Branding beyond the gender binary
Western society has been putting the “male perspective” at the centre of culture, thus marginalizing the feminine experience. This has been demonstrated in consumers’ preferences for brands with masculine gendered brand personalities. However, in a post-binary world where gender roles, titles, and attitudes have converged with growing social change and female empowerment, brands are considering more gender-neutral personalities and consumers are recognizing the healthy coexistence of both masculine and feminine traits. Brand gender congruence occurs when a consumer’s gender identity and a brand’s gendered brand personalities align.
The literature often overlooks androgynous brands (consisting of both masculine and feminine traits) and undifferentiated brands (characterized by the absence of both masculine and feminine traits). There is a lack of research on the importance of brand gender congruence or incongruence on key brand outcomes. The everchanging gender norms and values also requires a revisit of existing understanding of this relationship. Moreover, no research to date has investigated the underlying mechanisms for the influence of congruence on brand outcomes.
Addressing these gaps, this study explores how different levels of brand gender congruence (high vs low) impact brand outcomes (brand equity and purchase intention), compared to brand gender incongruence. It also tests self-referencing, which is the processing of information through association with the self-aspects, as a driving mechanism for this effect.
Method and sample
Three studies were conducted. Study 1 aimed to test the main effect of congruence between brand gender and consumer psychological gender on brand outcome, through an experiment on 427 US Amazon Mechanical Turk participants. Study 2 was also an experiment on 250 participants recruited on Prolific to examine the effect of congruence on self-referencing and its consequence on brand outcomes. Finally, Study 3 conducted a focus group of 6 Australian young adults (with age ranging from 21 to 26) who have experienced brand gender cues, recruited using convenience sampling. This final study generated further insights about potential boundary conditions of the congruency effect, identified alternative explanations of the underlying mechanisms beyond self-referencing, and provided managerial implications
Key findings
- Study 1 found that high levels of brand gender congruence in masculine, feminine, and androgynous gender conditions generate a higher brand equity and purchase intention, as opposed to brand gender incongruence.
- Study 2 confirmed that congruence between brand and consumer psychological gender leads to higher self-referencing than incongruence, and in turn, results in higher brand equity and purchase intention for the masculine brand and masculine psychological gender congruence condition but not the other congruence condition of the androgenous brand gender with high masculine psychological gender.
- The thematic analysis in Study 3 identified product type and usage setting as the boundary conditions for the congruency effect. Specifically, congruency may have more positive effects on brand outcomes for products that are publicly consumed or used by consumers themselves than for private products or those purchased as gifts.
- Other underlying mechanisms beyond self-referencing were also explored. When congruency occurs, consumers may perceive lower social risk, be able to avoid attention drawing by not standing out, and create positive impressions by others. These factors, in turn, may lead to positive brand outcomes.
Recommendations
This study emphasises the importance of understanding consumers’ psychological gender and their different responses to congruence depending on the overall marketing goals. Specifically, marketers should not just change the brand gender to follow trends, but should clearly understand the target market to ensure their psychological gender and the brand gender align. Brand gender congruence matters not only to consumers with typically “binary” gendered personality traits but also androgynous consumers. Such a consideration is particularly important for brands that have a diverse target market comprised of varying gender identities.
Additionally, marketers should communicate the gender component clearly in their brand design, for example, through logos, models, and usage settings. Brands should also avoid gender extremes and stereotypes as these may evoke reactance from consumers. Lastly, insights from the qualitative study revealed that a masculine sub-brand should be used to broaden the appeal from feminine brands to men, but not the other way around as this might annoy women. Masculine brands, however, should use androgyny to reflect both masculine and feminine customers
Researchers
More information
The research article is also available on eprints.