Identification with brands having heritage: is morality more important than sociability and competence?

Previous research has established the importance of competence and warmth in consumer brand evaluation. Integrating an extended three-dimensional stereotype content model (SCM) with brand heritage research, it is suggested that morality and sociability represent subdimensions of warmth. Three studies employ actual brands in divergent product categories and consumer samples within distinct cultural settings to show that morality and sociability mediate positive effects of brand heritage on consumer-brand identification: self-respect moderates the morality – consumer-brand identification relationship and moral decoupling moderates the paths between brand heritage, sociability, morality, and competence, respectively. Effects are robust when accounting for a number of controls. The findings aid managers in more effectively using their brand's heritage as a social value to stimulate consumer-brand identification.