Brand Identity and Online Self-Customisation Usefulness Perception

Online self-customisation (OSC) enables customers to tailor their preferences to certainproduct features via a brand-hosted online platform. Recent literature has given increasingattention to how consumers value OSC. However, extant research is characterised by ascarcity of understanding the effects of brand identity and individual differences on consumerresponses to OSC. The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of trust and themoderating role of need for uniqueness on the effects of brand identity prestige and brandidentity similarity on consumer perceived usefulness of OSC. A field survey, through mallintercept, was conducted to test this conceptual framework. Our findings advance this fieldby finding that, not only the brand identity and consumer need for uniqueness, but also theinteraction between them may affect consumers’ evaluation of OSC Publisher Statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Marketing Management on 20th April 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0267257X.2016.1170720