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Private label personality: applying

brand personality to private label
brands
a a
Mark S. Glynn & Tiza Widjaja
a
Faculty of Business and Law, Auckland University of Technology,
Private Bag 92006, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
Published online: 05 Mar 2015.

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To cite this article: Mark S. Glynn & Tiza Widjaja (2015) Private label personality: applying brand
personality to private label brands, The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer
Research, 25:4, 362-378, DOI: 10.1080/09593969.2015.1017772

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 The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 2015
Vol. 25, No. 4, 362–378, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09593969.2015.1017772

Private label personality: applying brand personality to private

label brands
Mark S. Glynn* and Tiza Widjaja

Faculty of Business and Law, Auckland University of Technology, Private Bag 92006, Auckland
1142, New Zealand
(Received 29 July 2013; accepted 28 October 2014)

Private label brands (PLBs) are an important facet of the retail offering within the
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supermarket sector. Although research has focused on the risk factors of private label
purchasing, there has been little research that explores the brand management of private
labels including the development of a brand personality. In this study, we investigate
how the Aaker brand personality scale applies to a PLB available in two different retail
chains and examine its effect on customer attitudes towards private label quality.
A factor analysis of these brand personality measurement items shows that five
dimensions, confidence (a new dimension), sincerity, ruggedness, excitement and
competence are relevant for PLBs. Although much of the original Aaker scale was
included in the analysis, one factor, sophistication, was not evident. A regression
analysis shows that all private label personality dimensions influenced the private label
quality measure with the confidence and sincerity dimensions having the greatest
impact.
Keywords: private label brands; brand personality; factor analysis; private label
personality; private label quality

Introduction
Supermarkets have seen considerable growth in private label business (Lamey et al. 2007).
While retailers market their stores as brands (Grewal, Levy, and Lehmann 2004), they also
coordinate the retail assortment, which typically consists of both manufacturer brands and
private label brands (PLBs) (Dawson 2006). Private label brands are often seen as inferior
to manufacturer brands (Hoch 1996). In contrast, manufacturer brands have high
distribution intensity and enjoy substantial marketing support over time. However, PLBs
offer considerable sources of value to retailers, as they are an important point of
differentiation, potentially boost store loyalty and attract the price sensitive shopper
(Hyman, Kopf, and Lee 2010). As PLBs are an important ‘ingredient brand’, retailers have
developed distinctive PLB images (Dunne and Narasimhan 1999) using strategies more
commonly associated with manufacturer brands. Typically, PLBs are used as ‘umbrella
brands’ and serve to link a range of sometimes dissimilar products together. Building a
well-defined brand image for a private label is not only beneficial for retailers but also can
increase consumer familiarity with the retailers’ private label offerings in each product
category (Ailawadi, Pauwels, and Steenkamp 2008).

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

q 2015 Taylor & Francis

 The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research 363

Thus, it is important to understand how the brand image projected by the private label,
affects consumer purchase intent and ultimately the performance of the retailer (Ailawadi
and Keller 2004). A brand’s image consists of many intangibles, which includes brand
personality (Keller 2008). Brand personality is the set of human characteristics that
consumers attribute to a brand and plays a significant role in establishing a brand’s identity
(Aaker 1997). Private label brands also carry symbolic meaning beyond the utilitarian
aspects of the brand and can communicate this meaning to customers (Aaker, Benet-
Martinez, and Garolera 2001). Thus, developing a brand personality allows retailers to
transfer store brand equity to enhance their PLBs.
Brand image development is therefore important to retailers in order to encourage
further customer trial of their private label offerings. Given that PLBs appear to carry some
risk for many consumers, there is little in the way of brand image-based research to guide
retailers in building their private label business. Such an application of branding theory
would allow retailers to better differentiate PLBs from competitors, communicate
their symbolic aspects, overcome customer concerns about price/quality and strengthen
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customer relationships (Ailawadi and Keller 2004).

Ailawadi and Keller (2004) consider a research priority is to understand how retailers
create their brand images and how these images influence customer perceptions of PLBs.
However, research into retail brand personality is somewhat fragmented, some
researchers have used their own personality measures and while others have used
established measures such as Aaker (1997) and focused on retail store personality. Among
the brand personality studies involving PLBs, some have used only selected aspects of
brand personality such as sophistication and competence while others have adapted their
own personality measures.
Research into PLBs has examined the price/quality and functional aspects or features
rather than the image or non-product attributes (Choi and Coughlan 2006). Extant research
assesses the consumer appeal of private labels (Batra and Sinha 2000) with a focus on the
roles of price, quality and the social risk of purchase. Private label brands are more
successful in some categories than others (Glynn and Chen 2009) while market penetration
also varies by country (Erdem, Ying, and Valenzuela 2004). In many countries, the market
share of private label is also low in comparison with national brands. Overall, there has
been a variety of research approaches, which makes comparisons between these brand
personality studies difficult. As a result, no coherent view of private label personality has
emerged from the literature.
Thus, this study addresses this gap suggested by Ailawadi and Keller (2004) and
examines the following questions: research question 1 (RQ1) How well does the
Aaker brand personality scale apply to PLBs? Research question 2 (RQ2): In what ways
do the brand personality dimensions affect consumer perceptions of private label
quality? Research question 3 (RQ3): Do gender and store price impression moderate the
effects of private label personality dimensions on consumer perceptions of private label
quality?
This paper proceeds as follows: the next section backgrounds the literature and the
research questions. This background includes a discussion on the nature of brand
personality and its effects on consumer brand attitudes including retailing implications.
Using the Aaker brand personality measure, we then test the effects of these brand
personality dimensions on consumer attitudes of PLBs and test for the moderating
influences of gender and store price impression. An explanation of the research approach
follows together with an analysis of the results. Finally, there is a discussion of the findings
as well as suggestions for future research.
 364 M.S. Glynn and T. Widjaja

Literature and background

Brand personality
Brand personality is the result of associating human characteristics with an inanimate
object such as a brand. The personification metaphor is useful in helping customers
understand these familiar objects (Davies et al. 2004). Human personality differs from
brand personality in that people develop their own personalities, whereas a brand’s
personality is created primarily through marketing communications and experiences that
consumers have with the brand (Shank and Langmeyer 1994). Consumers associate these
personality traits with brands as some brands can be regarded as relationship partners
(Fournier 1998). Supermarket lines, both national and private label, are more utilitarian
compared with brands such as clothing, which as seen as more symbolic. For a retailer
communicating a symbolic benefit and associating a private label with the dimensions of
brand personality may overcome some of these psychosocial risks associated with PLBs
and strengthen store loyalty.
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Aaker’s (1997) brand personality scale has attracted much interest as a multi-
dimensional measure of non-product brand image. However, this research stream has
focused mainly on nationally available brands and applications of this scale in retailing
and PLBs are more limited. d’Astous and Lévesque (2003) consider that store personality
is different to brand personality because of the influence of personal selling. Another
investigation shows that Aaker’s brand personality scale influences retail store attitudes
but not behavioural measures such as shopping trip frequency (Zentes, Morschett, and
Schramm-Klein 2008). This research also highlights variations in emphasis by researchers
showing that the brand personality concept itself is adaptable. Some researchers apply
Aaker’s complete scale, whereas others just examine the effects of facets such as
sophistication and competence on brand attitude (Supphellen and Grønhaug 2003), and
purchase intentions (Freling and Forbes 2005). The Aaker scale is the only brand
personality scale to have had extensive academic scrutiny and was therefore used in
this study to assess the brand personality of a private label. Moreover, the application of
this scale in this study also facilitates the comparison with past research (Ekinci and
Hosany 2006).

The dimensions of brand personality

This scale consists of five dimensions, three of which reflect the human (basic) aspects of
personality, sincerity, excitement and competence and two dimensions, sophistication and
ruggedness, which are more aspirational. Although these human and aspirational aspects
of personality have been addressed by some researchers, only the Aaker scale has been
scrutinised extensively and replicated in a range of cultural contexts, product categories
and industry settings. This measure consists of 42 adjectives of personality traits, which
represent 15 facets of brand personality. Aaker (1997) indicates that the excitement,
competence and sincerity dimensions are also present in all human personality measures.
In contrast, sophistication and ruggedness, which are more aspirational dimensions, that
may not be characteristic of all individuals.
Maehle and Sheneor (2010) investigated how Aaker’s brand personality dimensions
for Norwegian PLBs varies by supermarket and the congruence of these dimensions with
human personality. As part of this analysis, the brand personality rating was compared
with the overall mean rating for the supermarket brands in general. Thus, some
supermarket brands scored well compared with others on the sincerity, competence,
 The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research 365

excitement and sophistication dimensions, whereas there was no difference between the
brands on the ruggedness dimension. An important finding was that certain human
personality types were more attracted to particular brand personality dimensions than
others. People with a task orientation did not like the excitement aspect of brand personality,
whereas people with a more relational focus preferred the sincerity aspects.
Other studies have applied the individual facets of brand personality such as
competence and sophistication but have not included all the dimensions of the scale (e.g.
Ramaseshan and Tsao 2007). Zentes, Morschett, and Schramm-Klein (2008) found that
although the brand personality dimensions were relevant to retailing, many of their 38
scale items did not load onto the Aaker’s (1997) dimensions and there was also some
cross-loading between dimensions. Zentes, Morschett, and Schramm-Klein’s (2008)
findings showed that the basic personality characteristics such as excitement, competence
and sincerity had the most effect on store loyalty compared with the aspirational aspects of
sophistication and ruggedness. Sung and Kim (2010) showed the sincerity, ruggedness and
competence dimensions were more relevant to brand trust, whereas excitement and
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sophistication related more to brand affect. Competence was related to both brand
measures. Ekinci and Hosany (2006) found that the sincerity and excitement dimensions
had no effect on intentions to recommend a tourist destination.
Research also shows that all brand personality dimensions except sophistication
influences brand quality far more than brand familiarity, which is only influenced by the
dimension of sincerity (Diamantopoulos, Smith, and Grime 2005). Lin (2010) showed that
aspects of brand personality had limited impact on affective loyalty and behavioural
loyalty. Lin’s research also showed that competence was the only personality dimension
that consistently affected loyalty of toy and video game buyers but the overall effect of
brand personality on loyalty was low. Louis and Lombart (2010) demonstrate that brand
personality does have different effects on a range of brand outcomes such as trust and
attachment; however, these researchers did not use the Aaker scale.
Research into brand personality has not generally examined the external factors that
moderate brand personality. One exception is Ang and Lim (2006) who found brands that
had more literal advertising were seen as more sincere and competent. These researchers
suggest that PLBs would be more utilitarian in nature than symbolic. Ramaseshan and
Tsao (2007) showed that the excitement and competence dimensions were linked to brand
quality for everyday brands. This varies by product group as ruggedness and sophistication
were more important for upscale brands such as hotels. To address RQ1, we apply the
brand personality measure items from the Aaker scale to a PLB.

The effect of brand personality on private label brands

DelVecchio (2001) investigated how branding was used to infer quality for PLBs; he
found that if consumers viewed the brand as a social symbol this had a significant effect on
private label quality levels. In contrast, this study showed that if consumers viewed brands
as a means to infer product quality then this attitude was not significant. Cheng et al.
(2007) found that customers used brand personality to infer differences between national
and imported brands. These brand personality differences were moderated by the product
category (convenience vs. shopping goods). However, the measure of brand personality
used in this study was a three-item measure, which did not reflect the multidimensional
nature of the Aaker scale.
Few studies have studied the complete effect of the five brand personality dimensions
on brand evaluations and many researchers have selectively used aspects of the Aaker
 366 M.S. Glynn and T. Widjaja

scale. Freling and Forbes (2005) found that communicating aspects of brand personality
together with product features resulted in higher brand evaluations of a fictitious brand
compared to when only the product features were evident. Furthermore, the presence of
brand personality resulted in the stronger development of brand associations compared to
when brand personality is not present. Sung and Kim (2010) studied the effects of 15
Aaker personality items on brand trust and brand affect. Their research showed that
sincerity and sophistication had the greatest effect on brand trust whereas ruggedness
affects watch and apparel products but not perfume. In a study of wine retailing, Orth,
Limon, and Rose (2010) found that the brand personality interaction with store effect
results in stronger consumer attachments to the brand. Kim (2000) found that competence
was an important variable for apparel brands. Another brand personality dimension,
rugged was important with clothing bought from JC Penney, while clothing from
Victoria’s Secret rated better on the exciting and sophisticated dimensions.
The brand personality scale has also been applied to a comparison of private label and
national brands (Beldona and Wysong 2007). The results of this study showed that brand
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personality was more relevant to national brands than PLBs. However, these researchers
did not use the complete Aaker scale, instead only selecting 15 scale items in their
analysis. Their analysis shows that the national brand was preferred in the cola category,
whereas in the cookie category the private label was often rated better than the national
brand. The findings also showed that the private label quality rating compared with
national brands improves after respondents tasted the private label product. Arora and
Stoner (2009) studied the personality of several retail brands including Walmart and
Target (US) stores and found that a four-factor personality scale fitted the data.
To examine RQ2, we consider how the individual brand personality dimensions from the
Aaker scale affect private label quality.

Control variables: store price impression and gender

Research into brand personality has not generally examined the external factors that
moderate brand personality. One exception is Ang and Lim (2006) who found that
advertisements can influence individual brand personality perceptions. Brands that had
more literal advertising were seen as more sincere and competent. However, store image
does affect purchase intentions of the PLB. Vahie and Paswan’s (2006) research in the
apparel industry shows that store image was more likely to influence affective attitudes
towards private label image. In this study, only the quality and atmosphere aspects of store
image influenced attitudes to PLBs quality as opposed to the affective attitude.
Convenience, price and national brand consciousness also influenced affective attitudes
towards PLBs.
Research shows that consumers use store image as a cue for purchasing PLBs (Collins-
Dodd and Lindley 2003). These authors tested whether or not perceptions of store brand
varied by supermarket chain, however their hypothesis was not supported. Store image can
be multidimensional reflecting the customer shopping experience. They found that store
image did influence private label image overall, although some image dimensions had
more effect than others. Furthermore, many of the store image measures had no effect on
private label attitudes. Dutch research highlights that the psychosocial risk of purchasing a
private label reduce their public usage. However, this research found that retailer store
image improvement through service, merchandise and store layout can reduce the risks of
a private label purchase (Semeijn, van Riel, and Ambrosini 2004). The effect of this store
image change was more important for the lower price chains in this study.
 The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research 367

Wu, Yeh, and Hsiao (2010) demonstrate that there is no direct relationship between
store image and PLB image. However, store image did affect purchase intentions of the
PLB. Vahie and Paswan (2006) show that store image was more likely to influence
affective attitudes towards private labels. However, private label quality affects store
atmosphere and store quality. In this study, only the quality and atmosphere aspects of
store image influenced attitudes towards PLB quality, whereas convenience, price and
national brand consciousness influenced affective attitudes towards PLBs.
One area of interest to retailers is whether the effects of brand personality are
moderated by the effects of gender. Burton et al. (1998) found no significant differences
between male and female shoppers with respect to private label purchase and attitudes.
Grohmann (2009) investigated the extent that brands reinforce masculine and feminine
personality traits. His research found that masculine and feminine brand personality traits
were distinct but complementary to the Aaker brand personality scale; furthermore, the
effects of participant gender were non-significant. To examine RQ3, we examine whether
store price impression or gender moderates the impact of brand personality measures on
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private brand label brands.

Methodology
The context for this investigation is a New Zealand supermarket PLB. In common with
markets in Asia/Australia private label market share in New Zealand is relatively low
(Mandhachitara, Shannon, and Hadjicharalambous 2007). The guiding framework for this
investigation is provided by Wysong, Munch, and Kleiser’s (2002) work, which links
brand personality measures to consumer brand attitudes. Attention in the extant brand
personality research has focused on the Aaker (1997) scale. Thus in order to evaluate the
findings against previous research, the Aaker scale was chosen to measure brand
personality and its effects on PLB attitudes.
A PLB ‘Signature Range’ was the focal brand and is available to supermarket
customers of Progressive Enterprises Ltd, which has approximately 45% market share in
New Zealand. This brand was available in two different Progressive store formats,
Countdown that was at the time of this study a nationwide chain with an emphasis on
lower prices and Foodtown was a supermarket chain that had less emphasis on price. The
Signature Range brand was a standard private label available in both food and non-food
categories. At the time of this research, Signature Range was a standalone label that
competed in many categories with national brands.
Respondents rated how descriptive the 42 brand personality items were of the private
label using a 5-point Likert scale, anchored with 1 ‘not very descriptive’ and 5 ‘very
descriptive’. An existing scale (Chowdhury and Reardon 1998) also assessed whether
there were any store impression differences on price between the Countdown and
Foodtown chains. The quality attitude of this PLB was measured using an existing scale of
Vahie and Paswan (2006). Both the price image and PLB attitude measures used a 5-point
likert scale anchored with 1 ‘not very descriptive’ and 5 ‘very descriptive’.
The data were collected by means of a mall intercept survey outside the exit of five
randomly selected Foodtown and five Countdown stores in a large New Zealand
metropolitan centre. Several PLB studies including Batra and Sinha (2000) have used the
mall intercept method, which has many advantages. These advantages include the ease of
establishing rapport with shoppers, the ability to clarify survey questions and immediate
collection of responses. Because the profile of shoppers varies throughout the day, a random
selection of shoppers was chosen in morning and late afternoon/evening time periods.
 368 M.S. Glynn and T. Widjaja

The questionnaire for the survey was pre-tested among a selection of shoppers at a
local supermarket, and as a result, minor modifications were made to the flow of the
questionnaire. Because the analysis method involved multivariate data analysis, the
minimum sample size needed was 150. However, 398 shoppers agreed to participate of
which 95% had purchased a product from the Signature Range. Within the sample, 57% of
the respondents were women and 43% were men.
An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) analysed the data. Following this analysis a
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted to validate the measures used. A t-test
then examined any differences in the personality dimensions between the two retail chains.
From the EFA, the resulting brand personality dimensions were saved as factor scores,
which were then regressed against attitudes to the private label as dependent variables.

Results
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Research question 1: How well does the Aaker brand personality scale apply to PLBs?
For the EFA, a principal components analysis with varimax rotation was used. The
appropriateness of applying factor analysis to the data were first assessed. The measures
show that the data were suitable for factor analysis (KMO ¼ 0.958, Bartlett’s
test ¼ 13188.529, p ¼ 0.00). The initial EFA of the brand personality dimensions
resulted in a five-factor solution. This solution was determined by the following criteria:
eigenvalues (. 1.0), scree plot inspection, and loading scores for each factor (. j0.40j) and
the meaningfulness of each dimension. Inspection of this solution shows that the factor
structure was not completely consistent with the Aaker brand personality scale. One item,
small town, had a communality score of less than 0.5. Furthermore, another 12 items, good
looking, charming, feminine, smooth, up to date, independent, real, contemporary,
original, honest, sincere and unique, all cross-loaded onto either 2 or 3 other factors. These
items were deleted from the analysis because of the difficulty of interpretation (Hair et al.
2006). A comparison with the Aaker’s (1997) scale reveals that these items were mainly
from the sophistication factor. Arora and Stoner (2009) in their study of sportswear brands
also found evidence of cross-loading across four Aaker dimensions which emerged from
only 23 items in their study.
The items with significant and clear loadings on to a particular dimension were
retained in the analysis. Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for the items, and the
skewness and kurtosis figures also confirm that the data were normal. A re-specified factor
analysis was then conducted using the 29 retained items. The revised five-factor solution
explained 69% of the variance and is shown in Table 2. This level of explained variance
compares extremely well with other brand personality studies, notably Zentes, Morschett,
and Schramm-Klein (2008) where the explained variance was 58% and Sung and Tinkham
(2005) at 62%. Convergent validity for each factor is shown by the Cronbach’s alpha
estimates, which were all above the 0.7 threshold for this indicator. Table 2 shows
the results of the factor analysis and indicates the extent to which the items load on to the
Aaker factors. In the first factor, 8 out of the 12 items load onto excitement as per the
Aaker scale. The other four items sentimental and friendly are from the sincerity factor,
upper class was from the sophisticated factor and cheerful was from the sincerity factor.
For the second factor, all of the items were from the Aaker competence dimension except
for wholesome, which was a sincerity item in Aaker’s research. The third factor was also
consistent with the Aaker ruggedness measure, whereas the fourth factor reflected the
sincerity items of the Aaker scale and the last factor was consistent with the competence
 The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research 369

Table 1. Measurement private label personality and quality items.

Measurement items Mean score Std. Dev. Skewness Kurtosis

Family oriented 3.7 1.0 2 0.7 0.2
Successful 3.6 1.0 2 0.5 20.2
Down to earth 3.5 1.1 2 0.6 20.3
Reliable 3.4 1.0 2 0.1 20.4
Confident 3.1 1.0 2 0.1 20.4
Wholesome 3.1 1.0 2 0.3 20.2
Corporate 3.1 1.2 2 0.3 20.9
Secure 3.0 1.0 2 0.1 20.5
Hard-working 3.0 1.1 2 0.2 20.6
Friendly 2.9 1.0 2 0.1 20.6
Intelligent 2.9 1.1 2 0.1 20.7
Leader 2.7 1.0 0.1 20.6
Western 2.7 1.1 2 0.1 20.6
Technical 2.6 1.1 2 0.1 20.8
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Unique 2.6 1.1 2 0.2 20.9

Imaginative 2.6 1.2 0.1 21.0
Cheerful 2.6 1.1 0.2 20.8
Tough 2.6 1.0 0.0 20.7
Rugged 2.5 1.1 0.0 20.7
Daring 2.5 1.1 0.2 20.6
Masculine 2.5 1.1 0.2 20.8
Trendy 2.5 1.1 0.2 20.8
Sentimental 2.4 1.0 0.1 20.9
Outdoorsy 2.4 1.0 0.2 20.6
Exciting 2.3 1.1 0.4 20.7
Spirited 2.3 1.0 0.4 20.4
Young 2.3 1.0 0.5 20.5
Cool 2.2 1.0 0.5 20.6
Upper class 2.2 1.0 0.4 20.6
Private label quality
Product satisfaction 3.9 1.0 2 0.9 20.6
Quality as expected 3.9 0.9 2 0.8 20.3
Product consistency 3.6 0.9 2 0.2 20.4
Product liking 3.5 1.1 2 0.7 20.1

factor. The only factor from Aaker’s scale not evident here is the sophistication dimension.
The retained 29 brand personality items compare very favourably with similar studies,
such as Ekinci and Hosany (2006), which used only 12 items of the Aaker scale.
A CFA using LISREL 8.72 was applied to this 29 item brand personality measure and
shows a satisfactory fit to the data: x2/df ¼ 4.7, p ¼ 0.000, CFI ¼ 0.96, NNFI ¼ 0.96 and
SRMR ¼ 0.06. The CFA also confirms the convergent validity of this factor structure as
all items in Table 2 for the total sample had significant factor loadings with t values
exceeding 1.96. Discriminant validity was tested using the Fornell and Larcker (1981)
approach. Table 2 also shows the average variance extracted and composite reliability
results. The average variance extracted exceeds the correlation squared for each of the 10
pairs of constructs in brand personality measure. The composite reliability and variance
extracted estimates both confirm the robust reliability of the scale. A validation test was
conducted to test the underlying stability of the data. The data set was split into two equal
groups, and the factor analysis was rerun. Split 1 explained about 70% of the variance
while split 2 explained 65%, and both data sets yielded the same five dimensions.
 370 M.S. Glynn and T. Widjaja

Table 2. Exploratory factor analysis: private label personality dimensions by item.

Rotated component matrix

Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 Factor 4 Factor 5
Variable Excitement Confidence Ruggedness Sincerity Competence Communality
Cool 0.8 0.8
Exciting 0.8 0.8
Spirited 0.8 0.7
Young 0.8 0.7
Trendy 0.7 0.7
Imaginative 0.7 0.7
Cheerful 0.7 0.6
Daring 0.7 0.7
Upper class 0.7 0.6
Unique 0.6 0.5
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Sentimental 0.6 0.6

Friendly 0.6 0.6
Confident 0.8 0.7
Reliable 0.8 0.7
Leader 0.7 0.7
Secure 0.7 0.7
Successful 0.6 0.6
Wholesome 0.6 0.6
Rugged 0.8 0.8
Tough 0.8 0.8
Western 0.7 0.7
Masculine 0.7 0.6
Outdoorsy 0.7 0.7
Family oriented 0.8 0.9
Down to earth 0.8 0.7
Hard working 0.7 0.6
Corporate 0.6 0.7
Technical 0.6 0.7
Intelligent 0.6 0.7
Eigenvalues 13.5 2.3 1.7 1.3 1.1
% Variance 25.0 14.2 12.9 9.7 7.2
Cum. Variance 25.0 39.2 51.1 61.8 69.0
Cronbach alpha 0.95 0.89 0.89 0.79 0.84
Construct reliability 0.81 0.81 0.84 0.91 0.81

Table 2 shows that the first dimension reflects aspects mainly from the excitement and
some sophistication items of the Aaker scale. This factor is labelled ‘Excitement’. The
second dimension consisted of the following items: confidence, reliable, leader, secure,
successful and wholesome. This dimension was labelled ‘Confidence’, and the dimension
name was based on the highest factor loading item. The third dimension was labelled
‘Ruggedness’, and the fourth dimension was labelled ‘Sincerity’. The last dimension
‘Competence’ corresponds to the Aaker items relating to Competence.
The factor solution for private label personality broadly reflects the Aaker scale as the
excitement, competence and ruggedness items load on the intended factors. Excitement at
25% of the variance is represented by the facets of daring, spirited and imaginative.
Ruggedness reflects the Aaker measure, whereas Confidence represents the successful
facets. However, the solution reveals some important differences. First, the sincerity
measure contains two items and represents 9.7% of the variance reflecting the down to
 The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research 371

earth facets of the private label. Second, the competence and confident dimensions reflect
aspects of the Aaker competence measure but are different showing sufficient discriminant
validity. The dimension of sophistication did not emerge in this solution because of the
item cross-loading. Table 3 shows the correlations, variance extracted and squared
correlations. This table indicates the constructs show good discriminant validity.
The availability of this private label in two different store formats also allowed the
brand personality dimensions to be compared between the two retail chains. A t-test
conducted on store price impression reveals a significant difference for each item between
the two supermarket chains, p , 0.000. Foodtown was regarded as being slightly more
expensive than Countdown. To examine whether or not this store price impression
difference had any effect on the brand personality dimensions, a t-test was conducted on
the factor scores from both stores. This revealed that there were no differences between the
store formats with respect to the PLB personality.
To test the stability of the brand personality measure, the brand personality
measurement model was run separately for both the Countdown and Foodtown data.
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The results in Table 4 show a good fit to the data: Foodtown x2/df ¼ 2.36, p ¼ 0.000,
CFI ¼ 0.97, NNFI ¼ 0.96 and SRMR ¼ 0.62. With Countdown, the fit statistics were
x2/df ¼ 3.33, p ¼ 0.000, CFI ¼ 0.95, NNFI ¼ 0.95 and SRMR ¼ 0.68. The fit statistics
show an improvement over the results for the total sample, perhaps because of the smaller
sample size. Table 4 also shows the standardised loadings for the two supermarket chains,
which are all significant. These patterns of standardised loadings also attest to the
construct validity established in the first analysis. Because these dimensions were used as
independent variables in the regression analysis, these were saved as factor scores and then
regressed against the dependent variable PLB quality.
Research Question 2: In what ways do the brand personality dimensions affect
consumer perceptions of PLB quality?
The Vahie and Paswan (2006) private label quality scale was adapted to suit the
context of a supermarket private label. The PLB quality scale included the items ‘product
quality as expected’, ‘satisfied with product’, ‘product consistency’ and ‘like the product’.
To check that these measures reflected the intended constructs an EFA was conducted. The
EFA showed these items loaded onto one dimension explaining 63.5% of the variance and
which was saved as a factor score for subsequent use in the regression analysis.
The assumptions of multiple regression were also checked and showed that the data
were linear, residuals were independent and the data were normal. The regression results
for the effects of brand personality on PLB quality are shown in Table 5. Table 5 shows
that the regression model is significant and explains 35% of the variance. Examining the
beta coefficients shows that the confidence variable had the greatest effect on PLB quality.

Table 3. Correlation matrix.

Excitement Confidence Ruggedness Sincerity Competence PLB quality
Excitement .78 .38 .41 .17 .45 .16
Confidence .62 .81 .27 .25 .45 .29
Ruggedness .64 .52 .82 .14 .27 .14
Sincerity .41 .50 .38 .90 .20 .17
Competence .67 .67 .52 .45 .79 .18
PLB Quality .40 .54 .37 .41 .42 .79
Note: Below diagonal correlations significant p ¼ 0.000. Bold diagonal shows Variance Extracted. Above
diagonal are squared correlations.
 372 M.S. Glynn and T. Widjaja

Table 4. Confirmatory factor analysis: private label personality: full sample and by chain.

Full sample Countdown Foodtown

n ¼ 398 n ¼ 200 n ¼ 198
Construct Item Std. estimate t-value Std. estimate t-value Std. estimate t-value
Excitement Cool 0.87 22.06 0.88 15.72 0.85 14.73
Trendy 0.85 20.99 0.85 14.96 0.81 13.65
Exciting 0.92 24.19 0.92 16.89 0.88 15.69
Spirited 0.84 20.76 0.88 15.72 0.80 13.4
Young 0.82 19.89 0.84 14.61 0.77 12.72
Imaginative 0.80 19.05 0.77 12.85 0.78 12.95
Unique 0.67 14.94 0.75 12.3 0.58 8.81
Upper class 0.73 16.79 0.77 12.92 0.66 10.39
Sentimental 0.80 19.32 0.83 14.45 0.74 12.07
Friendly 0.75 17.40 0.74 12.11 0.72 11.55
Daring 0.85 20.91 0.88 15.69 0.78 12.99
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Cheerful 0.77 18.26 0.82 14.07 0.70 11.16

Confidence Reliable 0.80 18.72 0.77 12.72 0.78 12.67
Successful 0.78 18.28 0.83 14.16 0.72 11.28
Secure 0.79 18.59 0.78 12.92 0.76 12.15
Leader 0.78 18.15 0.83 14.03 0.72 11.28
Confident 0.79 18.50 0.77 12.71 0.77 12.78
Wholesome 0.79 18.4 0.80 13.21 0.74 11.84
Ruggedness Outdoorsy 0.78 18.13 0.80 13.41 0.70 11.04
Masculine 0.70 15.7 0.70 10.94 0.64 9.85
Western 0.76 17.05 0.69 10.73 0.72 11.55
Tough 0.92 23.5 0.92 16.56 0.92 16.77
Rugged 0.87 21.53 0.84 14.31 0.90 16.19
Sincerity Family 0.84 17.75 0.84 11.86 0.81 11.67
Down to earth 0.87 18.43 0.90 13.39 0.80 11.46
Competence Hard-working 0.70 15.47 0.78 12.86 0.61 9.00
Intelligent 0.86 20.66 0.84 14.4 0.84 13.85
Technical 0.86 20.91 0.87 15.08 0.81 13.3
Corporate 0.70 15.62 0.81 13.60 0.57 8.22

This was followed by sincerity, then excitement and competence while ruggedness had the
least effect. All the independent variables were statistically significant.
Research Question 3: Do gender and store price impression moderate the effects of
private label personality dimensions on consumer perceptions of
private label quality?
To answer RQ3, the data were split into Foodtown and Countdown samples as well as
male and female samples and multiple regressions were conducted. Table 5 shows that the
all the brand personality dimensions are significant for both Foodtown and Countdown
customers. This result confirms the predictive validity of the brand personality dimensions
by store. In contrast, while all dimensions were significant for female customers, only four
dimensions were significant with only the excitement dimension being non-significant for
male customers.

Discussion
This study supports the applicability of the brand personality scale to PLBs. In answer to the
first research question, the Aaker brand personality dimensions are relevant to PLBs as the
 The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research 373

Table 5. Regression of private label personality on private label quality.

Full sample Females Males Countdown Foodtown
Private label n ¼ 398 n ¼ 228 n ¼ 170 n ¼ 200 n ¼ 198
personality
dimensions Std. b t-value Std. b t-value Std. b t-value Std. b t-value Std. b t-value
Confidence 0.38 9.4 .39 7.2 .34 5.3 .40 6.8 .37 6.3
Sincerity 0.34 8.3 .35 6.4 .32 4.9 .31 5.4 .35 6.1
Ruggedness 0.19 4.7 .24 4.4 .15 2.3 .25 4.3 .14 2.5
Excitement 0.19 4.6 .19 3.5 .07 1.1* .18 3.2 .14 2.5
Competence 0.18 4.4 .20 3.6 .21 3.3 .13 2.2 .21 3.6
F-value F-value F-value F-value F-value
Adjusted R2 0.35 43.9 .35 25.0 .31 16.0 .34 21.2 .33 20.4
p-value .000 .000 .000 .000 .000
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measurement model shows a good fit to the data. One concern raised about the brand
personality scale is that it is very general in its application and may not apply to individual
brands. Previous brand personality studies show that the excitement, competence and
sincerity are common dimensions in extant research and are linked to the big five
human personality dimensions. These dimensions are also evident in the results for this
PLB. In this study, the sophistication factor was not evident but there was one aspirational
dimension, ruggedness. Compared with Aaker’s (1997) competence dimension, two factors,
confident and competence, emerged for this PLB. The excitement and sincerity items from
Aaker’s scale were all evident in these results. The brand personality scale for PLBs reflects five
dimensions and has good face validity and reliability. This scale was also stable over a split
sample.
To answer the second research question, we tested how these brand personality
dimensions affect attitudes towards PLB quality. The results indicate that all brand
personality dimensions were significant and explains 35% of the variance in PLB quality.
The dimensions that had the most impact were confidence and sincerity. Confidence
communicates leadership and reliability, whereas sincerity reflects the down to earth and
family appeal aspects. Other dimensions had less impact on private label quality.
Excitement reflects the contemporary and an up-to-date stance, whereas competence
conveys the technical and success assurances to the consumer about the private label.
Competence is a useful dimension for retailers as PLBs have to overcome negative quality
perceptions compared with national brands (Batra and Sinha 2000). Given that PLBs often
have a price advantage compared with national brands, enhanced appreciation of this
dimension by customers is important. Ruggedness is also an influence on PLB attitudes,
and Zentes, Morschett, and Schramm-Klein (2008) also found ruggedness to be an
influential dimension for determining store loyalty. In this study, sophistication did not
emerge as a private label personality facet, and Zentes, Morschett, and Schramm-Klein
(2008) found that this variable was also not a significant influence on store loyalty.
An important difference between these findings and Zentes, Morschett, and Schramm-
Klein (2008) work is that in their study brand personality was applied to a retail store,
which encompasses a mix of services, experiences and goods, whereas in our study the
PLB applies to only goods.
To address the third research question, we examined the differences between the brand
personality ratings for the private label between Countdown (lower price) and Foodtown
supermarket chains. The t-test results showed no difference between the chains for the
 374 M.S. Glynn and T. Widjaja

brand personality scale. This finding first demonstrates the consistency of the brand
personality measure for the PLB between the two chains. The direct comparison of brand
personality ratings for the identical private label also shows that the store price impression
difference between stores is not necessarily influential. The result was also confirmed with
the multiple regression analysis on private label quality for Countdown and Foodtown
customers. This finding compares to Maehle and Sheneor (2010) who found brand
personality differences between chains with different PLBs. Other studies, e.g. Collins-
Dodd and Lindley (2003) contrasting private label attitudes between retail chains, have
compared the (different) PLBs of those particular stores. The private label personality
dimensions were relevant for both male and female shoppers and showed a significant
impact on private label quality. Only one personality dimension, excitement, was not
significant for male shoppers.

Summary
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As previous studies indicate, some brand personality dimensions are more relevant for
PLBs than others. In this study, the confidence dimension, which reflects the facets of
reliability and success from the Aaker scale, and the sincerity dimension, which reflects
the down-to-earth nature of the brand, had the greater influence on private label quality.
Excitement suggests daring, spiritedness and imagination, together with ruggedness and
the dimension of competence reflecting the intelligence facet also have an effect but at a
lower level. Ramaseshan and Tsao (2007) also showed that competence was only relevant
for Colgate toothpaste, whereas excitement was more relevant to Pantene shampoo. The
results also highlight the differential effect of brand personality dimensions on private
label attitudes, which affects consumer attachment towards PLBs.
These findings are consistent with research showing that functional products such as
groceries are linked with confidence and competence unlike more symbolic products that
are more associated with sophistication (Ang and Lim 2006). These results indicate that
PLBs are relevant to the basic dimensions of brand personality. Furthermore, other
research shows that whether the brand is a functional or an experiential product, moderates
attitudes between brand personality and brand quality (Ramaseshan and Tsao 2007).
Previous research had not applied the full brand personality measure to PLBs. As a
result, an incomplete picture had developed in terms of the value of such measure in the
retail context. The dimensions of the Aaker scale are relevant to PLBs except for one
factor, sophistication. In this research, one Aaker dimension competence consisted of two
dimensions: confidence as well as competence. Maehle, Otnes, and Supphellen (2011)
found that competent brands had high quality associations and were seen as being from
firms with a good reputation. For a retailer of PLBs, the product needs to be a quality item
as well as signalling confidence that includes success and reliability. Another dimension,
i.e. sincerity, indicates that PLBs are seen as more down-to-earth, which may mean quality
at reasonable prices. The dimension of ruggedness is an indicator of durability particularly
for non-food supermarket lines. Research from Sung and Kim (2010) showed that both
sincerity and ruggedness are also strongly linked with brand trust. Excitement was also
important indicating that PLBs need to be contemporary, and provide a good experience
for customers. The dimension of competence with its focus on the intelligence items
indicates that these products should be seen as having similar preparation/manufacturing
processes as national brands. Given that PLBs have some inherent disadvantages versus
national brands in many categories, such dimensions are important in overcoming any
negative perceptions compared with national brands.
 The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research 375

In this study, customers placed more emphasis on the confidence, excitement and
sincerity dimensions of brand personality as far as PLBs are concerned compared with
ruggedness, an aspirational dimension. The factor analysis showed that sophistication
and its facets of elegance and style were not seen as being as relevant to these supermarket
PLBs. The non-emergence of sophistication as a brand personality dimension could also
be related to the everyday nature of the supermarket shopping and the functional nature of
many of the products in supermarket assortment. This finding should be noted by retailers
who wish to emphasise selected dimensions of the PLB image in retail communication.

Limitations and further research

In future brand personality research, several moderating influences on PLB attitudes could
be investigated further. The impact of category differences on brand personality could be
assessed, and research can examine category differences among experiential, functional
and symbolic PLBs. Such research could investigate the brand personality of health and
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beauty PLBs, which may well differ from more the functional offerings such as paper
products. In such categories, retailers often use sub-brands with their PLBs in order to
compete with other retail channels. One limitation of the study is that it investigated the
PLB as a product brand and did not consider the broader influence of the retail brand
architecture such as the retail brand and associated sub-brands. In addition, research could
examine what store factors influence private label personality. For instance, Merrilees and
Miller (2001) examined two facets of store personality and found that merchandising
and pricing were influential with the sincerity dimension and atmosphere influenced
competence. Furthermore, this study examined all shoppers and did not consider
differences in shopper behaviour such as the loyalty towards PLBs or loyalty to the store.
Future research could examine the relationship between brand personality and PLB
loyalty, in particular how private label personality relates to the motivations of purchasers.
Exploration of how the customer views individual aspects of PLBs such as ruggedness,
competence and confidence is also warranted. The roles of different PLB formats i.e.
budget and premium offerings could also be investigated particularly in regards to brand
personality influences on store loyalty and image.

Conclusion
These results demonstrate that the brand personality concept is relevant to PLBs and also
offers some guidance for retailers. This study makes a number of contributions to the
literature. First, the study investigates the complete Aaker brand personality scale in the
context of a supermarket PLB. Previous studies had only considered selected aspects of
the brand personality scale or had used different measures. Furthermore, many supermarket
private labels compete alongside national brands and the brand personality perceptions can
be assessed in competitive context rather than an exclusive situation. Second, this private
label was available in two different retail formats, which allowed the effects of store price
impression to be assessed on consumer perceptions of brand personality. This research
showed that the PLB was regarded in a similar fashion despite the store price differences and
confirmed the validity of the measure. Third, the brand personality items of Aaker were
assessed in terms of their relevance to private label items. Most Aaker (1997) items were
applicable to private labels and showed a good fit to the data apart from 13 items, which were
mainly from one dimension, sophistication. Fourth, an additional dimension confidence was
also found to be extremely relevant to supermarket private labels. The fifth contribution is
 376 M.S. Glynn and T. Widjaja

that this study assesses the effects of the brand personality dimensions on quality attitudes
towards the private label. These results demonstrate a good level of consistency among
shoppers at two different retail chains and among male and female shoppers.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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