Do Brands & Faces Share the Same Perceptual Space
World Review of Business Research
Vol. 5. No. 2. April 2015 Issue. Pp. 163 – 176
Anne Lange and Rainer Höger
University of Lueneburg
Recent findings show that psychological mechanisms of perceiving brands are similar to those of perceiving humans. In this research it was investigated if brand perception – according to the two-dimensional model of Kervyn, Malone & Fiske (2012) – and face perception – according to the two-dimensional model of Oosterhof and Todorov (2008) – share the same perceptual space. Therefore faces and brands have been evaluated on both models and examined via exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. It was shown that both brands and faces are perceived on a general evaluation dimension and a strength/power dimension and, with that, share the same two-dimensional perceptual space. Implications of these findings for advertising research and brand management are discussed.
