditions that facilitate this spillover. Researchers argue that flagship products are of key importance for companies because they often produce sales with relatively smaller marketing investments and provide a platform for the further development of the brand (John, Loken, & Joiner, 1998). Research on flagship products often focuses on the effects of extensions from the flagship product on facets of the brand image (Grime, Diamantopoulos, & Smith, 2002; Heath, DelVecchio, & McCarthy, 2011; Völckner & Sattler, 2006; Völckner, Sattler, Hennig-Thurau, & Ringle, 2010), the spillover of advertising effects (Balachander & Ghose, 2003), and how brand extensions affect the image of the flagship product in a positive (Supphelen, Eismann, & Hem, 2004) or negative way (John et al., 1998). However, research has not yet examined the direct effects of flagship products on perceived brand innovativeness. Furthermore, systematic research on how perceived brand innovativeness evolves from product innovation and product perceptions is rare (Kunz et al., 2011) or at least produces ambiguous results (Calantone, Chan, & Cui, 2006; Evanschitzky et al., 2012; McNally, Cavusgil, & Calantone, 2010). The current studies address this research gap and study the effects of the perceived flagship product innovativeness on perceived brand innovativeness across different product categories (e.g., bikes, cars, electronics, pharmaceuticals) and different consumer samples while also studying the typicality of the flagship product for the brand as a possible moderator of these effects.