Brand image and brand usage: Is a forty-year-old empirical generalization still useful?

In this paper the authors provide evidence of the breadth and longevity of Andrew Ehrenberg’s work—a testimony to the quality of his research approach. To demonstrate this vitality, the authors drew on 45 new data sets to test findings about the relative brand image response patterns from customer usage groups (Bird, channon, and Ehrenberg, 1970). The data cover different categories (among them, services, durables, and retailers), countries (including emerging markets), and newer data collection methods (i.e., online). The authors found the generalization that brand association responses are strongly and systematically linked to past brand usage still holds—both qualitatively and, to a large extent, quantitatively. This has implications for researchers and practitioners.