Conceptualising attitudes towards brand genuinuity: scale development and validation

This paper aims to conceptualise attitudes towards brand genuinuity by developing and validating a psychometric scale through four studies. Study 1 generates a pool of potential scale items through a review of the literature, thesaurus search, focus groups, and expert surveys. Study 2 confirms the unidimensionality of the scale items using confirmatory factor analysis. Study 3 establishes convergent, discriminant, predictive, and nomological validity. Finally, Study 4 confirms the generalisability of the scale by applying it in a different context. The process resulted in a 5-item unidimensional scale measuring attitudes towards the brand’s genuinuity. The results demonstrated that brand genuinuity is a unique construct, and distinct from related concepts, brand sincerity, and brand heritage. The development and validation of the current scale fill an important gap in the advertising literature. It provides a better understanding of and mechanism to measure attitudes towards brand genuinuity, which could not be measured with previous scales. Likewise, the scale provides important insights for brand managers and will be an important tool for managers to test and confirm the degree to which new advertising material exhibits brand genuinuity.