Clustering Millennials using brand authenticity

Brand authenticity can be considered one of the “cornerstones of contemporary marketing” (Brown et al., 2003), a response to current trends of hyperreality and globalness (Arnould and Price, 2000; Ballantyne et al., 2006), and a new business imperative of the experience economy (Gilmore and Pine, 2007). Being a socially constructed phenomenon (Beverland, 2006; Beverland et al., 2008, 2010; Grayson and Martinec, 2004; Rose and Wood, 2005; Thompson et al., 2006), several scholars have observed that brand authenticity has the power to legitimize a brand within in its context (Beverland, 2006; Beverland et al., 2008, 2010; Grayson and Martinec, 2004; Thompson et al, 2006). Concordantly, Aitken and Campelo (2011) underlined the importance of customers in engaging in the brand community and in co-creating brand meanings (Bertilsson and Cassinger, 2011). Nevertheless, also non-customers might have a crucial role in the construction of brand meanings, especially when they reject brands considered not authentic, generate anti-branding communities (Holt, 2002; Gustafsson, 2006), and diffuse a negative doppelganger of the brand image (Thompson et al., 2006). In particular, the new generation of Millennials (i.e., the cohort born after 1982, Howe and Strauss, 2009) plays a relevant role in creating brand communities that might sustain or reject brands depending on the perceived brand authenticity (Lantos, 2014), which could undermine the legitimization of well established brands. Therefore, the aim of this study is to profile the Millennials’ perceptions of brand authenticity in relation to their experience with well established brands. In particular, the relationships between brand authenticity and brand related constructs (i.e., brand image, brand trust and premium price) has been considered.