The Appeal of Copycats When the Horizon is Wide: How Broad Versus Narrow Mindset Influences Evaluation of Product Imitations

Copycat brands imitate the name, logo, and/or package design of a national brand to capitalize on the latter's positive associations and marketing efforts (Van Horen and Pieters 2012a; Zaichkowsky 2006). Past research investigating the success of copycat brands has focused on product characteristics, such as degree of similarity (Aribarg, Arora, Henderson, and Kim 2014; Loken, Ross, and Hinkle 1986), type of similarity (Van Horen and Pieters 2012b), price (Warlop and Alba 2004), and positioning (Sayman, Hoch, and Raju 2001; Van Horen and Pieters 2017). Although those prior studies have provided many insights about copycatting, notably, none of those studies has examined how consumer characteristics influence copycat evaluation. In the present studies we focus on the role of mindset in copycat evaluation and predict that a broad (inclusive and holistic information processing) as compared to a narrow mindset (exclusive and differentiating information processing) will positively affect copycat evaluation, independent of perceptions of similarity. When consumers process more inclusively, attending to the entire package, a transfer of positive associations is likely to occur, resulting in positive copycat evaluation (Van Horen and Pieters 2012a). When, on the other hand, a narrow mindset is activated, consumers will focus on the disparate imitated features and become more aware of the imitation practices used, causing reactance (Campbell and Kirmanı 2000; Friestad and Wright 1994; Van Horen and Pieters 2012b). We test this rationale in four studies. Study 1 (N = 385, students) tested whether holistic thinking was positively correlated with copycat evaluation. After completion of the holistic thinking scale (10-items, Choi, Dalal, Kim-Prieto, and Park 2003), participants evaluated the high similarity copycat "Bellamia"an imitation of "Bertolli" spreadable butter - and indicated their willingness to buy, all on 7-point scales (4 items collapsed, a = .88). The results showed that participants who are more inclined to think holistically evaluated the copycat more positively (ß = .14, t = 2.84, p = .01). Inclusion of the three control variables (familiarity with, evaluation, and purchase frequency of the imitated brand) did not change the pattern of results. Study 2 (N = 148, students) tested whether a direct perceptual measure of processing mindset, the Framed Line Task (Kitayama, Duffy, Kawamura, and Larsen 2003), predicts copycat evaluation. The FLT measures the