consumer experience

Understanding Transparency in Brand Backstory Experience

Understanding Transparency in Brand Backstory Experience

  • ARF; MSI

As consumers increasingly expect brands to “open their doors,” companies respond by offering behind-the-scenes experiences, such as factory tours, visitor centers and brand museums. This MSI working paper shows that these encounters are not simple acts of openness, but carefully staged performances of transparency. Drawing on a multi-method, longitudinal investigation of four brand backstory sites, the authors conceptualize brand backstories as selectively disclosive narratives enacted in space. They demonstrate how brands strategically balance revealing and concealing to create the illusion of insider access—an experience that can strengthen authenticity perceptions when executed skillfully, but easily fracture when the performance breaks down.

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Defying the Odds: What Long-Term Brand Winners Do Differently

Defying the Odds: What Long-Term Brand Winners Do Differently

  • ARF | ARF Cognition Council
  • ARF ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Based on two decades of Brand Asset Valuator (BAV) data and a complementary custom study, this ARF Cognition Council report examines why some brands maintain strength over long periods while most decline. The research identifies differentiation, consistency, cultural relevance and sustained visibility as critical drivers of long-term brand resilience in the face of market and consumer change.

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Algorithmic Trade-Offs: How Regulating Recommendations Shapes E-Commerce Markets

Algorithmic Trade-Offs: How Regulating Recommendations Shapes E-Commerce Markets

  • ARF

What happens when governments regulate how platforms recommend products? A new study examining Amazon's compliance with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority rule—banning the use of Prime eligibility to determine “Featured Offers”—finds both gains and trade-offs. While the regulation did reduce self-preferencing and boosted price competition, it also led to fewer consumer purchases and lower product ratings, especially in niche markets.

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