Perceived Popularity and Demand of a Brand’s Products

1. Abstract

The Perceived Popularity and Demand of a Brand’s Products scale is a psychometric instrument developed and validated in consumer psychology and marketing literature to assess subjective consumer assessments regarding the commercial momentum, public adoption, and aggregate consumer interest surrounding a specific brand’s offerings. Formally introduced into the literature on inventory disposal and scarcity perceptions by Nguyen, Bucic, Ngo, and Oppewal (2023) in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the scale investigates the downstream psychological and behavioral consequences of brand operational decisions—specifically overstock reduction strategies such as charitable donation versus aggressive price discounting.

The instrument operationalizes perceived popularity and product demand as a coherent, unidimensional latent construct reflecting how widely favored, commercially sought-after, and socially endorsed a brand’s product lines are perceived to be. Typically measured via multi-item 7-point Likert or semantic-differential response formats, the scale exhibits robust psychometric properties across diverse retail settings. Empirical evaluations across experimental investigations demonstrate high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha coefficients consistently exceeding .85; composite reliability values above .88) and strong convergent and discriminant validity relative to adjacent brand equity dimensions such as perceived quality, brand prestige, and perceived value. By capturing how market signaling and product disposal mechanisms influence consumer inferences of market desirability, the instrument provides an empirical bridge connecting operational retail strategies, signaling theory, and consumer-based brand equity evaluations.

2. Keywords

Perceived popularity, brand demand, consumer inferences, signaling theory, scarcity effects, overstock reduction, disposal-based scarcity, brand equity, social proof, consumer psychology, retail marketing, psychometrics.

3. Authors

The scale was adapted and validated in the context of disposal-based scarcity mechanisms by the following academic researchers:

• Oanh Dinh Yen Nguyen — Department of Marketing, Monash Business School, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
• Tania Bucic — School of Marketing, UNSW Business School, University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Sydney, Australia.
• Liem Viet Ngo — School of Marketing, UNSW Business School, University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), Sydney, Australia.
• Harmen Oppewal — Department of Marketing, Monash Business School, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

Corresponding inquiries regarding the empirical studies and theoretical background can be directed to the researchers through their institutional affiliations or via the editorial management system of the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science.

4. Purpose

The primary purpose of the Perceived Popularity and Demand of a Brand’s Products scale is to provide an empirical instrument for capturing consumer cognitive inferences about how popular, culturally prevalent, and commercially desired a focal brand’s merchandise is within the marketplace. In consumer behavior and marketing research, objective sales volumes, inventory velocity metrics, and market share statistics are often proprietary or invisible to ordinary shoppers. As a result, consumers routinely rely on observable extrinsic cues—such as retail inventory levels, promotion formats, and overstock liquidation strategies—to form subjective estimations regarding whether products are flying off shelves or languishing unsold.

Theoretical Rationale

The theoretical necessity for this measurement instrument stems from the intersection of information asymmetry and consumer heuristics. When consumers lack direct information about product quality, market validation, or performance, they use perceived popularity as an informational proxy. Nguyen et al. (2023) demonstrated that when brands liquidate surplus inventory via deep price discounts, consumers frequently infer that low demand, inferior quality, or waning trendiness necessitated the price reduction. Conversely, when brands utilize alternative disposal avenues—such as high-profile charitable donations or controlled destocking—the perceived popularity and demand of the product portfolio remain insulated from the negative brand dilution that typically accompanies clearance sales.

Research and Practical Applications

The scale serves diverse applications in experimental consumer psychology, quantitative marketing modeling, and strategic brand management:

• Testing Signaling and Scarcity Hypotheses: Enables researchers to examine how artificial versus natural product availability alters consumer appraisals of desirability and social proof.
• Evaluating Reverse Supply Chain & Overstock Interventions: Serves as a diagnostic dependent or mediating variable when measuring the reputational damage or preservation associated with outlet distribution, off-price retail placement, or sustainable disposal channels.
• Assessing Brand Equity Spillover: Allows brand strategists to track how promotional intensity affects aggregate consumer perceptions of product velocity, trend leadership, and brand exclusivity.
• Exploring Social Contagion & Bandwagon Dynamics: Facilitates investigations into peer influence, social signaling, and herd behavior within luxury, fashion, and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industries.

5. Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by this instrument is perceived popularity and demand, conceptualized as a cognitive inference wherein an individual consumer forms a generalized mental model regarding the market acceptance, purchase frequency, and aggregate desire of other consumers for a brand’s products. Rather than quantifying a consumer’s own personal desire or purchase intent, the construct targets other-oriented informational perceptions.

Core Dimensions and Sub-Facet Breakdown

Although operationalized as a parsimonious, unidimensional scale in empirical settings, the construct encompasses several underlying psychological dimensions that collectively establish the holistic perception of brand demand:

1. Perceived Market Velocity and Adoption: This dimension taps into consumer inferences about the speed and volume of transactions. A consumer evaluating high market velocity assumes that goods are rapidly purchased, that replenishment cycles are frequent, and that inventory rarely sits stagnant. For example, a customer observing sold-out sizes of a designer sneaker implicitly infers high market adoption.
2. Social Proof and Collective Endorsement: Drawing upon the concept of social proof, this sub-facet reflects the belief that many peers and aspirational referents actively choose the brand. High scores on this dimension signify that the consumer believes the brand possesses widespread cultural resonance, peer approval, and social validation.
3. Supply-Demand Equilibrium Inferences: This dimension assesses how consumers interpret inventory availability relative to consumer appetite. In the framework of Nguyen et al. (2023), surplus stock triggers attributions regarding why items went unsold. If consumers interpret excess supply as an indicator of miscalculated manufacturing rather than consumer rejection, perceived baseline demand remains stable. Conversely, if excess stock is attributed to consumer apathy, perceived demand collapses.
4. Product Desirability and Trend Relevance: This element evaluates whether the brand’s products are perceived as contemporary, sought-after status markers or obsolete, out-of-favor commodities. When perceived demand is high, consumers assume that the brand’s offerings are aligned with prevailing consumer tastes and lifestyle aspirations.

6. Theoretical Framework

The Perceived Popularity and Demand scale is grounded in four major theoretical frameworks across marketing, social psychology, and behavioral economics:

1. Signaling Theory

Originally formulated by Michael Spence in economics, signaling theory posits that in conditions of information asymmetry, uninformed parties search for observable signals emitted by informed parties to infer unobservable qualities. In a commercial context, retail actions—such as marking down excess units by 70% or donating excess stock to humanitarian causes—serve as diagnostic signals. Nguyen et al. (2023) show that aggressive price discounting signals low intrinsic consumer interest, depressing perceived popularity. In contrast, non-commercial disposal channels (e.g., product donation) prevent the negative signaling of market rejection, sustaining high levels of perceived demand.

2. Attribution Theory

Rooted in the work of Fritz Heider and Harold Kelley, attribution theory explores how individuals assign causal explanations to events. When consumers observe excess inventory, they engage in causal attribution: Is the overstock due to an external miscalculation by the retailer (e.g., overproduction, supply chain misforecasts) or internal product flaws (e.g., poor design, lack of appeal, overpriced goods)? The Perceived Popularity and Demand scale directly measures the cognitive outcome of these attributions; negative attributions depress the construct, while charitable or neutral attributions protect it.

3. Commodity Theory and Scarcity Heuristics

Timothy Brock’s commodity theory posits that any psychological commodity will be valued more to the extent that it is perceived as unavailable or scarce. In retail environments, when consumers encounter disposal-based scarcity, they apply scarcity heuristics: scarce products are perceived as highly demanded, whereas abundant, discounted items are categorized as low in demand. The scale measures the cognitive manifestation of these scarcity-demand associations.

4. Social Proof and Bandwagon Dynamics

As articulated by Robert Cialdini, individuals frequently use the actions and choices of others to determine appropriate behavior, especially under uncertainty. Perceived popularity represents an internal metric of social proof. If a brand’s products are perceived as highly demanded by others, consumers mentally assign higher prestige, reliability, and social utility to that brand, activating bandwagon effects that enhance brand evaluation and willingness to pay.

7. Validity

The scale exhibits rigorous psychometric properties supported by classical test theory and structural equation modeling (SEM) standards:

Construct and Convergent Validity

Convergent validity has been evaluated across multiple multi-method experimental designs. Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values for the scale items consistently exceed the established benchmark of .50, often reaching between .68 and .78. Standardized factor loadings across all items routinely surpass .75 (with all values significant at p < .001), indicating that the scale items capture a large proportion of common variance associated with the latent construct.

Discriminant Validity

Discriminant validity has been rigorously demonstrated against theoretically related but conceptually distinct marketing constructs, including:

• Perceived Brand Quality: Ensuring that perceptions of consumer interest do not merely collapse into general functional quality ratings.
• Perceived Brand Prestige: Confirming that popularity can be separated from luxury or elite positioning, as mass-market brands can be perceived as high in demand without possessing high luxury prestige.
• Personal Purchase Intentions: Distinguishing an individual respondent’s personal likelihood of buying from their perception of aggregate marketplace adoption.

Following the Fornell-Larcker criterion, the square root of the AVE for perceived popularity and demand consistently exceeds its highest inter-construct correlations with adjacent variables. Furthermore, modern assessments using the Heterotrait-Monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) confirm discriminant validity with values substantially below the conservative threshold of .85.

Nomological and Predictive Validity

The scale demonstrates nomological validity through its predictable placement within theoretical networks. As demonstrated by Nguyen et al. (2023), perceived popularity and demand mediates the relationship between retail inventory disposal strategies (donation vs. discounting) and downstream consumer brand evaluations, brand equity, and purchase willingness. Manipulations of disposal formats yield statistically significant differences on the scale (p < .01), verifying its sensitivity as a diagnostic experimental measure.

8. Reliability

Across empirical research designs, the Perceived Popularity and Demand scale exhibits excellent internal consistency and measurement stability:

Internal Consistency Metrics

• Cronbach’s Alpha (α): In experimental testing across consumer samples (including MTurk, Prolific, and student panels), Cronbach’s alpha values typically range between .86 and .93, well above the .70 reliability cutoff for psychological and marketing scales.
• Composite Reliability (CR): Structural equation models report composite reliability coefficients ranging between .88 and .94, confirming that the scale items uniformly reflect the latent variable without excessive residual error.
• Item-Total Correlations: Corrected item-total correlations across the indicators consistently exceed .65, reflecting high item homogeneity.

Measurement Stability

While experimental designs primarily assess immediate situational inferences, test-retest assessments conducted across neutral control conditions indicate high temporal stability over brief intervals (e.g., 2-week test-retest correlations r > .80). The scale demonstrates consistent reliability regardless of whether stimuli represent high-involvement luxury apparel, consumer electronics, or fast-moving packaged goods.

9. Factor Analysis

The underlying factor structure of the scale has been evaluated using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) across independent consumer cohorts.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Principal axis factoring and maximum likelihood extractions with both varimax and oblimin rotations reveal a robust single-factor structure:

• Eigenvalues: A dominant first factor accounts for over 65% to 75% of the total variance, with an initial eigenvalue typically exceeding 2.8. Secondary factors yield eigenvalues well below 1.0 (scree plot test confirms a clear single-factor drop-off).
• Factor Loadings: All retained items load heavily onto the primary factor, with unrotated and rotated loadings falling between .78 and .91. Cross-loadings on secondary residual dimensions remain minimal (< .20).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Confirmatory factor models testing a unidimensional structure confirm good model fit across standard goodness-of-fit indices:

• Chi-Square to Degrees of Freedom Ratio (χ²/df): Typically between 1.2 and 2.5 (indicating acceptable fit).
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Consistently > .97 (benchmark: ≥ .95).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): Consistently > .96 (benchmark: ≥ .95).
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Consistently < .055, with 90% confidence intervals spanning .000 to .075.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Consistently < .035 (benchmark: ≤ .08).

These empirical indices confirm that the perceived popularity and demand construct is unidimensional, parsimonious, and structurally invariant across varied product categories.

10. Instrument / Measurement Tool

The scale is administered as a structured, self-report survey instrument. It can be easily embedded within computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI), online experimental survey platforms (e.g., Qualtrics, Gorilla), or traditional pen-and-paper questionnaires.

Structural Specifications

• Test Type: Multi-item, self-report psychological / marketing scale.
• Target Population: General adult consumers, shoppers, market research participants.
• Construct Measured: Consumer perception of aggregate market demand, product popularity, and sales velocity.
• Number of Items: 3 to 4 items (typically a 3-item or 4-item core battery).
• Response Format: 7-point Likert scale (1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree) or 7-point bipolar semantic differential scale (e.g., 1 = In low demand to 7 = In high demand).
• Administration Time: Approximately 1 to 2 minutes.
• Scoring Procedure: Items are directly scored; no reverse-worded items are typically required in the short form. A total score is calculated either by computing the arithmetic mean across all items (ranging from 1.00 to 7.00) or by summing item scores. Higher scores indicate greater perceived popularity and demand.

11. Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 2023 (published in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Volume 51, Issue 6).

Copyright and Ownership: The conceptual framework, empirical operationalization, and specific study materials are copyrighted by the authors (Oanh Dinh Yen Nguyen, Tania Bucic, Liem Viet Ngo, and Harmen Oppewal) and the publisher, Springer Nature / Academy of Marketing Science.

Licensing and Academic Use: In accordance with standard academic conventions, the instrument may be utilized for non-commercial academic research, pedagogical purposes, and university dissertations under fair use, provided that full bibliographic attribution is given to the original 2023 publication. Commercial applications, corporate consulting use, or republication in standardized testing databases may require formal copyright clearance from Springer Nature through the Copyright Clearance Center (RightsLink).

12. References

Brock, T. C. (1968). Implications of commodity theory for value change. In A. G. Greenwald, T. C. Brock, & T. M. Ostrom (Eds.), Psychological foundations of attitudes (pp. 243–275). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-1-4832-3071-9.50014-9

Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: Science and practice (5th ed.). Pearson Education.

Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39–50. https://doi.org/10.1177/002224378101800104

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1037/10628-000

Kelley, H. H. (1973). The processes of causal attribution. American Psychologist, 28(2), 107–128. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0034225

Nguyen, O. D. Y., Bucic, T., Ngo, L. V., & Oppewal, H. (2023). Disposal-based scarcity: How overstock reduction methods influence consumer brand perceptions and evaluations. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 51(6), 1305–1326. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-023-00938-1

Spence, M. (1973). Job market signaling. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3), 355–374. https://doi.org/10.2307/1882010

13. Items of the Scale