The influence of warmth and competence
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Presentation given at the 2nd International Consumer Brand Relationships Conference, www.consumer-brand-relationships.org Copyright by Chris Malone Nicolas Kervyn Susan Fiske
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The influence of warmth and competence
- 1. Chris Malone, Chief Advisory Officer Dr. Nicolas Kervyn Post-Doctoral Fellow Dr. Susan Fiske Professor of Psychology International Colloquium on Consumer-Brand Relationships The Influence of Warmth & Competence on Brand Relationships
- 2. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 2 Basic Survival Questions: 1. Your intentions toward me? (i.e. friend or foe, WARMTH) 2. Ability to carry out intentions? (strong or weak, COMPETENCE) The Warmth & Competence Model A Universal Model of Human Social Perception
- 3. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 3 Warmth & Competence Stereotypes, S. Fiske (2002) Sympathy Contempt Admiration Envy Universal Dimensions of Group Stereotype Perceptions Source: TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences
- 4. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 4 Initial Brands Evaluated For Warmth & Competence In collaboration with Drs. Susan T. Fiske and Nicolas O. Kervyn, leading social psychologists at Princeton University, a demographically balanced sample of 1,042 U.S. adults was surveyed by an independent research firm July 1-7, 2010.
- 5. ©The Relational Capital Group 2009-2010, All Rights Reserved 5 Please rate on a scale from 1 to 10 how important each of the following characteristics is to you when considering a purchase of that kind? Mean responses Warmth & Competence Are Important for Brands While both are considered important to purchase decisions, Competence was rated to be more so than Warmth across all categories. 8.0 8.5 7.0 8.2 7.5 8.5 7.2 9.0 Quick Service Restaurants Warmth Quick Service Restaurants Competence Gas/Convenience Retailers Warmth Gas/Convenience Retailers Competence Fruit Juice Products Warmth Fruit Juice Products Competence Pain Reliever Products Warmth Pain Reliever Products Competence
- 6. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 6 Nearly all brands, except BP, are perceived to be more competent than warm. – Despite it’s recall troubles, Tylenol is still perceived slightly more favorably than Advil. – BP is held in contempt, but Shell was also rated poorly relative to all other brands. Brand Warmth & Competence Perception Map McDonaldsBurger King BP Shell Tropicana Minute Maid Tylenol Advil 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 4.0 5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.0 Average Competence Rating AverageWarmthRating SYMPATHY CONTEMPT ADMIRATION ENVY
- 7. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 7 Strong Impact on Brand Loyalty & Purchase Intent Brand Loyalty Impact & Predictive Analytics Statistical analysis suggests a strong impact on both loyalty and purchase intent. – Overall, these measures have a .47 correlation to purchase intent and explain 46% of variance. – Warmth measures showed greater impact than competence on loyalty and purchase intent.
- 8. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 8 Two Dimensions Stand Out From All Others Deeper analysis revealed that two variables have a disproportionate impact. – “Is honest and trustworthy” and “Acts in My Best Interest” have major influence on loyalty. – These are at the heart of all instinctive human trust and commitment, to brands or people. Brand Loyalty Impact & Predictive Analytics
- 9. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 9 However, all brands fell short of expectations on critical warmth drivers of brand purchase and loyalty, like honesty and selfless intentions. – This may be why even successful national brands struggle to develop lasting brand loyalty. – A steady stream of corporate and brand scandals has only intensified consumer cynicism. All Brands Fell Short On Honesty & Intentions
- 10. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 10 Another 20 Brands Evaluated in Follow-up Study Source: TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 2007 Popular Mainstream BrandsNon-Profit Brands Troubled Brands Luxury Brands To further test our hypotheses, we studied another twenty brands in October 2010, examining four expected warmth & competence profile groupings with an additional 1,000 U.S. adult consumers.
- 11. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 11 When combined with the warmth and competence data collected in our Phase 1 study, a enlightening picture of brand warmth & competence emerges. Brand Warmth & Competence Perception Map Advil BP - July Burger King McDonalds Minute Maid Shell Tropicana Tylenol Campbell's Coca-Cola Hershey's Ford Citibank J&J Mercedes Rolls Royce Rolex Cartier Gucci BP - October Marlboro Exxon Toyota Habitat for Humanity Salvation Army Boys & Girls Clubs Humane Society Disabled Veterans 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 Mean Competence Rating MeanWarmthRating
- 12. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 12 If we plot these indexes as opposing variables on a two dimensional map, the following relative positions emerge, shedding new light on brand emotions. – While somewhat different than hypothesized, these findings clearly show that brands generate a very similar pattern of emotions to those predicted by SCM. Stereotype Content Model Emotion Index Map Campbell's Coca-Cola Hershey's Ford Citibank J&J Mercedes Rolls Royce RolexCartier Gucci BP Marlboro Exxon Toyota Habitat for Humanity Salvation Army Boys & Girls Clubs Humane Society Disabled Veterans -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 Net Envy vs Sympathy Index NetAdmirationvsContemptIndex Admiration EnvySympathy Contempt
- 13. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 13 Honest & Selflessness As Loyalty Threshold 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 Cam pbell'sHershey'sCoca-Cola J&J Disabled Am Vets HabitatforHum anity Hum ane Society Salvation Arm y Boys & G irls C lubsM ercedes Rolls R oyce Rolex Cartier G ucci Ford Citibank BP M arlboro Exxon Toyota 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% Honest & Trustworthy Total Variance Explained Honest & Trustworthy vs Total Brand Loyalty Variance Explained We also found that honesty and selflessness play a dominant role in brand loyalty when they are poorly delivered, with a -.84 negative relationship. – This suggests that consumers first judge brands on honesty and selflessness as a minimum threshold that must be met before other benefits can be considered. MeanBrandLoyaltyRating TotalVarianceinBrandLoyaltyExplained
- 14. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 14 People the First Brands; Faces the First Logos? Perhaps brand perceptions and behavior have been instinctively adapted from social constructs.
- 15. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 15 Brand to Company to People Linkage
- 16. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 16 Physical & Social Survival Food, Clothing, Shelter, Protection, Membership Potential Funnel of Brand Purchase & Loyalty Price of Entry Expectations Blockage Emotional Fulfillment Comfort, Companionship, Identity, Hope, Accomplishment, Stimulation Physical Comfort & Social Control Wealth, Power, Fame, Legacy Brand Purchase & Loyalty Behavior • Honest & Trustworthy • Acts in My Best Interests • Listens & Understands Me • Reflects Well On Me • Shared Interests & Values • Makes Me Feel Better • Is Popular With Others • Delivers on Promises • High Quality Assistance • Has Specialized Expertise • Communicates Effectively • Attractive Appearance • Consistent Experience • Worth My Investment • Helps Me Achieve Goals Warmth Perceptions & Behavior Intentions: Warm / Friendly Competence Perceptions & Behavior Abilities: Competent / Capable PriceofEntryExpectationsDeeperLevelBenefits • Friendly • Responsive • Efficient • Knowledgeable • Helpful • Thorough • Accurate • Accessible • Quality • Value • Appearance • Consistency • Effectiveness • Credibility • Identity • Safety Service Features & Benefits Product Features & Benefits
- 17. ©The Relational Capital Group 2010, All Rights Reserved 17 Implications & Future Direction Implications –These insights expand our knowledge of brand relationships and behavior –Perhaps other human relationship insights can be applied to the study, management and marketing of brands. –Features and benefits potentially a subset of warmth and competence –Potential application to social media, customer service, brand recall management, consumer affairs policies, brand equity tracking, etc. Future Direction –Adapt and refine methodology specifically for use with brands –Expand the range of brands evaluated using this approach –Increase the portion of brand behavior explained by adding other variables –Seek other collaborators to build on our study of brand relationships
Editor's Notes
- Thanks very much to Steve Walton and Ruth Bardos for helping to arrange this webinar As you can see, the focus of our discussion to today will be… As despite that we’re here in the dole drums of August, I really believe that the past few years have been truly unprecedented for brand marketers and managers everywhere.. And that as technology and media and commerce all continue to change at break-neck pace, it’s a bit of a relief when we can uncover something stable and foundational we can build and rely on over time. My hope is that today’s discussion will leave you feeling a bit energized and relieved with some new insights that you can build and rely on in the future!
- So if you’ll indulge me for a few slides of social psychology history, I’d like to tell you about a very powerful framework for understanding instinctive human behavior called The Warmth & Competence Model. This model states that for survival purposes, primitive humans had to develop the ability make two kinds of judgments quickly and accurately everyday when they came upon another group or individual First, what are their intentions toward me … and next, what is their ability to act on those intentions. These were often life or death judgments, because humans were so dependent on one another for survival. Specifically, these judgments became the basis for the important decisions they would need to make each day. To be successful over time, they would need to remember faces and tribal affiliations, as well as the skills and outcomes of their prior dealings with others. These perceptions and experiences would become organized in their memory as a series of warmth and competence profiles that they would access and update continuously.
- In fact, this model has also been shown to heavily influence group stereotypes and bias across many cultures. Dr. Susan Fiske at Princeton University has become renowned for her work that shows how different social groups are perceived on warmth and competence, as well as the emotions we tend to have towards people in each quadrant of the model. In the lower left hand corner, we see the stereotypical perception of homeless people and how these perceptions tend to reinforce their isolation. So as a career marketer and student of consumer behavior, I couldn’t help but wonder as I became familiar with this model…
- She shared my view that it was an interesting question and we set about designing a study to get some answers to it. So what I’ll be sharing with you today will be a sneak preview of the findings that we’ll be releasing to the media next week. We conducted our study in early July and selected eight national brands to examine in depth, with plans for another 20 brands later this summer. The rationale for these particular brands were:- all widely available and well known- relatively low purchase price- relatively high purchase frequency- two consumer products and two retailers- two newsworthy brands with major problems Our study captured a range of warmth & competence perceptions and priorities from over 1,000 US adult consumers, as well as their purchase intent and loyalty toward each brand.
- So one of the first questions we posed to consumers was whether these warmth and competence made any sense to them in the context of a purchase in each category. And overall, it turns out that for each category the warmth and competence dimensions were rated to be pretty important to consumer purchase decisions. However the relative importance of each varied by category: Warmth was rated most important for quick service and least important for gas convenience Competence was rated most important for pain relievers and least important for gas convenience Across all categories, Competence was consistently rated to be more important than Warmth
- When we looked at how each brand is perceived by consumers on warmth and competence dimensions, some interesting things emerged. This chart plots each brand on the four quadrant perception map that we discussed before. First, as expected BP was viewed very negatively relative to all other brands, landing in a similar position to that of homeless people in earlier studies – no it’s no wonder BP stations have been boycotted across the country. However, Shell was also rated fairly negatively relative to others, raising the question of whether all oil companies are viewed poorly or if BP dragged them down. Perhaps most surprisingly, Tylenol perceptions seem undamaged by their repeated recalls, actually matching or surpassing Advil on most dimensions. Tropicana was consistently viewed most favorably across all measures. In addition, every brand except BP was viewed to be more Competent than Warm But before we leave this chart, let’s add our Toyota survey results to the mix…
- Two of the most common methods are correlation analysis and regression analysis So without getting too complicated, these charts provide some highlights of what these analyses reveal. The headline was that warmth and competence perceptions seem to be having a very significant impact on both purchase intent and brand loyalty. The first bar chart on the left here shows the average correlation between…. The bar chart on the right shows that warmth and competence perceptions seem to explain and predict fully 50% of brand loyalty, without mentioning a single product feature or benefit. In addition, it shows that despite what consumers said was important, it turns out that warmth dimensions are consistently more influential and predictive of purchase intent and brand loyalty.
- When we dig deeper into those warmth dimensions, we found that two in particular stood out has having far more impact than others on brand loyalty. The bar chart on the left shows… The bar chart on the right shows that.. These two dimensions, “honest & trustworthy” and “acts in my best interests” are at the heart of all instinctive human trust and commitment, whether for people or brands
- When we look at how each of the brands studied perform on these dimensions relative to consumer expectations, we find that all brands fall well short on them. Again Tropicana is best and BP is worst, On balance, the gaps are greatest for “acts in my best interests” And with the steady stream of corporate and brand scandals, perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that consumer trust and brand loyalty are hard to come by.
- In fact, this model has also been shown to heavily influence group stereotypes and bias across many cultures. Dr. Susan Fiske at Princeton University has become renowned for her work that shows how different social groups are perceived on warmth and competence, as well as the emotions we tend to have towards people in each quadrant of the model. In the lower left hand corner, we see the stereotypical perception of homeless people and how these perceptions tend to reinforce their isolation. So as a career marketer and student of consumer behavior, I couldn’t help but wonder as I became familiar with this model…
- Of course these perceptions are interesting, but what’s more important is how the affect purchase intent and brand loyalty. So you see here the average intent and brand loyalty levels that consumers reported to us for each brand. Tropicana was consistently highest while BP was consistently lowest. But how do we know what role warmth and competence play in these responses? Well, fortunately researchers and statisticians have lots of well established ways to figure that out.
- People were the first brands and that faces were the first logos. All the branded trade and commerce of products and services since then has simply been an instinctive adaptation of how humans perceive, judge and behave towards one another. Since products and services didn’t have faces, symbols were “branded” into them to make them more easily identifiable.. Now we are literally surrounded with brands, all vying for our attention and trying to burn some positive warmth and competence perceptions into our memory.
- People were the first brands and that faces were the first logos. All the branded trade and commerce of products and services since then has simply been an instinctive adaptation of how humans perceive, judge and behave towards one another. Since products and services didn’t have faces, symbols were “branded” into them to make them more easily identifiable.. Now we are literally surrounded with brands, all vying for our attention and trying to burn some positive warmth and competence perceptions into our memory.
- So if I was to try and summarize all this for you in one chart, here’s one way I could do it. In the beginning, it as all about survival… So the hidden drivers of brand purchase and loyalty are the instinctive trust and selfless intentions elements of the warmth and competence model. And when consumers evaluate the features and benefits of our brands, they see everything through the filtered lens of human warmth and competence.