Does Reputation Management Reap Rewards?
A Path Analysis of Corporate Reputation Advertising’s Impacts on
Brand Attitudes and Purchase Decisions
 
 

Jongmin Park
Doctoral Student
Missouri School of Journalism

Lisa Lyon
Doctoral Student
Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication
University of Georgia

Glen T. Cameron, Ph.D.
Professor
Missouri School of Journalism
 

Abstract

Claims are made for the importance of corporate reputation as essential to the effective, integrated  marketing of a company’s branded products.  Based on the Elaboration Likelihood and Combined-Effects Models of persuasion theory, an experiment was conducted to examine the value of one tool in corporate reputation management – the corporate ad or corporate image ad.  Using path analysis, findings indicate that the corporate reputation ad had a greater impact on purchase intention under low involvement conditions than under high involvement conditions.  Subjects who are unmotivated seem to rely more heavily on reputation information when making a purchase decision.  Notably, the reputation ad had no indirect impact in mediating the effects of attitude toward the brand and the brand ad on purchase intention.  Reputation effects in this study impacted only in a direct path upon purchase decision.  The Combined-Effects Model showed greater promise than the Elaboration Likelihood Model for further research on reputation and strategic communication campaign planning.