The impact of incongruent vs. congruent food brand pairings

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the effect of congruity within a food brand constellation on consumer attitudes, positive electronic word-of mouth, and willingness to pass along via social media. The empirical context focuses on food brands that tend to be traditionally consumed while watching sport. The study of congruity within brand constellations is important as food companies spend large sums of money on endorsers in their message promotions. After watching a short video on baseball, a sample of 250 students was shown two fake food brands stimuli ads, one featuring a congruent pairing (chips and soda) and the other, incongruent (chips and kale smoothie). The findings suggest that congruent pairings lead to better positive brand attitudes and positive word-of-mouth towards the combined brand and that incongruent pairings incur more pass-along on social media.