Reverse product placement, fictional brands and purchase intention:Fancy a coffee with Friends in ‘Central Perk’?

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International Journal of advertising, 32(3), pp. 399–417
© 2013 advertising association
Published by Warc, www.warc.com
doI: 10.2501/IJa-32-3-399-417
Fancy a coffee with Friends
in ‘Central Perk’?
Reverse product placement, fictional brands
and purchase intention
laurent Muzellec
University College Dublin, Ireland
Christopher Kanitz
University of Bremen, Germany
theodore lynn
Dublin City University, Ireland
fictional brands are brands that exist only in the world of fiction and not the real physical
world.reverse product placement consists of transforming these fictional brands into products
and services in the real physical world.this paper posits that consumers,despite having no pre-
existing experience of fictional brands in the real world,may develop positive attitudes towards
fictional brands; hence the fundamental managerial question is to ascertain whether these
positive attitudes can drive purchase intention to justify the investment into a real product or
service based on the fictional brand. using two fictional service brands, ‘Maclaren’s Pub’ and
‘Central Perk’, featured respectively in How I Met Your Mother and Friends, this study confirms
the existence of protobrands, and shows that attitudes towards a fictional brand are driven by
perceived service quality, identification with the brand and attitudes towards the television
programme. the study goes on to provide evidence that attitudes towards the fictional brand
can influence purchase intention of a future defictionalised brand in the real world.the paper
contributes to product placement and branding literature in a new emerging area.
Introduction
Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.
Walter Landor
this quote, attributed to Walter landor, suggests that brands may be created following a
process independent from the manufacturing of a product or the design of a service offer-
ing. the psychology-based approach of brand equity partially recognises this contention,
and also holds that brand equity exists when consumers have high levels of familiarity

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InternatIonal Journal of advertIsIng, 2013, 32(3)
with a brand with strong, unique and favourable brand associations (Keller 1993, 2008;
aaker & Joachimsthaler 2000). Hence the ultimate goal of branding is to capture a share
of the mind of potential consumers (ries & trout 2001; stern 2006).
for most brands, creating images in the minds of consumers is subsequent to the
manufacturing or service delivery process, and is undifferentiated from other elements of
the marketing mix. However, brand marketers may sometimes leverage brand images that
already exist in the minds of consumers. this technique is instrumental in the success of
retro-branding, where marketers circulate heritage stories and allegories that tap in to the
nostalgic psyche of consumers (Brown et al. 2003; Holt 2004). fictional brands may also
be another avenue for brand marketers to leverage existing ‘brand’ images prior to the
launch of a new product or service. fictional brands are brands that do not exist in the real
world yet, may possess strong and unique associations in the mind of viewers, and are cre-
ated in fictional media platforms (Muzellec et al. 2012). Muzellec et al. (2012) posit that a
proportion of fictional brands may have commercial potential, especially if they possess the
two key features of customer-based brand equity, i.e. brand salience (awareness) and posi-
tive brand associations. a number of fictional brands have crossed over from the fictional
world in which they initially reside to become real products. since 2007, ‘duff’ – a beer
brand featured in the animated television series The Simpsons – has been available for con-
sumption in europe. In 2011, ‘avion tequila’, from the HBo television series Entourage,
was also defictionalised and is now available as a real product in new York bars. More
recently, a fictional brand, ‘dunder Mifflin’ paper (originally a fictional brand in television
series The Office), was advertised during the 2013 superbowl.this phenomenon has been
referred to as ‘reverse product placement’, the placement of initially fictional brands in a
real market environment (edery 2006; Wasserman 2007). Commentators have suggested
that this strategy could be used as a means for launching brands at significantly lower costs
than creating new brands from first principles (edery 2006).
the literature on product placement holds that product placement may drive purchase
intention (Balasubramanian et al. 2006) but so far no research has examined whether atti-
tudes towards fictional brands could drive purchase of real product/services. this paper
aims to address this gap in the literature by proposing and testing a model that exposes the
antecedents (namely attitudes towards the brands, perceived quality and brand identifica-
tion) and consequences of the attitudes towards fictional service brands. It focuses on two
fictional service brands from the television programmes How I Met Your Mother and Friends.
the paper’s structure is as follows. first, the conceptual foundations are outlined and
a model is presented. the paper then details the methodology and presents the results
of an online questionnaire with 926 valid responses. the paper ends with a discussion of
managerial and theoretical implications from our results.
Conceptual foundation and model development
the subject of our study is novel, necessitating the definition of the object (fictional
brands) and the phenomenon (reverse product placement) under investigation.a fictional
brand is a non-existent brand used in artistic or entertainment productions – paintings,

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fanCY a Coffee WItH FRIENDS In ‘Central PerK’?
books, comics, movies, tv serials, etc. the fictional brand may be designed to imitate a
real corporate brand, satirise a real corporate brand or differentiate itself from real corpo-
rate brands (andersen & gray 2008). Hence, initially, fictional brands were created either
because corporations were unwilling to license their brand names for use in the fictional
work, particularly where the work holds the product in a negative light (lehu 2007) or
because the content creator was unwilling to feature real brands in their artistic produc-
tions. By way of example, Quentin tarantino has made use of a number of fictional brand
names, such as Big Kahuna Burger, a fictional Hawaiian-themed fast-food restaurant, or
red apple Cigarettes, a fictional cigarette brand. Muzellec and lynn (2010) have posited
that fictional brands may be used for commercial purposes through the process of foment-
ing a brand aura entirely in the abstract and the virtual,but capturing the imagination and
emotional attachment of real consumers. they labelled this phenomenon ‘brand preces-
sion’ as the virtual brand precedes the real and is not necessarily dependent on a physical
existence to generate commercial value. others have labelled this phenomenon reverse
product placement (edery 2006).
Product placement is based on well-developed concepts and a large body of empirical
results (Balasubramanian et al. 2006; lee et al. 2011; van reijmersdal 2011). one of the
benefits of product placement is the fact that audiences appreciate the realism that real
brands bring to a movie (lee et al. 2011). In other words, the practice of product place-
ment is about bringing the reality of products/brands into an abstract fictional world
when reverse product placement is exactly the opposite, i.e. bringing to life in the real
world an imaginary brand (Muzellec et al. 2012).
this study assesses both the antecedents and outcomes of fictional brand placement in
order to assess the potential of those brands as future real services. In order to build such
a model, the paper draws on two well-established streams of literature: product placement
and branding.the product placement literature and the branding literature both integrate
several factors that might influence attitudes towards a brand and conative outcomes
(Balasubramanian et al. 2006; de gregorio & sung 2010). this paper specifically high-
lights the importance of attitudes towards the television programme in which the fictional
service brand is presented, perceived fictional service quality, and identification with the
fictional service brand as drivers of attitudinal and conative outcomes (as measured by
intention to purchase).
the traditional branding literature posits that corporate associations or corporate
images of the makers or service provider influence customers’ perceptions of a brand and
in particular associations relating to the company’s capabilities for producing goods and
delivering services (Brown & dacin 1997; Berry 2000; Muzellec & lambkin 2007). for
fictional brands, the television programme within which the brand is created is the maker
of the brand and could therefore be equated to the corporate (master) brand.
the product placement and advertising literature also assume that attitudes towards
a placed product may be affected by a television programme genre, type and programme
induced mood. In fact, early studies showed that ‘happy’ television programmes, such
as tv sitcoms, produce happier moods and greater perceived advertising effective-
ness (goldberg & gorn 1987). russell (2002) also posits that affect may transfer from

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television programme to placed products. the audience of a popular television series is
exposed to the programme content over several months and seasons – exposure that is
compounded by reruns.during this period,a connection between the viewer and the tele-
vision programme develops (russell et al. 2004; Patino et al. 2011). several studies show
that television programmes influence viewers’ emotional experience, and may generate a
positive feeling and evaluation of brands placed or advertised during the programme (e.g.
Murry et al. 1992). this relationship can be explained by the depiction of possible con-
sumption patterns through the social roles and lifestyles of the characters using the prod-
ucts or services in the television programme, which may influence viewers’ consumption
patterns (Bang & sanchez 2002; Morton & friedman 2002). Hence, the connectedness
between the television programme viewers and the placed products or service can arise
from aspiration, modelling, imitation, fashion or even escape (russell et al. 2004). the
overall connectedness can be understood as an attitudinal evaluation of the television pro-
gramme. Hence, it is logical to posit a similar transfer between the television programme
and the fictional brand, and subsequently the real product.the hypothesis, H1, facilitates
the proposed relationship between the attitude towards the television programme and the
attitude towards the fictional service brand (russell & stern 2006):
H1: attitude towards a television programme has a positive influence on attitude
towards a fictional service brand.
the second identified antecedent of attitudes towards fictional brands is perceived fic-
tional service quality.
Consumer choice of service is driven by the service value,which comprises service price
(e.g. nowlis & simonson 1997; tse 2001) and service quality (Parasuraman et al. 1991;
Berry 2000; Hess et al. 2003; lin et al. 2009).In the context of fictional brands,the service
does not exist; hence the price variable is difficult to perceive – especially if no indication
of the price level of fictional products or services within the television programme is given.
Hence, in the context of fictional service brands, the perceived quality of the (service)
brand is a variable that can be used to determine future consumer choice.
several studies show that perceived quality of the service has a positive impact on the
overall evaluation of the brand (Berry 2000; Hess et al. 2003; dens & de Pelsmacker
2010). for fictional service brands, this perceived quality of the service can be witnessed
only through the programming context.viewers cannot experience the real service,yet they
are in an observation position and can therefore make judgements about the quality of the
service being delivered within the television programme. It is important to get a picture of
the past service and also the service recovery to provide a proper service evaluation (Hess
et al. 2003). Watching a television programme over several seasons provides a good oppor-
tunity for such an evaluation. notwithstanding this, not all service brands may possess the
positive brand associations necessary to build strong brand equity to justify an investment
for defictionalisation. ‘oceanic airlines’, for example, plays a central role in the television
series Lost and is also used in other television series such as Desperate Housewives and
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, among others. While it is a recognisable brand, in the context of

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television programming this fictional service brand is used for a specific narrative purpose:
‘oceanic airlines’ planes almost systematically crash or have serious flight incidents. It is
reasonable to assume that perceived service quality for such a fictional airline would be low,
and would result in negative attitudes towards the brand and an associated low purchase
intention. Conversely, one might posit that a high-quality perception of a fictional service
brand would have a positive impact on attitudes towards a fictional service brand:
H2: Perceived quality of a fictional service has a positive influence on attitude
Identification with a fictional brand may also be considered as an antecedent of attitude
towards a fictional brand. While watching a television programme, a connection between
the spectator and the television programme, and often also between the spectator and
the main characters of the programme, develops (russell 2002; russell et al. 2004). this
may result in viewers imitating the behaviours of characters in the television programme,
e.g. fans may speak like or dress themselves as characters from the programme (russell
et al. 2004). this phenomenon may be extended to the consumption of the brands fea-
tured within a television programme and associated with favoured characters. for real
brands, this topic has been discussed extensively in the product placement literature (e.g.
Balasubramanian et al. 2006). reverse product placement suggests that viewers may also
consume fictional brands featured in a television programme. the identification with a
brand is sometimes referred to as self-connection (aaker et al. 2004). self-connection
‘indicates strength through activation of the person’s identity system and contained items
capturing the degree to which the relationship delivered on centrally held identity themes,
or helped express real and collective selves’ (aaker et al. 2004, p. 7). therefore, the self-
connection is seen as an emotional attachment to a certain brand, and refers to a strong fit
between the identity of the brand and the person’s identity (aron et al. 2000).this emo-
tional attachment is strongly linked with the main characters in television programmes
and the brands they use. In conventional product placement literature, an influence of the
emotional attachment to a brand placed and used in a television programme on the over-
all evaluation of the brand was proven (russell & stern 2006). thus, in reverse product
placement, the identification with a fictional brand, understood as emotional attachment
to a fictional brand, should also have a positive impact on the overall evaluation of the
brand. Hence, hypothesis H3 facilitates the proposed relationship between identification
with a fictional service brand and attitude towards a fictional service brand:
H3: Identification with a fictional service brand has a positive influence on attitude
finally, multiple studies have shown that the attitude towards a brand has an influence
on the behavioural intentions of consumers (Keller & aaker 1992). specifically, research
suggests that attitudes towards a brand have a positive and significant effect on purchase
intention (e.g. Mitchell & olson 1981; gresham & shimp 1985; ailawadi et al. 2001). In

404
addition, marketing practitioners and academics claim that, under certain conditions, prod-
uct placement increases sales and purchase intention (Balasubramanian et al. 2006; lehu
2007; lin & Cho 2010). applied to fictional brands, this implies a relationship between
attitude towards a fictional service brand and purchase intention of a fictional service brand:
H4: attitude towards a fictional service brand has a positive influence on purchase
intention of a fictional service brand.
Hypotheses H1 to H4 are summarised by the structural framework shown in figure 1.
Methodology
the empirical tests comprise two stages. In the first stage, we conducted a pre-test to
obtain baseline evidence about the awareness of the fictional service brands and their ori-
gins, which are used in our framework. Building on the initial evidence from the pre-test,
we then performed the second stage of the analysis, which is a quantitative evaluation of
the structural model. the main study was conducted to test hypotheses H1 to H4 using
a structural equation modelling (seM) approach (Bagozzi & Yi 2012).
Pre-test
High level of familiarity and exposure to a brand is a necessary condition to the effective-
ness of product placement as well as positive attitudes towards the brand (low & lamb
2000).this may also be true for reverse product placements (Muzellec et al.2012).Hence,
participants in the survey need to be familiar with the fictional brands and with the tele-
vision programme within which the brands are being placed. as such, a three-step pre-
study was conducted to investigate fictional brand awareness.In the first step,a survey was
Figure 1: Structural model with hypotheses
H2(+)
H3(+)
H1(+) H4(+)Attitude towards
the TV programme
(ATV)
Identification with
the fictional service
brand (IDB)
Perceived
service quality
(PQB)
Purchase intention
of the fictional service
brand (PIB)
Attitude towards
the fictional service
brand (AFB)

405
conducted resulting in a list of more than 100 fictional brands. as a result of a qualitative
survey the majority of those fictional brands featured on the list have been identified as
not well known to the general public; 13 fictional product and service brands from ten
television programmes or movies were pre-selected in that first step.
In step 2 of the pre-study, these brands were presented to a convenience sample of
undergraduate students. the suitability of student samples in advertising research has
been challenged as several authors state that students differ in important ways from the
populations typically of interest to researchers (e.g. James & sonner 2001). But, still, stu-
dents are an important target group for international advertising due to their high degree
of education and their probable international orientation (Backhaus et al. 2001). student
samples have been used extensively in product placement studies (nebenzahl & secunda
1993; gupta, Balasubramanian & Klassen 2000; sung et al. 2009). a sample size of N =
252 college students was composed conducting the pre-study.the participants were asked
to answer two questions:
1. the first question was focused on the awareness of the fictional origin (e.g. television
programme or movie): ‘Do you know the following TV show/movie: _______?’
2. the second question was focused on the awareness of the fictional brand: ‘Do you know
the following brand _______ within the TV show/movie: _______?’
the answers to the pre-study were analysed by examining the level of brand awareness of
the television programmes or movies as well as the fictional brands. as a result, six cases
with a high brand awareness of the origin as well as the actual fictional brand were identi-
fied: ‘Moe’s tavern’,‘duff Beer’(The Simpsons),‘Maclaren’s Pub’,‘goliath national Bank’
(How I Met Your Mother), ‘Central Perk’ (Friends) and ‘Bertie Bott’s every flavour Beans’
(Harry Potter) (see table 1).
Table 1: Summary of pre-study results
Fictional brand Origin of fictional brand Awareness of brand Awareness of origin
Moe’s Tavern The Simpsons 0.877 1.000
Duff Beer The Simpsons 0.873 1.000
MacLaren’s Pub How I Met Your Mother 0.839 0.960
Goliath National Bank How I Met Your Mother 0.802 0.960
Central Perk Café Friends 0.784 0.992
Bertie Bott’s Every Flavoured Beans Harry Potter 0.746 1.000
Bubba Gump Shrimps Forrest Gump 0.351 0.960
ACME Looney Tunes 0.291 0.940
Booty Sweat Tropic Thunder 0.219 0.290
Big Kahuna Burger Pulp Fiction 0.213 0.968
Cyberdyne Corp. Terminator 0.112 0.603
Slurm Futurama 0.108 0.623
Red Apple Cigarettes Pulp Fiction 0.086 0.968

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finally, the relevant brands were structured. each case was reviewed to assess whether
the brand, as presented, was positive or negative. If negative, the brand was removed as
the potential for brand equity was limited by this factor ab initio. on this basis, ‘goliath
national Bank’from How I Met Your Mother was removed, as the brand symbolises a ‘bad’
bank in a fun and entertaining way. this example can be compared with the aforemen-
tioned ‘oceanic airlines’ brand. as a result only five brands were considered for further
exploration.these five fictional brands were structured by a 2 × 2 matrix with the dimen-
sions ‘category’ (product vs service) and ‘movie/programme type’ (animated vs non-animated
origin) as shown in figure 2.
Main study
this study focuses on non-animated fictional service brands in situational comedy televi-
sion programmes. service brands often play a major role within a television programme
due to their use as a primary setting for the television programme. this ensures con-
tinuous and repetitive exposure. In both Friends and How I Met Your Mother (hereinafter
referred to as HIMYM), a café (‘Central Perk’) and a bar (‘Maclaren’s Pub’), respectively,
are the core settings for much of the television programmes and as such are the focus for
our main study.
Procedure and sampling
once the fictional brands for the main study were chosen, we proceeded to design a ques-
tionnaire aimed at an international audience.the main questionnaire,which was based on
the applied constructs,was set up in english and then translated into german and french.
Figure 2: Systemisation of fictional brands
Category
Movie/programmetype
Products Services
Central Perk Café
(Friends)
McLaren’s Pub
(How I MetYour Mother)
Bertie Bott’s
Every Flavoured Beans
(Harry Potter)
Duff Beer
(The Simpsons)
Moe’s Tavern
(The Simpsons)
Non-animated
Animated

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a non-probability convenience sample was employed to elicit data from a snowball sample
of respondents interested in either one of the two investigated tv programmes.this form
of sampling is often used when it is impossible to identify beforehand all those who might
fall into the project’s category of interest (Hall & Hall 1996; Winkler & Buckner 2006).
this is the case, as only respondents interested in the tv programmes and knowing the
tv programme as well as the placed fictional service brand can be further considered.
one of the problems with using snowball sampling is the fact that it is unlikely to
obtain a representative sample, because there is no real control of the snowball effect
(Winkler & Buckner 2006). therefore, only respondents within the advertising-relevant
target group of 18 until 49 years were further considered. the online questionnaire was
initially sent via email and social networking sites to respondents in four different coun-
tries: france, germany, Ireland and the us. the respondents were incentivised to pass
on the questionnaire to their social network and to participate themselves in the study
through entry in a lottery to win a dvd box set of either HIMYM or Friends. each
questionnaire (english, french and german) had one winner. as the questionnaire was
distributed online and through social networking sites, there is no information as to how
many people received the survey link.therefore, response rates cannot be calculated.
the main qualification for the sample was the brand knowledge of the participants.
the participants were surveyed on their familiarity with the television programmes
Friends and HIMYM, and the brands ‘Central Perk’and ‘Maclaren’s Pub’using a 7-point
likert scale where 1 represented ‘not at all’and 7 represented ‘very well’. If the rating on
either scale was below 3 for either the origin or the brand, meaning awareness would be
very remote or non-existent, they were excluded from the sample.
due to the length of the questionnaire – the duration of which was on average 10 min-
utes – and to avoid dependencies between the answers of the two brands, the order of the
fictional brands were randomised. In addition, items for each construct were randomised,
thus lowering the likelihood of dependencies between the answers for the items.
Before analysing the data, the whole dataset was cleaned. this comprised three steps.
first, the questionnaires were separated into two datasets based on the television pro-
gramme, i.e. Friends or HIMYM. of 969 questionnaires, 1,895 cases (966 for HIMYM
and 929 for Friends) were extracted. second, all responses without any data relating to the
knowledge of the television programme or the fictional brand were excluded.all responses
with little or no knowledge of the television programme or the fictional brand were
excluded, as well. this procedure excluded 668 (35.3%) cases (396 for HIMYM and 272
for Friends) from the sample.finally,all questionnaires with too many missing values (more
than 10%) were eliminated.this procedure excluded 301 (15.9%) cases (118 for HIMYM
and 183 for Friends) from the sample.table 2 summarises the data cleaning of the sample.
the final sample comprised 926 cases (452 for HIMYM and 474 for Friends). five
major clusters were considered based on geographic location: france (326 cases, 35.2%),
germany (242 cases, 26.1%), the uK/Ireland (138 cases, 14.9%), the us (111 cases,
12.0%) and the rest of the world (109 cases, 11.8%). the final sample was composed
of 52.7% women and 47.3% men. the age range was from 18 to 49 years (advertising-
relevant target group).

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Measures
all scales were drawn from previous research. a list of all the factors and measured items
can be seen in table 3.
Dependent variables
attitude towards brand (afB) has been investigated by a substantial amount of stud-
ies. Many different combinations of items have been used and tested. for the context
of fictional service brands, items with a good fit for services needed to be defined. ‘Like/
dislike’, ‘good/bad’ and in the case of the setting’s atmosphere, ‘pleasant/unpleasant’, were
deemed suitable descriptors of our service-oriented measurement. this scale had already
been used by other studies in the context of advertising research and proved highly reli-
able (Mitchell 1986; griffith & Chen 2004). the construct was measured on a 7-point
semantic differential scale (griffith & Chen 2004). Concerning the outcome variable, the
purchase intention (PIB) was based on stafford (1998) and stafford et al. (2002). they
investigated consumer attitudes and advertising perceptions in a service context. the
scale used was initially called ‘conative attitude toward the ad’ (stafford 1998). We used a
three-item scale: I would like to try this pub; I would actively seek out this pub (in my city in
order to buy a drink); I would patronise this pub. other product-orientated studies,especially
within advertising research, referred to a similar scale (neese & taylor 1994; griffith &
Chen 2004).the construct was measured on a 7-point likert scale (stafford et al. 2002).
Independent variables
the first independent variable was attitude towards the television programme (atv).the
attitude towards the television programme measures the overall evaluation of a television
programme (russell 2002; russell et al. 2004). However, the items used by russell (2002)
introduce localisation issues in the research context for this paper. for example, the item
‘favourable/unfavourable’ cannot be translated into german and french, and therefore was
replaced with ‘pleasant/unpleasant’.this three-item scale of semantic differentials was also
used in different studies concerning the attitude to a specific object, and proved reliable
(griffith & Chen 2004).the second independent variable is the perceived service quality
Table 2: Data cleaning
How I Met Your Mother Friends Total
Number of questionnaires 969
Number of cases 966 929 1,895
Elimination
1) Knowledge of TV show/brand 396 272 668
2) Missing values (<0.10) 118 183 301
Eliminated cases 514 455 969
Considered cases 452 474 926

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Table3:Scaleitemsforconstructmeasurement
Constructname/itemsMean
Standard
deviation
Cronbach’s
alpha
Composite
reliability
Averagevariance
extracted
Factor
loading
Item
reliability
AttitudetowardstheTVshow(Russell2002;Griffith&Chen2004;
Mitchell1986;Yi1990)
6.11.20.950.950.85
Like/dislike0.910.82
Good/bad0.930.86
Pleasant/unpleasant0.930.87
Perceivedservicequality(Taylor&Baker1994;Bansaletal.2005)4.31.40.890.890.73
Ibelievethatthegeneralqualityof‘MacLaren’sPub’s’servicesislow0.820.67
Overall,Iconsider‘MacLaren’sPub’s’servicestobeexcellent0.870.75
Thequalityof‘MacLaren’sPub’s’servicesseemstobegenerallyhigh0.870.76
Attitudetowardsthebrand(Griffith&Chen2004;Mitchell1986;Yi1990)5.11.30.940.940.83
Like/dislike0.910.82
Good/bad0.930.87
Pleasant/unpleasant0.900.81
Purchaseintention(Stafford1998;Staffordetal.2002)4.61.80.770.770.53
Iwouldliketotrythispub0.750.57
Iwouldactivelyseekoutthispub(inmycityinordertobuyadrink)0.750.56
Iwouldpatronisethispub0.680.47

410
of the fictional service brand. as a service brand is different from a product brand, service
measurements need to be applied. taylor and Baker (1994) and Bansal et al. (2005) used
a three-item scale to measure global service quality. We adapted the scale into the context
of fictional brands and used a 7-point likert scale to measure the construct (taylor &
Baker 1994; Bansal et al. 2005). the last independent variable is the identification with
the fictional service brand previously measured by aaker et al. (2004) using a five-item
scale.they referred to it as a measurement of self-connection, which can be interpreted as
identification with the brand, as explained previously. these items were measured in our
study using a 7-point likert scale, as proposed (aaker et al. 2004).
each measurement item is presented in table 3 and includes relevant factor charac-
teristics, such as mean, standard deviation, Cronbach’s alpha, composite reliability, average
variance extracted (ave), factor loadings and item reliabilities for all scales (fornell &
larcker 1981; Hair et al. 2010; Bagozzi & Yi 2012). all scales had a sufficient reliabil-
ity for all constructs (e.g. Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliabilities are between 0.77
and 0.95). furthermore, all item reliabilities are above the recommended value of 0.40
(Bagozzi & Baumgartner 1994).the variance extracted was above 0.40 for each construct,
giving evidence of convergent validity (Bagozzi & Yi 2012).
to assess convergent and discriminant validity of our construct operationalisations, we
conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (Cfa) using aMos 16.0. the overall results
were: rMsea = 0.07, CfI = 0.96, gfI = 0.93, IfI = 0.96 and tlI = 0.96. Considering
the sample size and the number of parameters estimated,these results suggest the measure-
ment models are an acceptable fit to the data (Baumgartner & Homburg 1996; Hair et al.
2010; Bagozzi & Yi 2012).We assessed the discriminant validity of the construct measures
using the criterion proposed by fornell and larcker (1981). It suggests that discriminant
validity is supported if the average variance extracted (ave) exceeds the squared correla-
tion between all pairs of constructs. all pairs of constructs met this criterion.
Analysis and results
as the differences between the investigated geographic region clusters are rather low,
focus will be given to the overall examination of cross-geography study results. results of
the analyses are presented in table 4 and discussed below.
Independent variables
Concerning the attitudinal construct, the attitude towards the television programme
(atv) had a strong positive effect on the overall attitude towards the fictional brand (b =
0.450,t = 14.979,p < 0.001).the result,consistent with H1,indicates a strong connection
between the fictional origin and the fictional brand.
Consistent with H2, we also show that the perceived quality of the fictional service
brand (PQB) had a strong positive effect on the overall attitude towards the brand (b =
0.306, t = 9.608, p < 0.001). thus, as the brand is still fictional and does not have a real
product or service attached, the evaluation of the quality is rather complicated. Instead of
a real product experience the product quality has to be evaluated through pure perception

411
and imagination, as the fictional brand is not real yet. therefore, the standardised coef-
ficient is lower than for the attitude towards the television programme.
the identification with the fictional service brand (IdB) has a high positive impact on
the overall attitude towards the fictional brand as well (b = 0.376, t = 11.826, p < 0.001).
this result is consistent with H3.the self-connection with the brand,as defined by aaker
et al. (2004), therefore influences the overall evaluation of the fictional brand.
the degree of explanation for the attitude towards the fictional brand is rather moderate
(R2
= 0.437). this shows that, in addition to (i) the attitude towards the television pro-
gramme,(ii) the perceived service quality of the fictional service brand and (iii) identification
with the fictional service brand, further antecedents exist that need to be studied in future.
Dependent variable
Concerning the dependent variable,we show the behavioural relevance of fictional brands.
the results support H4. the attitude towards the fictional brand (afB) has a strong
positive effect on the purchase intention of the fictional brand (b = 0.602, t = 16.718, p <
0.001, R2
= 0.362).
the overall results of the global fit indices were: rMsea = 0.08, CfI = 0.94, gfI =
0.90, IfI = 0.94 and tlI = 0.93.
General discussion
research on fictional brands is in its infancy. as the research in this field is largely
theoretical, an empirical investigation of the drivers and behavioural relevance of fictional
brands was requested (Muzellec et al. 2012).this study answers this request in relation to
fictional service brands, and confirms the positive relationship between attitude towards
the television programme, perceived service quality and fictional brand identification with
the attitude towards the fictional brand for the case of fictional service brands. these
antecedents would appear to be major determinants in the overall evaluation of the atti-
tude towards a fictional service brand, thus influencing consumer behaviour.the findings
provide a first direct examination of fictional service brands.this shows that the fictional
Table 4: Summary of study results
Unstandardised coefficients
(standard errors)
Standardised
coefficient Hypotheses results
ATV → AFB 0.436 (0.029)*** 0.450*** H1 supported
PQB → AFB 0.281 (0.029)*** 0.306*** H2 supported
IDB → AFB 0.301 (0.025)*** 0.376*** H3 supported
AFB → PIB 0.638 (0.038)*** 0.602*** H4 supported
R-square AFB 0.437
R-square PIB 0.362
***p < 0.001
RMSEA = 0.08; CFI = 0.94; GFI = 0.90; IFI = 0.94; TLI = 0.93

412
service brand may have the potential to be used in real life as real services, as viewers show
an interest in those services as measured by possible purchase intention. these findings
have both theoretical and managerial implications.
Theoretical implications
this study, which is at the crossroads of the literature on branding (and in particular
service brands) and product placement, contributes to those two academic disciplines. By
demonstrating that fictional service brands may drive purchase intention, the study rein-
forces the notion of brands as purely iconic and symbolic devices (duncan & Moriarty
1998). In building brand value, ‘perception is more important than reality’ (duncan &
Moriarty 1998). abela (2003) proposes an additive interpretation of a brand, which
depicts the product and brand as separate, with the brand as a mark that is added to the
product. this study goes further by showing that brands may be created without any
connection to a real product or service, and confirms the proposition of ‘protobrands’, i.e.
fictional brands representing brand potential rather than reality (Muzellec et al. 2012).
respondents in this study had developed some level of familiarity with the fictional
brands and also had some mental images of the fictional brands. If, as is often suggested,
brands exist only once they capture the imagination of potential consumers (Keller 1993),
this study provides a concrete illustration of this notion. although no services really
existed, consumers evaluated the fictional brands based on dimensions such as perceived
service quality. one might argue that the brand is therefore in the process of becoming
‘real’ in the mind of the consumers, as evidenced by consumers’ eagerness to associate
themselves with the fictional brand.they also show an appetite for visiting the displayed
service brand if it did in fact exist in reality. the positive relationship between the brand
and purchase intention of the potential service shows that fictional brands may effectively
be ‘defictionalised’ for the pleasure of the television programme viewers and the benefit
of the brand owner. tangible services may be created out of what was originally a simu-
lacrum.therefore reverse product placement could be used as an innovative technique of
fomenting images in the mind of consumers to entice future consumption of the service
at some later date. Most traditional brand-building models assume that the product/
service is at the heart of brand equity (Keller 1993; aaker & Joachimsthaler 2000; Berry
2000). However, reverse product placement challenges the traditional models of brand
management; the data gathered from this particular research show that brands may be
built without any reliance on a physical product/service. the brand may initially just be
a sum of images that are fomented in a fictional environment. the ‘productisation’ of the
brand may occur well after the launch of the fictional brand, when the trademark is being
registered and/or while the brand is being monetised.
Managerial implications
as the behavioural relevance of fictional service brands has now been demonstrated, this
provides an opportunity for marketing practitioners or media creators to use the concept

413
of fictional brands to foment future services and products, retrospectively or by design
ab initio.
a us-based agency has already started to commercialise fictional brands retrospec-
tively. omni Consumer Products is a product development company with a focus on
licensing, defictionalisation and reverse branding. It has launched a number of defiction-
alised brands, including ‘sex Panther’ cologne from the film Anchorman and ‘tru Blood’
bottled blood from the television series, True Blood. equally, the success of ‘duff’, the
beer from The Simpsons and ‘final fantasy’ energy drinks from the video games of the
same name clearly indicates that there is a market for fictional brands. Chang, newell
and salmon (2009) have proposed three business process models for product placement:
serendipitous (through chance), opportunistic and planned product placement. similar
categories could be used for reverse product placement, but so far the initiatives described
above seem to have been opportunistic rather than planned. there is no evidence of
design ab initio. In the case of ‘duff’ beer, the defictionalisation occurred independently
of the brand creator (fox), suggesting that not only are fictional brands an opportunity to
exploit but also a risk to mitigate.
Instead of the traditional attitude of piggy-backing on existing brands through brand
extensions,companies could be much more proactive by creating,embedding and protect-
ing fictional brands with a view to future defictionalisation. Management should consider
the development of fictional brands through traditional and non-traditional media until
such point as a market for licensing, merchandising or other defictionalisation exists.
situation comedies may be particularly suited to such strategies due to their endurance,
frequency, syndication likelihood and positive induced moods. soap operas may have
similar advantages.
Management should consider fomenting fictional brands on media platforms such as
movies and computer games. the fomenting of fictional brands should not be viewed as
independent of conventional product placement, but complementary.While conventional
product placement serves as a direct income source for film studios prior to production,
the effect of fictional brand is time-displaced; rent generation is derived post-production,
as in the case of ‘Bertie Bott’s every flavour Beans’ from Harry Potter, now licensed and
sold by Jelly Belly Beans Company.
Limitations and future research
this study represents an initial foray into research in the area of fictional service brands.
as such, it represents a substantial mine for further research. first, the three factors
considered (attitude towards the television programme, perceived quality of the fictional
brand and identification with the fictional brand) accounted for only 43.7% of the
variance of attitudes towards the fictional service brands. although this is significant, it
also means that several other factors are not yet being taken into consideration, such as
programme-induced mood, viewer predisposition towards advertising and programme
modality, among others. this study focused on two situation comedies that, by their
nature, are designed to induce positive mood. similarly, in the current study, ‘Central

414
Perk’ and ‘Maclaren’s Pub’ play central roles in the narrative of their respective tele-
vision programmes. they are featured in nearly every episode, resulting in high levels of
repeat brand exposure. further investigation is needed to determine the impact of various
execution variables, individual preferences (including predisposition to advertising) and
processing depth on outcomes.
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About the authors
laurent Muzellec is a lecturer at Michael smurfit graduate Business school where he
teaches marketing management and digital marketing communication at masters and
MBa level. He is the programme director of the Msc in digital Marketing. His research
interests pertain to the field of corporate brand management,fictional brands and (reverse)
product placement and social media marketing. His articles have appeared in several
international publications including Industrial Marketing Management, Marketing Theory,
the Journal of Product and Brand Management and the European Journal of Marketing.
since 2009, Christopher Kanitz is a research associate at the Chair of innovative
Brand Management at the university of Bremen in germany. subsequently he works as
a management consultant at KeYlens Management Consultants.His research interests
are related to brand management,brand architecture,customer management and strategic
marketing.He holds a diploma from the university of Mannheim and was a research fel-
low at the essCa Business school in angers and Paris, france, and a visiting lecturer at
the Institute of International studies in Bangkok,thailand. He is author of publications
in journals such as the Marketing ZFP – Journal of Research and Management, Marketing
Review, Journal of Medical Marketing and the Pharma Marketing Journal.
theodore lynn is a senior lecturer at dCu Business school where he teaches stra-
tegic thinking and digital marketing. He is Principal Investigator of the Irish Centre for
Cloud Computing and Commerce and a director of Marketinglab, an applied market-
ing technology research centre based at dublin City university. dr lynn has set up and
sold a number of software companies and is a Partner in the 30/60 seed Capital venture
fund. He advises a number of Irish and international companies.
address correspondence to: laurent Muzellec, Michael smurfit graduate school of
Business, university College dublin, Carysfort avenue, Blackrock, Co. dublin, Ireland.
email: laurent.muzellec@ucd.ie

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