University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

The Effects of a Certified Cobrand and Price on Consumers' Product Evaluations and Purchase Intentions

The role of certification marks in marketing research has been addressed since the mid 1900s (Phelps 1949; Taylor 1958; Laric and Sarel 1981). To date, little is yet known about how a certification logo on the products� packaging is perceived by consumers. How does a certification affect consumers� product evaluations?

Considering a certification mark or logo as a brand, the use of a certification brand on the products can be treated as one form of cobranding strategy. Drawing on signaling theory, this research studies the effect of using a certification cobrand strategy as an effective signal of quality, value or other significant attributes of the primary brand to consumers, thereby enhancing consumers� product evaluations We examine effects of using a certification label at different price levels with highly familiar and unfamiliar brand names on consumers� perceptions of product quality. The conceptual model is an extension of the price-quality-value model (Monroe and Krishnan 1985). Three studies examine how the certification cobrand influences consumers� perceptions and choices.

The first study tests the effects of using a certifying label as a cobrand on consumers� perceptions of quality. The second study and the third study (national representative sample) tests the full conceptual model including the interactions of a primary brand and a certifying brand as well as the role of price and its interactions with the brands.