Electrifying Car Brands:"'Taking Brands into Consideration in the Idea Generation Phase"
Year: 2012
Editor: Lyndon Buck, Geert Frateur, William Ion, Chris McMahon, Chris Baelus, Guido De Grande, Stijn Verwulgen
Author: Moons, Ingrid; De Pelsmacker, Patrick; De Wit, Ivo; Du Bois, Els
Series: E&PDE
Institution: 1: Artesis Hogeschool Antwerp, Belgium; 2: University of Antwerp, Belgium
Section: Ideas to Market in Design Education
Page(s): 775-780
ISBN: 978-1-904670-36-0
Abstract
The separation between the field of marketing strategy and marketing action (creating new products) is longstanding. Still, product development may become a key element for branding because it serves as a cohesive factor for all elements that configure brand personality and experience. This paper investigates the effect of introducing different ideas for emotional electric car designs as extensions of existing car brands that differ with respect to brand personalities and brand experiences. Students from the first master class collaborated in a 6 steps experimental research leading up to a main experiment in which the interaction between existing car brand personalities and experiences and different types of emotional electric car design propositions is studied. Drawing upon schema and categorization theory, the effect of the fit between existing car brand images in terms of personality and experiential associations on the one hand, and a new electric car model extension on the other, are investigated. The result of this exercise is a design briefing that offers an input for a product designer to create different concept cards for the branded cars.
Keywords: Idea generation, brand personality, brand experience, brand extension