Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438446

Shaping Retail Brand Personality Perceptions by Bodily Experiences

Jana Mller a, , Steffen Herm b,1
a

Freie Universitt Berlin, Marketing-Department, Otto-von-Simson-Str. 19, 14195 Berlin, Germany

Technische Universitt Berlin, Department of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Strae des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin, Germany

Abstract
Customer experiences play an important role in retail brand management. This research investigates how bodily experiences in retail environments influence customers perceptions of retail brand personalities. Based on research on human personality perception, we propose that bodily
experiences transfer metaphoric meaning to customers brand perceptions. In a field experiment and a lab experiment we manipulated participants
bodily experiences (feeling of hardness and temperature) and consistently found a metaphor-specific transfer of experiences to retail brand personality perceptions (on the dimensions ruggedness and warmth). A third study reveals the mechanism behind the effect and demonstrates
concept activation elicited by bodily experiences in customers minds.
2013 New York University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Retail customer experience; Brand personality; Retail branding; Temperature; Experiments

A rich stream of research has emerged on multisensory customer experiences (Ailawadi and Keller 2004; Baker,
Parasuraman, and Voss 2002; Borghini et al. 2009; Grewal
et al. 2003; Kaltcheva and Weitz 2006; Mattila and Wirtz 2001;
Puccinelli et al. 2009; Wakefield and Baker 1998). The tip of the
iceberg includes retail spectacles, such as themed entertainment
brand stores (The Hard Rock Caf) and flagship brand stores
(Nike Town), where sensory environments expand the meaning
of retail brands (Hollenbeck, Peters, and Zinkhan 2008). The
editors of the Journal of Retailings special issue on Enhancing
the Retail Customer Experience emphasize that understanding
customer experiences sits atop most marketing and chief executives agendas [. . .] but remains a critical area for academic
research (Grewal, Levy, and Kumar 2009, p. 1). Likewise,
Shankar et al. (2011) stress the importance of further investigating the effects of sensory experiences on customers. This
research follows these calls and investigates how sensory experiences contribute to retail branding goals.
Central to this research is the concept of retail brand
personalitydefined as a consumers perception of the human
personality traits attributed to a retail brand (Das, Datta, and
Guin 2012, p. 98). Retail brands are comprised of multisensory

Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 30 838 52543.

E-mail addresses: jana.moeller@fu-berlin.de (J. Mller),
steffen.herm@tu-berlin.de (S. Herm).
1 Tel.: +49 30 314 22641; fax: +49 30 314 22664.

experiences (Ailawadi and Keller 2004) and we propose that

customers retail brand personality perceptions are shaped by
in-store sensory stimulation. Research about the general concept
of brand personality has shown that a favorable brand personality increases positive attitudes toward the brand (Aaker 1999),
purchase intentions (Freling, Crosno, and Henard 2010), and
brand loyalty (Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello 2009). For
retail brands, the strategic shaping of brand personality contributes to the overall store image; helps to reach positioning
goals; and increases customer loyalty, retail sales, and profitability. Despite its relevance, Ailawadi and Keller (2004) have
identified a lack of empirical studies on retail brand personality
perceptions. The present research strives for a contribution in
this area and suggests that customers sensory experiences are
antecedents of retail brand personality. Our findings add to the
literature on retail branding and provide guidance for retailing
managers.
Research on retail atmospherics has zoomed in on experiences that customers detect by the senses of hearing, smell, and
eyesight. For example, sound, scent, or visuals in shopping environments have been shown to influence product evaluation and
behavior (Babin, Hardesty, and Suter 2003; Baker, Levy, and
Grewal 1992). In this research, we emphasize the importance
of somatosensory experiences in retail settings. Somatosensory
experiences are sensory activities that convey information about
the state of the body and its immediate environment, which
include experiences of hardness and temperature. These bodily
experiences are triggeredintentionally or unintentionallyin

0022-4359/$ see front matter 2013 New York University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2013.05.004

J. Mller, S. Herm / Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438446

all retail environments by a variety of stimuli, for example,

padding of store furniture and store temperature. The literature
offers initial evidence for an effect of somatosensory experiences on customer perceptions. Meyers-Levy, Zhu, and Jiang
(2010) investigated the effect of hard versus soft flooring using a
manipulation by Cham and Redfern (2001). Results showed that
bodily experiences of hardness influence customers evaluation
of a product in terms of product comfort.
The purpose of this research is to examine whether and how
bodily experiences can elicit specific desired brand personality perceptions in the retail context. Thus, we theorize and
test a managerially relevant issue that academia and practice
has neglected as a strategic lever for retail branding. Our
findings help to build a better foundation for planning, executing, and controlling the influences of bodily experiences
on customers perceptions of retail brand personalities. Our
studies aim at generalizable knowledge across different experiences and brands and we examine the influence of two
different experienceshardness and temperatureon various
retail brands.
In the following section, we describe our main concepts
and derive our hypotheses. Subsequently, we report our studies
in which we manipulated participants bodily experiences. In
Study 1A we manipulated bodily experiences of hardness when
sitting on hard versus soft store furniture to investigate a transfer to retail brand personality perception. Study 1B examines
whether merely seeing hard versus soft store furniture activates
the concept of hardness. Study 2 pioneers a method of manipulating experiences of temperature in a retail context. In particular,
we investigate the effect of temperature on customers brand
perceptions. Finally, we discuss the implications of our work
for theory and retailing practice.
Conceptual background
Retail brand personality
Customers appear to easily imbue brands with personality traits (Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel 2004; Fournier 1998;
Levy 1985). With respect to retail brandsa group of the
retailers outlets which carry a unique name, symbol, logo or
combination thereof (Zentes, Morschett, and Schramm-Klein
2008, p. 167)a study showed that customers associate H&M
with excitement and IKEA with sincerity (Zentes et al. 2008).
Martineau (1958) has discussed a similar concept to retail brand
personalitystore personality as the way in which the store
is defined in the shoppers mind, partly by its functional qualities
and partly by an aura of psychological attributes (p. 47). In spite
of this early impulse and the calls by Ailawadi and Keller (2004)
or by Grewal and Levy (2007) to examine retail brand personality, literature on this construct remains sparse, especially in
contrast to the attention that researchers and managers pay to
the concept of product brand personality (Das et al. 2012).
Literature on retail brand personality refers to the general concept of brand personality that is defined as a set of
human characteristics associated with a brand (Aaker 1997,
p. 347). Brands can hold various personality dimensions, such

439

as ruggedness, sophistication, warmth, and competence

(Aaker 1997; Kervyn, Fiske, and Malone 2012) and these dimensions can be applied to both retail brands and product brands
(Zentes et al. 2008). Customers and retailers benefit when a
brand has a distinctive and enduring personality. Brands acquire
symbolic meaning that offers customers the opportunity for selfexpression, identity construction, and confirmation (Belk 1988;
Elliott and Wattanasuwan 1998). These benefits translate into
economic value for the company and build brand equity (Keller
2007; van Rekom, Jacobs, and Verlegh 2006).
Customers (retail) brand personality perceptions can arise
from any experience with a brand (Aaker 1996; Plummer 1985).
For example, customers draw inferences from the personality
traits of the people associated with the brand, such as a companys CEO, as well as from the brands user imagery. In the
branding literature, we have found initial indication that bodily
experiences influence consumers perceptions of product brand
personalities. Brakus et al. (2009) have suggested that bodily
experiences serve as an antecedent of product brand personality
perceptions. Their study relied on survey data based on customers memories of experiences, but they did not manipulate
bodily experiences. Labrecque and Milne (2011) investigated
the effect of brand color on product brand personality perceptions. They manipulated the color of brand logos and packaging
and discovered that certain patterns of color-brand associations create and reinforce product brand personality. Spence and
Gallace (2011) discuss tactile branding by means of multisensory packaging to shape product brand image.
We build on these initial and sparse findings indicating that
bodily experiences have an impact on product brands and systematically investigate a relationship between retail brands and
customers bodily experiences. For this purpose, we define
bodily experiences as physical sensations evoked by the external world, such as the ones elicited by the retail environment. In
order to understand the mechanism behind the effect, we draw
on literature in social psychology where studies have shown
that human personality perception is influenced by bodily experiences because of priming effects (Williams and Bargh 2008).
Thereby, this research is the first that combines the streams of
research on retail and product brand personality and research on
priming through experiences.
In the next section, we briefly review research on priming
through experiences and we derive our main proposition about
how bodily experiences serve as an antecedent for customers
retail brand personality perceptions.
Priming through experiences
Research in social psychology has investigated the influence
of bodily experiences on human personality perception. For
example, Williams and Bargh (2008) have demonstrated that
experiencing physical warmth or coldness unconsciously transfers to evaluations of other people, leading people to believe that
others possess warmer or colder personalities.
The study was based on priming effects on social judgments
(Higgins, Rholes, and Jones 1977; Stapel, Koomen, and van der
Pligt 1997), in particular the idea that the experience of warmth

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J. Mller, S. Herm / Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438446

or cold automatically primes the semantically related personality

dimension of being a warm or a cold person.
The term priming refers to the activation of stored knowledge in memory (Higgins 1996). The exposure to a particular
stimulusfor example, a bodily experienceincreases the
accessibility of a related concept in memory that can be applied
for judgments, for example, the impression of a person (Herr
1986). People can memorize such impressions based on experiences. Research indicates that any information perceived during
personal encounters has the potential to be added to the associative network related to that person in memory (Srull and Wyer
1989). Transferred to the branding context, bodily experiences
during shopping are likely to serve as information that connects
retail brands with related traits in a customers memory. That is,
bodily experiences can become learned parts of brand knowledge and shape retail brand personality perception in the long
run.
Williams and Bargh (2008) argue for a metaphoric relationship between experiences and personality perceptions.
Metaphors are shared linguistic descriptors (Ackerman,
Nocera, and Bargh 2010, p. 1713) and people use metaphors
that describe concrete experiences in order to talk about abstract
conceptual knowledge (Boroditsky 2000; Lakoff and Johnson
1980). The body is an important source of information acquisition that helps people use and understand metaphors. As
people interact with their environment, concrete sensory (visual,
auditory, motor) information becomes part of abstract knowledge representation in memory (Barsalou 2008). For example,
the concrete bodily experience of a warm home in terms of
a comfortable temperature, shelter, and nourishment becomes
associated with the concept of social warmth in memory
(Williams and Bargh 2008). In line with associative network
models of memory (Anderson 1983), whenever the body experiences warmth, the abstract concept of social warmth can
become activated at the same time that it influences information
processing.
Similarly, Ackerman et al. (2010) have demonstrated a
metaphoric link between experiences and personality perception, for example, the influence of physical weight on
perceptions of peoples seriousness and importance. In one of
their experiments, participants who sat on a hard chair judged a
person (car dealer) to be more stable in a negotiation task than
did participants who sat on a soft chair.
Just as bodily experiences can transfer their metaphoric
meaning to personality perception, our main proposition suggests the following:
Main Proposition: Bodily experiences transfer their metaphoric
meaning to retail brand personality perception.
In Study 1A we test whether the bodily experience of hardness (vs. softness) influences customers perceptions of a retail
brand as being rugged. Ruggedness is one of five brand personality dimensions as outlined by Aaker (1997). In Study 1B
we examine the mechanism behind the effect and measure if the
concept ruggedness is activated when participants merely see
hard (vs. soft) store furniture in a retail setting.

Likewise, judgments of warmth play an important role

in customers brand perceptions (Aaker, Garbinsky, and Vohs
2012). To generalize our assumption, we tested whether the
bodily experience of warmth influences customers perceptions
of a retail brand as being warm (Study 2).
Study 1A
We conducted our first study in a natural retail setting with
actual customers to gain externally valid insights on our research
question. Based on a pretest (N = 66, Mage = 25 years), we argue
that the experience of hardness is metaphorically related to
the brand personality dimension ruggedness. Hardness is an
important bodily experience in retail settings and is present in
various forms, for example, hard or soft fitting-room furniture,
and hard or soft flooring in a store. Based on our main proposition
we assume:
H1. The feeling of hardness (softness) increases (decreases)
customers perception of a retailers brand personality as rugged.
In the study we asked customers to fill out a short questionnaire while they sat on either a hard or soft piece of store furniture
in the retail store. Customers rated the retailers brand personality. We used Aakers (1997) brand personality dimension
ruggedness and three control dimensions that were metaphorically unrelated to the experience of hardness. Since we do not
assume an effect of hardness on more general feelings or unrelated thoughts, customers perceptions of the brand should only
vary with respect to the ruggedness dimension, but not to the
unrelated dimensions.
Sample and procedure
This study took place in a mono-brand fashion retail store in
the center of a German city on two consecutive weekday afternoons. The retail brand is internationally known, and the store
sells fashion items for both men and women. We employed a
2-cell (sitting hard vs. soft), between-subject design. Sixty customers (33 males, Mage = 37 years) were recruited for the study
at the store and randomly assigned to the conditions (Nhard = 30).
At the beginning of the study, participants were invited to
take a short survey and led to a place to sit down. Participants
sat on either a hard stone block or on a soft leather sofa. Both
seats were part of the original store decoration, allowing a very
subtle manipulation and averting potential demand effects. All
participants completed the same one-page survey while they sat.
Participants rated their perceptions of the retail brand including
the dimensions ruggedness, sophistication, (Aaker 1997)
competence, and warmth (Aaker et al. 2012) on a sevenpoint scale (1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree). They also
answered control questions about their gender, age, and their
current feelings about how they were seated to check the success of the manipulation (sitting hard vs. soft, embedded among
three filler items related to current mood, ambient temperature,
stress). After completing the survey, participants were debriefed
and dismissed. In the debriefing, none of the participants were
able to correctly identify the purpose of the study.

J. Mller, S. Herm / Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438446

Results and discussion

Manipulation check
As expected, participants who sat on the hard stone block
rated themselves as sitting harder (M = 5.16) than participants
sitting on the soft sofa (M = 2.62, F(1,58) = 37.14, p < .01). We
did not find any differences on the filler items.
Brand personality perception
Participants reported brand personality perceptions were
collapsed to create a composite measure of each dimension.
Factor analysis revealed successful measurements (Cronbachs
alpha ranging from .72 to .96). The ANOVA on ruggedness indicated that participants in the sitting hard condition
perceived the retail brand as more rugged (M = 4.11) than
those who sat soft (M = 3.21, F(1,58) = 12.13, p < .01). As
expected, participants did not differ in brand personality perceptions regarding the dimensions sophistication, (Mhard = 4.77;
Msoft = 4.57, F(1,58) = .75, ns) competence, (Mhard = 5.02;
Msoft = 5.03, F(1,58) = .00, ns) and warmth, (Mhard = 3.66;
Msoft = 3.05, F(1,58) = 3.01, ns). Additional 2 (condition: sitting hard vs. soft) 2 (gender: male vs. female) ANOVAs on
ruggedness, sophistication, competence, and warmth
showed no significant interactions with gender nor significant
main effects of gender. Also ANCOVAs with further controls
(mood, temperature, stress) indicated no significant effects of
potential covariates.
Consistent with our main proposition, findings from Study
1A indicate a metaphor-specific transfer of bodily experiences to
brand personality perceptions. In particular, bodily experiences
of hardness influenced the brand personality perception of the
metaphorically related dimension ruggedness (H1). Importantly, the manipulation did not impact unrelated dimensions,
which supports the idea of a metaphor-specific transfer of experiences on brand perceptions. Study 1A finds initial support for
the hypothesis in the natural setting of a retail store. The bodily
experience was able to change actual customers brand perceptions of a real retail brand on the dimension ruggedness. The
next study examines the mechanism behind the effect.
Study 1B
The previous study found that bodily experiences transfer
metaphoric meaning to brand personality perceptions. The purpose of Study 1B was twofold: First, we directly tested for a
priming effect of the concept of ruggedness evoked by bodily
experiences in the retail setting. We expected that when someone
experienced a hard store decoration element, it would activate
the metaphorically related brand personality concept of ruggedness, but experiencing a soft store decoration element would
not have an influence on the activation of ruggedness. We used
a lexical decision task that is a standard procedure in psychology
to test for the activation of concepts that have been primed. The
task is based on response time measures. Activation makes concepts easier to process; thus participants are supposed to respond
faster to words that are related to the activated concept than participants that have not been primed. Second, we aimed to broaden

441

the managerial scope of our research. In Study 1A, participants

sat on store furniture. But in retail practice not all customers sit
down in stores. Study 1B investigates whether the simple sight
of hard versus soft store furniture triggers the bodily priming
effect. Literature on simulation theory suggests that the mere
act of seeing another persons behavior or emotional state can
induce mimicry of the same experiences in oneself (Chartrand
and Bargh 1999). In Study 1B we adopted this idea and we
manipulated the bodily experience of hardness by showing pictures of hard and soft store furniture. Importantly, participants
in Study 1B were not sitting; instead they stood in front of a
computer screen while viewing the pictures and completing the
lexical decision task. This setting was supposed to induce the
simulation of the bodily experiences of hardness and reflect that
customers commonly see store furniture while standing upright
in stores.
H2. Seeing a hard piece of store furniture decreases the time
to respond to words that are related to the concept of ruggedness compared to control words. The time to respond to
ruggedness-related words and control words does not differ
when seeing a picture of a soft piece of store furniture.
Sample and procedure
The study used a 2-cell (visual display of a hard versus soft
piece of store furniture), between-subjects design. Sixty-four
students (36 females) were recruited at a major German university. Photographs of the store furniture used in Study 1A served
as stimuli. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the following conditions: Participants were shown a picture of a hard
piece of store furniture (concrete block, Nhard = 32) or a picture
of a soft piece of store furniture (leather sofa). After completing
the lexical decision task, participants rated the piece of store
furniture along the item hardness (17 scale, 1 hard, 7 soft)
for the purpose of a manipulation check.
Participants performed a lexical decision task based on the
procedure by Holland, Hendriks, and Aarts (2005). They were
asked to indicate as quickly and as correctly as possible whether
a letter string appearing on a computer screen for 250 ms was
an existing word. Participants responded by pressing a yes
or no key on the keyboard. They participated in a total of 58
trials. After six practice trials, 26 real words and 26 nonwords
were presented in random order. Thirteen of the real words were
ruggedness-related words (e.g., robust, adventurous, tough).
The other 13 real words were not related to ruggedness (e.g.,
contemporary, narrow, discrete) and served as control words.
Experimental and control words were matched on the number
of letters and the number of syllables. We changed one letter in
each real word to create nonwords.
Results and discussion
Manipulation check
Results indicate a successful manipulation. Participants rated
the hard piece of store furniture as harder than the soft piece

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J. Mller, S. Herm / Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438446

of store furniture (Mhard = 1.62; Msoft = 5.53; F(1,62) = 240.48,

p < .01).
Concept activation
For analysis, we removed responses by two subjects because
of a very high error rate. As suggested by the literature (Holland
et al. 2005), we removed extreme responses from the remaining
participants. Responses less than 200 ms (9.21 percent) and more
than three standard deviations from the mean (1 percent) were
excluded from the analyses, as were incorrect responses to words
(15.2 percent). These extreme responses and errors were evenly
distributed across the two types of words and conditions. As is
typically the case, our response-time data were right-skewed.
For a better approximation of a normal distribution, we submitted the data to a natural log transformation. The response
times on the 13 target trials were averaged, as were those on
the control trials. These mean response latencies were subjected
to a 2 (condition: seeing hard vs. soft piece of store furniture;
between subjects) 2 (word type: ruggedness vs. control; within
subjects) analysis of variance. The analysis showed a condition word type interaction (F(2,121) = 4.40, p < .05). Planned
contrasts revealed that participants responded faster to hardnessrelated words when they saw the picture of the hard piece of
store furniture (M = 466.4 ms) than when they saw the picture of
the soft piece of store furniture (M = 549.6 ms, F(1,60) = 4.26,
p < .05). Response times for control words did not differ across
the conditions (F(1,60) = .41, ns).
Study 1B provides support for the notion that the mere sight
of store elements that elicit bodily experiences primes semantically related concepts in customers memory. Seeing hard store
furniture activated the concept of ruggedness, which is a condition for the metaphoric transfer from bodily experience to
brand personality perception as shown in Study 1A.
The previous studies focused on the bodily experience of
hardness and the brand personality dimension ruggedness.
However, the bodily experience of hardness might be special
in its ability to transfer to brand perceptions compared to other
experiences. For further generalization, Study 2 investigates
the experience of temperature. In addition, Studies 1A and 1B
employ a specific measurement of the brand personality dimension ruggedness. It is possible that the wording of the scale
items is particularly sensitive to the bodily prime of hardness.
Study 2 uses different measures to rule out this explanation.
Study 2
Study 2 aims at two goals. First, the study introduces the
feeling of warmth to generalize the previous findings in terms of
the operationalization of the bodily experiences. Several interviews with retail store managers revealed that store temperature
is an important variable in retail settings. However, temperature
is a neglected issue in retail literature. The Journal of Retailing
has published only one study that controlled forbut did not
manipulatetemperature. Wakefield and Baker (1998) asked
customers if the temperature in a mall was comfortable and
formed an ambient factor by combining this judgment with other
customer experiences (music, lighting). Study 2 investigates the

unique influence of temperature on customer perceptions with

an experimental approach. Specifically, we assume a metaphoric
transfer of the experience of warmth to the perception of a brand
as possessing a warm personality.
H3. Experiencing a warm (vs. cold) environment increases
(decreases) customers perception that the retailers brand personality is warm.
The second goal of this study is to employ different measures of the dependent variable to rule out item-specific effects.
We used three alternative scales that differ in their wording to
measure the brand personality dimension warmth.
We invited participants to a lab study and asked them to evaluate three major, nationwide-operating shoe retailers with regard
to their brand personality. For shoe retail stores, temperature is
an important ambient factor because customers take off their
shoes when trying on different products and become particularly sensitive to the store temperature. Bodily experiences were
manipulated by inviting participants to one of two lab rooms that
differed in temperature. We expected participants in the warm
room to rate retail brands as having a warmer personality than
participants who did not experience warmth.
Sample and procedure
This study employed a 2-cell (cool vs. warm), betweensubjects design. Seventy-five students (43 females) at a major
German university were recruited to participate in a lab study.
Participants were randomly assigned to complete a survey with
multiple tasks either in a warm room (temperature 25 C = 77 F)
or in a cooled room (temperature 20 C = 68 F, Ncool = 37).
Aside from the temperature, the two lab rooms were identical.
At the beginning of the study, participants were exposed to the
temperature in the room for a few minutes while they answered
filler questions about recent consumer experiences. Next, participants rated their perceptions of the brand personalities of three
major, nationwide operating shoe retailer brands. Participants
were instructed to only rate brands they were familiar with. Each
brand was rated along three scales that measured the brand personality dimension warmth along trait items, but differed in
wording. The scale suggested by Aaker et al. (2012) consists of
the items warm and friendly, which have an obvious semantic relationship to warmth. Further, each participant rated retail
brands along a scale by Kervyn et al. (2012) that captures the
nature of being warm in a more abstract way. The two items
ask if the brand has good intentions toward ordinary people
and consistently acts with the publics best interests in mind.
Finally, we employed Aakers (1997) scale of the dimension
sincerity, which is conceptually similar to warmth (Aaker
et al. 2012; Kervyn et al. 2012). The scale includes eleven
items such as honest, sincere, and sentimental. Participants also rated the control dimensions of ruggedness, (Aaker
1997) competence, (Aaker et al. 2012) and aggressiveness
(Geuens, Weijters, and De Wulf 2009) on a seven-point scale
(1 = totally disagree, 7 = totally agree), and answered control
questions about their gender, age, and their current perception
of temperature in order to check the success of the manipulation

J. Mller, S. Herm / Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438446

(estimation of room temperature in C, feeling warm, 1 = totally

disagree, 7 = totally agree; embedded among seven filler items,
e.g., current mood, sitting hard, stress). At the end of the survey, participants were asked about the purpose of the study. Four
participants identified the purpose and were excluded from data
analysis.

443

across different scales that measured the dependent variable

warmth. To capture the metaphoric transfer, it was not necessary to use trait words that were semantically very close to the
concept of warmth, but that capture the meaning of warmth
as a personality dimension in a more general way. Hence, the
bodily experience of warmth activates the concept of warmth
in a broader sense.

Results and discussion

General discussion
Manipulation check
In line with our expectations, participants in the warm
room rated the room temperature as warmer (M = 22 C = 72 F)
than participants in the cooler room (M = 17 C = 63 F,
F(1,69) = 53.22, p < .01) and rated themselves as being warmer
(M = 4.76) than participants in the cooler room (M = 2.38,
F(1,69) = 41.24, p < .01). We did not find any differences on the
filler items.
Brand personality perception
Participants brand personality perceptions were computed
for every dimension of each of the three retail brands. Factor
analysis revealed successful measurements (Cronbachs alpha
ranging from .72 to .96). Next, we averaged the ratings of each
personality dimension across the three brands. One participant
was not familiar with one of the retail brands and was excluded
from the analysis.
To test for the metaphor-specific transfer, we first analyzed
the effect of the temperature manipulation on the rating of
the warmth dimension as measured by Aaker et al. (2012).
In line with our hypothesis, participants in the warm room
evaluated brands to be warmer (M = 4.00) than participants in
the cooler room (M = 3.11, F(1,68) = 21.43, p < .01). Next, we
conducted the same analysis with the two warmth dimensions that were semantically less close to the concept of
warmth, but that still captured the meaning of the concept
(warmth as measured by Kervyn et al. 2012 and sincerity as
measured by Aaker 1997). ANOVAs on these warmth scales
indicated that participants in the warm room evaluated brands
to be warmer (M = 3.64) and more sincere (M = 4.25) than
participants in the cooler room (Mwarmth = 3.10, F(1,68) 4.60,
p < .05; Msincere = 3.77, F(1,68) = 10.07, p < .01)2 . As expected,
brand personality perceptions did not differ between conditions with respect to the control dimensions ruggedness,
(Mwarm = 3.17; Mcool = 2.95, F(1,68) = 1.45, ns) competence,
(Mwarm = 4.79; Mcool = 4.56, F(1,68) = 1.50, ns) and aggressiveness (Mwarm = 2.46; Mcool = 2.35, F(1,68) = .23, ns).
The results replicated our previous findings that bodily
experiences transfer in a metaphoric way to brand personality perceptions. Participants who experienced warmth perceived
retail brands to be warmer than participants who did not experience warmth. The findings were consistent across three different
retail brands. This indicates a generalizable effect of a transfer
across different bodily experiences. Further, the effect appeared

2 We used purchase frequency at the retailers as a control variable and the

results do not change.

Customer experiences as well as brand personality are concepts that promise value when strategically applied in retail
branding (Ailawadi and Keller 2004). Independent research
about each of the concepts is rich. Considerable interest has been
devoted to the general role of experiences and how they shape
peoples interpretations and evaluations of objects (e.g., Baker
et al. 1992; Hoch and Deighton 1989; Holbrook and Hirschman
1982; Puccinelli et al. 2009). Similarly, the theoretical and managerial relevance of retail and product brand personality has
inspired widespread studies in marketing (e.g., Aaker 1997; Das
et al. 2012; Labrecque and Milne 2011; Geuens et al. 2009).
We merge these research streams to investigate the relevance of
bodily experiences for retail brand personality perceptions.
The present research identifies a relationship between customers bodies and brand perceptions. In particular, we show
that bodily experiences operationalized as hardness of in-store
furniture (Study 1A) and warmth as ambient temperature (Study
2) influence consumers retail brand personality perceptions in
a metaphor-specific way. Our theoretical contribution is to conceptualize the metaphor-specific transfer of bodily experiences
on retail brand personality perceptions. Our research can generalize across two relevant ambient factors in retail settings, across
different retail brands, and across different brand personality
dimensions. The effect appeared in the field with actual customers in a natural retail setting and was successfully replicated
in a laboratory study. In Study 2 we used various measures of
the brand personality dimension warmth to ensure that the
effect was attainable with varied wordings. Overall, our studies
indicate a generalizable effect of bodily experiences on brand
personality perceptions.
We also demonstrate that the mere sight of a hard piece of
store furniture activates the concept of hardness (Study 1B).
This finding is particularly important because not all customers
make use of available store decoration elements; they simulate
experiences automatically. Understanding this process adds to
academic knowledge about retail branding and is valuable for
retail brand managers. Even if managers do not actively generate
favorable personality perceptions, they need to understand that
store environments can automatically shape customers brand
perceptions.
Theoretical implications
Research in retailing has started to apply the concept of brand
personality as part of retail branding and calls for theoretical
insights into specific antecedents of retail brand personality
(Ailawadi and Keller 2004; Grewal and Levy 2007). Studies

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J. Mller, S. Herm / Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438446

in social psychology have shown that bodily experiences

influence perceptions of human traits (Ackerman et al. 2010).
However, these findings have not been integrated nor discussed
in the retailing context. By examining how bodily experiences
influence customers perceptions of a retail brand personality,
our work contributes to the literature streams on customer
experience management and on retail branding.
Our results suggest that bodily experiences transfer to
customers brand perceptions in a metaphor-specific way. This
implies that brand perception and human perception share
bodily experiences as an antecedent. Thus, our research adds
to the debate on the similarity between brands and humans
(Fournier 1998) and makes a case for similarity. This finding
inspires theorizing on other parallels between humans and
brands. For example, research on human relationships might
indicate antecedents that can be included to conceptualize
relationship building and loyalty in retailing.
Furthermore, our research adds to the work of Meyers-Levy
et al. (2010) that manipulates the concept of hardness by varying the hardness of flooring, which is another relevant ambient
factor in retail settings. Meyers-Levy et al. (2010) focus on
the influence of flooring on concrete product evaluations (the
firmness or appeal of a vase or a chair), but do not assess any
transfer of bodily experiences to consumers retail brand perception. Their work offers initial support for the potential of
somatosensory experiences to serve as an antecedent to customer perceptions. The current research demonstrates that such
bodily sensations can shape abstract retail brand personality
impressions.
Managerial implications
Managers should actively plan, execute, and control retail
brand personalities (Malr et al. 2012). This research introduces bodily experiences as a lever for retail branding. From
a managerial perspective, we see three major implications.
First, brand managers can use our findings to create store
environments that elicit desired brand perceptions. Our research
shows that bodily experiences activate metaphorically related
concepts that transfer to customers retail brand personality perceptions. Concept activation was even present when customers
merely saw store decoration elements. Our research provided
practical guidance by demonstrating that hardness and temperature are bodily experiences that managers can manipulate to
affect customers perceptions of retail brands. However, our
theoretical conceptualization may also be generalizable. Hence,
other bodily experiences that elicit metaphoric meaning in line
with retail brand personality are promising tools for retail brand
management. Bodily experiences such as touch, acceleration,
sound, smell, and vision can be tapped. For example, brands
that wish to be associated with traits like sophistication, upper
class, and glamor might consider placing velvet fabrics on store
shelves or in fitting rooms that are touched by customers who
are examining products.
Second, since bodily experiences and simulated experiences (e.g., evoked by pictures) automatically transfer
their meaning to customers perceptions of retail brand

personalities, managers need to control their store environments

for stimuli that elicit undesired metaphoric links to certain
brand personality dimensions. Thus our research advises
brand managers to pay attention to the bodily experiences
induced by the store environmenteven if the environment
is not intentionally managed (according to our interviews
with store managers, this is the status quo). For example, a
brand that strives to communicate a rugged brand personality might not want to use soft, thick carpet in the stores;
managers might consider installing hard wood or stone as
flooring.
Third, the results of our studies indicate that the retail environment can elicit bodily experiences and brand perceptions in
very subtle ways. The relationships between particular bodily
experiences (sitting hard, being warm) or visual stimuli and
the retail brands were not obvious to participants. On the one
hand, brands can use subtle cues that provide unobtrusive ways
to influence customers retail brand perceptions, which help to
overcome possible forms of subjective reactance (Friestad and
Wright 1994). On the other hand, the meaning might still transfer when customers are aware of the bodily stimuli in a store
environment. Depending on the branding goals, managers might
use and combine bodily experiences that differ in subtleness to
evoke desired brand perceptions.
We also see some limitations in the practical implementation of our findings. Discussions with retail managers revealed
that manipulations of the retail environment are often restricted
in several ways. For example, high-speed escalators in a large
store might evoke feelings of arousal and increase customers
perceptions that a retail brand is exciting. But escalator speed is
regulated for security reasons. In addition, store managers must
balance branding goals and customers need for comfortable
store environments. For example, the temperature in a clothing store must remain in a range that invites customers to enter
the fitting room. In our study we varied temperature from 20
degrees Celsius (68 degree F) to 25 degrees Celsius (77 degree
F), which is a realistic range in store settings. Store managers we
interviewed agreed that it was feasible to shape retail brand personality perceptions by temperature, but also pointed out some
restrictions, like energy saving plans and the technical capacities
of air conditioning.
Limitations and further research
Our findings suggest several directions for future research.
First, customers are likely to vary in the quantity and quality of
their bodily experiences with certain brands; for example, their
experiences may vary due to physical conditions, like eyesight
and motor skills, personal characteristics, or their need for touch
(Peck and Childers 2003). Similarly, customers differ in their
shopping goals, whether they are task-oriented versus experientially oriented, and depending on their general preferences for
the environment and optimal level of stimulation (Steenkamp
and Baumgartner 1992). Future research might focus on customers individual differences to derive potential moderators of
the influence of bodily experiences on their perceptions of retail
brand personalities.

J. Mller, S. Herm / Journal of Retailing 89 (4, 2013) 438446

Second, further research is needed to investigate the

relative strength of bodily experiences on retail brand perceptions compared to other marketing mix factors, like
price levels. It would be interesting to compare the longterm effect of bodily experiences on retail brand personality
perceptions and with long-term effects of other levers in retail
branding.
Third, since the priming effect can occur automatically, customers cannot necessarily focus their perceptions on the brand
that is responsible for the experiences. Further research should
investigate if bodily experiences elicited by products (product
brand personalities) and stores (retail brand personalities) interact and whether bodily experiences transfer meaning from the
product to the retailer and the other way around.
Our research is not without limitations. Our studies did not
cover the full range of brand personality dimensions, but selected
the dimensions ruggedness and warmth. Future research
might include more dimensions that can be influenced in retail
settings. For example, can the experience of soft, rich fabrics in
a changing room evoke the perception of sophistication? Moreover, in our studies we selected bodily experiences of hardness
and temperature to highlight their importance and subtlety in
retail environments. It would be interesting to test for the effect of
additional common bodily experiences that retail environments
elicit to examine their ability to transfer meaning to customers
perceptions of retail brand personalities.
Overall, our results indicate that exploring the relationship
between customer experiences and branding is a fruitful avenue
for research. We believe more research in this area can create
a deeper understanding of customers retail brand perceptions.
The current research provides an initial step in that direction.
Acknowledgements
We thank C. Miguel Brendl (Northwestern University),
Angela Y. Lee (Northwestern University), Alfred Ku (Freie
Universitt Berlin), Jan Kratzer (Technische Universitt Berlin),
Brian Sternthal (Northwestern University) as well as Shankar
Ganesan and two anonymous reviewers for their many constructive comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
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