The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence has fundamentallychanged the ways in which digital content is created, circulated, and consumed. Inparticular, AI-based secondary creations have become increasingly visible in brandcommunicat...
The rapid development of generative artificial intelligence has fundamentallychanged the ways in which digital content is created, circulated, and consumed. Inparticular, AI-based secondary creations have become increasingly visible in brandcommunication environments, as consumers and creators can easily reinterpret existing brand intellectual property through AI-generated images and other digital formats. This transformation is especially significant in the context of brand IP, wherecharacters, visual styles, symbolic meanings, and narrative worlds formrelativelystable consumer schemas. When AI-generated secondary creations deviate fromtheseestablished schemas, consumers may perceive them as novel and attention-grabbing, while simultaneously evaluating them as less authentic or less consistent withtheoriginal brand identity.
This study aims to examine how schema incongruity in brand IP-basedAI secondary creations influences consumer behavioral intentions. Specifically, it investigates the dual mediating roles of perceived authenticity and perceived noveltyin the relationship between schema incongruity and two distinct forms of behavioral intention: physical merchandise purchase intention and social media word-of-mouthintention. In addition, this study explores whether brand attachment moderates theeffects of schema incongruity on perceived authenticity and perceived novelty. Grounded in Schema Incongruity Theory, Brand Authenticity Theory, noveltyandvirality research, and Brand Attachment Theory, the study addresses the followingresearch questions: (1) How does the level of schema incongruity in AI-basedsecondary creations affect consumers’ purchase intention and social media word-of-mouth intention? (2) Do perceived authenticity and perceived noveltymediate these relationships through different psychological paths? (3) Does brandattachment function as a boundary condition in these cognitive and behavioral processes?
To empirically investigate these issues, a scenario-based experimental designwas employed. A total of 200 valid responses were collected, with respondents randomlyassigned to either a low schema incongruity condition or a high schema incongruitycondition. The experimental stimuli were developed based on Disney’s MickeyMouse IP, which was selected because of its high public familiarity and clearlyestablished brand schema. All major constructs, including perceived authenticity, perceived novelty, physical merchandise purchase intention, social mediaword-of-mouth intention, perceived interest, and brand attachment, were measuredusing seven-point Likert scales adapted from prior studies. The data were analyzedusing descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, manipulation checks, correlationanalysis, regression analysis, hierarchical regression analysis, and Hayes PROCESSMacro Model 4 with 5,000 bootstrap samples.
The results demonstrate that schema incongruity has a dual effect on consumer cognition. High schema incongruity significantly decreases perceived authenticity, while it significantly increases perceived novelty. These findings indicate that AI secondary creations that deviate from the original brand IP schema cansimultaneously weaken perceptions of brand authenticity and enhance perceptions of newness and uniqueness. Furthermore, perceived authenticity and perceived noveltyshow distinct effects on behavioral intentions. Perceived authenticity has a stronger effect on physical merchandise purchase intention, whereas perceived novelty has astronger effect on social media word-of-mouth intention. These results suggest that purchase-oriented behavior and diffusion-oriented behavior are driven by different psychological mechanisms.
The mediation analysis using Hayes PROCESS Macro further confirms thedual-path mechanism. Perceived authenticity negatively mediates the relationshipbetween schema incongruity and behavioral intentions, whereas perceived noveltypositively mediates the same relationship. This indicates a dual mediation offset structure in which schema incongruity reduces behavioral intention throughauthenticity loss but increases behavioral intention through novelty enhancement. However, the moderating effect of brand attachment was not statistically significant. This non-significant result may be explained by the relatively low reliability of theshortened brand attachment scale, the limited variance of brand attachment withinthesample, and the broad, legacy nature of the Mickey Mouse IP, which may havereduced the contrast between highly attached consumers and general consumers.
Theoretically, this study contributes to the literature by extending SchemaIncongruity Theory to the context of brand IP-based AI secondary creations andbyintegrating perceived authenticity and perceived novelty into a dual mediationframework. It also provides a more refined understanding of consumer behavioral intention by distinguishing between purchase intention and social mediaword-of-mouth intention. Practically, the findings suggest that brand managers shoulddifferentiate between AI content strategies aimed at sales conversion and those aimedat viral diffusion. Low schema incongruity may be more appropriate for physical merchandise and brand-consistent product extensions, whereas moderate or highschema incongruity may be useful for generating attention, discussion, and social media sharing. Future research should examine multiple types of brand IP, employmore reliable brand attachment scales, and explore moderated mediation models or longitudinal designs to better understand the dynamic effects of AI-generatedsecondary creations.