The impact of brand gender on brand equity

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of brand gender on brand equity across countries and cultures in various product domains. Design/methodology/approach – Consumers from ten countries on four continents rated 20 global brands, leading to a total of 16,934 cross-clustered observations. Linear mixed effect models examined a series of nested models, testing three novel brand gender effects with respect to the impact of androgynous brands on brand equity and the moderating role of consumers’ biological sex as well as individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Additional robustness tests provide support on form, metric, and scalar invariance of the measurements and the robustness of the observed effects across countries and cultures. Findings – The current research reveals that androgynous brands generate higher brand equity relative to exclusively masculine, exclusively feminine, and undifferentiated brands. The authors also show a brand gender congruence effect such that male consumers value masculine brands higher than females while female consumers value more feminine brands higher than males. Finally, highly masculine brands generate higher brand equity in more individualistic countries whereas highly feminine brands generate higher brand equity in more collectivistic countries. Originality/value – This is the first research examining and demonstrating the positive influence of androgynous brand gender perceptions on brand equity. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first paper examining brand gender effects across countries and cultures.