Brand Familiarity

What it is

Brand familiarity describes how far a buyer recognises and knows a brand before choosing. It is distinct from brand image, which concerns what the buyer associates with the brand. In the hotel studies on this site the two appear as separate cues, one in an experiment and one in a survey.

Ji Wen, Zhibin Lin, Xin Liu, Sarah Hong Xiao and Yina Li reported two experiments on hotel booking in the Journal of Travel Research. Price (high or low), review valence (positive or negative) and brand familiarity (familiar or unknown) were manipulated together, so the effect of each could be read against the others.

In effect

The authors report interaction effects among the three cues, which means the weight a guest gives to one depends on the other two. They rank the cues by diagnosticity, the amount of information each carries for the decision: online reviews first, brand familiarity second and price third. Their second experiment also tests perceived quality as a mediator between the cues and the intention to book.

A separate survey of leisure travellers booking hotels online, led by Che-Hui Lien, found that brand image, perceived price and perceived value each influenced purchase intentions directly, while the effect of trust was not significant. The two studies use different designs and different measures, so they are described side by side and are not combined.

One reading, which is an interpretation and not a finding of either paper, is that a familiar name shortens the guess a guest has to make about a room that cannot be seen before arrival. The Social Proof page covers reviews, the cue that ranked first.

What it does not say

The reading behind this page is the published abstract and bibliographic record of each paper. It supports the findings above and no further detail, so effect sizes, sample sizes and the hotel categories used are not described here.

The experiments concern booking intention and perceived quality in a controlled setting. They do not show what a familiar brand does to occupancy, rates or satisfaction during a stay, and they do not say that familiarity can be built quickly.

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