Do Real and Fictitious Plant Brands Differ in Brand Recognition, Awareness, Purchase Intention, and Visual Activity?

Brands differentiate products from each other and help create the perception of added value. They influence product choice at the point of purchase with >70% of all buying decisions made in the store. Brands are often one of a few pieces of information consumers use to make product choices. Prior research showed that consumers had a greater likelihood to buy plant brands they had previously seen. To advance both the academic and practitioners’ understanding of plant brands, we sought to investigate the role of real and fictitious brands and their effects on visual activity and purchase intentions. Would simply including information on the container (e.g., fictitious brand) sway visual activity and purchase intentions? To investigate this notion, we conducted an in-person survey with a conjoint design in four states during May and June, 2015, using two flowering annuals and two flowering shrubs. Our goals were to assess consumers’ expressed and implicit preferences and, at the same time, monitor their gaze to determine how subjects used the real and fictitious brands as cues in their purchase decision. We showed 214 study participants digital images of 16 plants, varying the plant type, brand, and price; asked about brand awareness and familiarity; collected demographic and plant purchase information; and recorded their gaze as they viewed the images. We segmented the sample into three clusters, comparing their brand awareness and familiarity, conjoint analysis results, and the two visual measures: time to first fixation (TFF) and total fixation duration (TFD) on the container. The three clusters identified varied in their level of brand recognition and awareness but were similar in the relative importance and part-worth utility (PWU) mean scores, indicating a relatively similar decision process. The visual activity varied slightly by brand, but the fictitious brand captured and held visual attention similarly to the two established national brands. Slower sales growth in the Green Industry may be an indication that a market has matured, bringing increased competition among companies for consumers’ dollars (Hodges et al., 2009). An influx of brands is likely to occur in mature industries in an effort to differentiate products from competitors and enhance the perceived product value (Kotler and Keller, 2009). Branding helps to create the perception of added value and distinguish a company’s products from competitors’ products. Differentiation and enhancing perceived value through branding may be successful actions for a company striving to increase sales in a mature market. In horticulture, anecdotal evidence suggests that plant branding appears to be increasing. With >70% of all buying decisions made at the point of purchase (POP), marketers have increased their in-storemarketing budgets (e.g., signs, logos, and brands) from 3% in 2004 to 8% in 2010 (St ahlberg and Maila, 2012). Marketers use brands at the POP to facilitate consumers’ buying decisions. In the marketing literature, research findings support the notion that consumers first identify necessary information before they cognitively process it, then they arrive at a purchase decision (Lin and Chen, 2006; Olson and Jacoby, 1972). Some of the information used in the purchase decision includes brands. Therefore, it may be important for academics and practitioners to know which pieces of information at the POP, especially regarding plant brands, influence consumers in their purchase decisions. Bisson et al. (2002) said, ‘‘The challenge to wine producers in this new century is daunting—to understand the fundamental motivation behind consumer choice and to produce wines of enhanced attractiveness while simultaneously developing and implementing sustainable production practices for both grape growing and wine making. ’’ With an abundance of choices in wines, capturing attention among the plethora of choices is a challenge. Pictorial and text branding are both prevalent in that industry, e.g., in the $54 billion industry (Mintel, 2014), where consumers most often make their purchase decision at the point of sale (Chaney, 2000) brand logos often depict images of animals and plants that have nothing to do with the wine. The wine marketers’ efforts to attract attention are due, in part, to the vast number of product choices in stores, which can be overwhelming for any consumer. Thus, their actions are focused primarily on attracting consumers’ attention, but how does capturing consumers’ attention influence purchase intention? Given the overwhelming choices in the horticulture industry, could the focus on grabbing attention influence sales? If wine marketers use animals on their labels, would that strategy be effective for plants in capturing attention? Could a fictitious brand (with a unicorn) act in the same manner as a nationally recognized brand to gain consumers’ attention and influence their purchase motivations? While there have been a few studies on plant brands (Behe et al., 2016; Collart et al., 2010), industry and academia need more information regarding the impact that brands have on consumer perceptions or intentions to purchase plants.