I Know What I Like, I Like What I Know: How Breadth of Brand Experience and Cognitive Effort Influence Brand Switching

The authors propose that segmenting loyal consumers according to their history of switching in a product category may help managers improve advertising effectiveness by stimulating appropriate levels of elaboration. More elaboration by multiple-brand consumers for their current brand choice increases the likelihood of future switching, whereas single-brand consumers are unaffected. For single-brand consumers, need for cognition decreases switching intent under high elaboration conditions, whereas multiple-brand consumers are unaffected. Lastly, the effect of cognitive processing on brand switching is greater for single-brand consumers for high elaboration advertisements, and greater for multiple-brand consumers for low elaboration advertisements.