How Much Can Brands Deviate from their Brand Aesthetic? The Moderating Role of Brand’s Luxury Statu

Brand aesthetics is fundamental to maintaining a competitive advantage, especially within the luxury sector. Brand design consistency (BDC) plays a pivotal role in building a successful luxury brand through the formation of strong brand associations. However, creating new and distinct product designs that deviate from a brand\u27s aesthetic may have the potential to increase the brand\u27s interest. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of BDC on aesthetic judgment and purchase intention and to investigate the moderating effect of brand\u27s luxury status in the above relationship. The concepts of halo effect and biased assimilation relating to luxury brands form the conceptual basis of our study. Findings of this study exhibit that high BDC (vs. low BDC) evoked the most positive consumer response for luxury and non-luxury brands. The overall BDC effect however, was more salient for non-luxury brands which indicates that they have less latitude to deviate from their brand aesthetic than luxury fashion brands