Consumers’ Emotional Responses to Brands and Branded Products

This paper presents the outcomes of research investigating the relationship between brand and product emotions and the qualities of products that evoke these emotions. The study comprised a literature review followed by a sizeable empirical study carried out with domestic irons. Overall it aimed to investigate the dimensions of emotional experience of users within product and brand experience contexts, for which relevant theoretical bases of psychology, design and marketing literatures were combined. <p> The empirical work involved three groups of 35 participants, with each group exposed to images of five domestic irons. The first group was assigned original unaltered products, the second group products having an altered brand name, and the third group products having brand names deleted. Participants were asked to rate their emotions evoked by the products according to a predefined list. The resulting data were processed and cross-compared using SPSS software and content analyses methods. One of the outcomes of the study was evidence of how brands (as names and as visual product language) influence people’s emotions towards irons. In addition, the perceived brand hierarchy in the Turkish iron market was revealed. The results give valuable insights into the practical impact of branding, product identity and product emotions.