Personality,person–brand fit,and brand community: An investigation of individuals,brands, and brand communities

Abstract

Brand communities have received considerable and warranted attention from marketing researchers and practitioners. Brand communities can be important sources of information for both the firm and other customers, and they play an important role in building and maintaining strong brands. Nevertheless, the antecedents of brand community identification, such as individual differences across consumers in the propensity to connect with brand communities, are not as well understood. We hypothesise that the enduring personality traits extraversion and agreeableness predict identification with the [brand] community, which in turn, and along with product attachment, will be related to brand trust and brand loyalty. Product attachment itself is hypothesised to be a function of person–brand congruity, the perceived fit between the person and the brand. Those relationships are tested and supported in data from a sample of 662 car enthusiasts attending a large brand community meeting or ‘brandfest’.     

Consumer Attachments to Human Brands: The “Oprah Effect”

Human brands offer an interesting complement to product brands in that consumer attachments to human brands take on personal relationship qualities that can engender greater affiliation and loyalty. At present, one of the most powerful human brands in the developed world is that of Oprah Winfrey. This research uses the Oprah brand as a context in which to explore and expand the existing model of human brand attachment because of the enduring strength and consistency of how she has cultivated her brand. The existing model of human brand attachment identifies autonomy, relatedness, and competence as the antecedents of attachment strength. However, the expanded model in the current research introduces and validates brand personality appeal (and its sub‐dimensions of favorability, originality, and clarity) as an important moderating factor in the relationship between these antecedents of attachment and attachment outcomes. Two studies utilizing both qualitative and quantitative data investigate the impact of these factors on attachment strength as manifested in emotional attachment behaviors, markers of relationship quality, and marketplace responses in the form of brand loyalty and purchase intentions.     

The role of actual,ideal, and ought self‐congruence in the consumption of hedonic versus utilitarian brands

To emotionally attach consumers to a brand and inspire brand loyalty, marketers often target the brand personality towards the consumer's actual or ideal self. The self is not limited to its actual and ideal dimension, however, and motivation to approach a desired self may vary depending on the consumer's personality. Thus, the current research is the first to link self‐congruence to self‐discrepancy theory by incorporating the ought self into the self‐congruence framework and taking into account self‐discrepancies as potential moderators of the self‐congruence effect. Additionally, hedonic brand nature is discussed as important condition for self‐congruence and self‐discrepancies exhibiting their fullest effect. The conducted study focuses on how actual, ideal, and ought self‐congruence influence emotional brand attachment and consequently brand loyalty. For brands of primary hedonic nature, findings confirm actual and ideal self‐congruence as drivers of emotional brand attachment, which in turn increases brand loyalty, while ought self‐congruence influences brand loyalty directly. Moreover, self‐discrepancies moderate the described relations, albeit their effect is contrary to theory‐based expectations. From these findings, the authors derive important implications for business practice and future research.     

Determinants of customer brand loyalty in the retail industry: A comparison between national and private brands in South Korea

Finding motivations for customer brand loyalty is one of the most popular academic and practical research fields; in this regard, some scholars have explored motivations in the retail industry. As the concept of private brands has been one of the most widely employed strategies for business success in the industry, comparing private and national brands in terms of customer loyalty is an important topic in the retail industry. Thus, the current research focuses on exploring antecedents of customer loyalty in private and national brands, as well as investigating whether there are notable structural differences between the brands. The results, based on 1,631 responses, indicate that customer perceived service/product quality, satisfaction, trust, and cost are notable determinants of brand loyalty, while the relationship between customer satisfaction and service quality of private brands is not supported. Moreover, both indirect and direct effects of the employed factors on customer brand loyalty are reported.     

消费者怀旧情感对品牌忠诚的影响

每个消费者都或多或少存在怀旧情感,企业很早就开始利用消费者的怀旧需求开展怀旧营销。消费者品牌关系是品牌忠诚的重要影响因素,而消费者怀旧水平对品牌信任与依恋有一定的影响,品牌信任和依恋对品牌承诺有很大的促进作用,品牌承诺是品牌忠诚的核心驱动因素。由此可见,消费者的怀旧情感可以通过品牌关系的中介而作用于品牌忠诚,企业可以通过开发各种营销策略,为消费者提供怀旧体验的平台,从而提高消费者的品牌忠诚度。     

Service brand coolness in the construction of brand loyalty: A self-presentation theory approach

As service brands need to find new methods to overcome consumers' distrust of physical spaces in the post-COVID-19 era, we explore how niche and mass service brands can recover their experiential value through perceptions of coolness. In three studies, we evaluate service brand coolness and its consequences for communal–brand connection and loyalty. In Studies 1 and 2, we examine consumers’ thoughts on coolness and communal connection when describing their encounters with service brands. In Study 3, we test the relations among service brand coolness, communal–brand connection, and loyalty. Our findings show that for both niche and mass firms, service brand coolness similarly enhances communal–brand connection and loyalty.     

Building brand credibility: The role of involvement,identification, reputation and attachment

The aim of this study is to propose a conceptual framework for building destination brand credibility. This research proposes a novel framework to explore the antecedents of destination brand credibility based on four constructs: enduring culture involvement, destination brand identification, destination brand reputation and destination brand attachment. The data used to assess the proposed research model was collected through in-person-administered surveys conducted in Indonesia and Spain. The study shows that destination brand credibility is influenced by enduring cultural involvement, destination brand identification and destination brand reputation. In addition, destination brand attachment partially mediates the relationship between destination credibility and the three antecedents. The findings contribute to the relevant literature by improving the knowledge of the antecedents of destination brand attachment and destination brand credibility.     

Building Customer-Brand Relationships through Customer Brand Engagement

Abstract

Engagement has surfaced as a vital tool in marketing to enhance the customer’s relationships and loyalty with brands. Despite this, there is dearth of empirical studies focusing on the role of customer engagement within the context of brands. Thus, the main objective of this study is to investigate the role of customer brand engagement in building customer-brand relationships and brand loyalty within the context of hotel industry. Using convenience sampling technique, a sample of 418 respondents has been collected through self-administered questionnaire method from the users of hotel services in India. The study findings suggest that different dimensions of customer brand engagement vary in terms of their influence on customer-brand relationships and brand loyalty. In addition, customer-brand relationships exhibit positive and significant influence on brand loyalty. This present study enhances the understanding of customer brand engagement construct by empirically verifying its relevance in determining the long-term success of firms/brands.     

Store brand and national brand promotion attitudes antecedents

Retailers compete against national manufacturers by launching store brands. National manufactures regularly use brand promotions to fight store brands back. The purpose of this article is to find out whether attitudes toward national brand promotions and store brands have similar or different conceptual antecedents. The study presents and tests a model of the effects of shoppers´ characteristics (price and non-price-related) on attitudes toward store brand and national brand promotions. The results support that constructs relating to price impact both store brand attitude and national brand promotion attitude, but the strength of some of these relationships differ. Other shopper characteristics like brand loyalty and store loyalty, have similar negative and positive effects, respectively. These slight differences suggest that promotions of national brands might be a good tool for fighting back store brands, but manufacturers need to design and target these promotions carefully in order to avoid head-to-head competition.     

城市品牌依恋影响机理研究——基于上海、泉州、兰州、岳阳的实证分析

文章从消费者行为视角切入,运用结构方程的定量研究方法,通过"消费者—品牌"关系分析了利益相关者(居民、潜在迁入者、旅游者、投资者等)城市品牌依恋对其城市品牌忠诚的影响机理。实证结果表明,城市品牌个性、城市品牌享乐主义价值、怀旧情感、城市品牌涉入度对利益相关者城市品牌依恋的形成具有直接影响;利益相关者对城市品牌的依恋通过消费者—品牌关系(信任、满意、承诺维度)对其城市品牌忠诚产生显著影响。     

Consumer Brand Loyalty in the Chilean Wine Industry

Worldwide, the wine industry has become tremendously competitive, with new world wine countries, such as Chile, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa becoming relevant players. Consumers are increasingly offered a broad range of wine brands in supermarkets, restaurants, and wine stores. Consequently, wine marketing managers are required to develop strategies for building consumer brand loyalty for their own wines. This study attempts to investigate this issue and tests a model of antecedents of wine brand loyalty with 300 consumers from Chile, a new world wine producer. Results are analyzed with structural equation modeling (SEM). Our results indicate that wine brand satisfaction has the strongest relationship with wine brand loyalty. Additionally, wine experience is positively related to brand trust and brand satisfaction.     

Investigating the antecedents of customer brand engagement and consumer-based brand equity in social media

The current research is concerned with identifying and testing the role of three main predictors: consumer involvement, consumer participation, and self-expressive brand on the customer brand engagement (CBE). The customer brand engagement is treated in the current study as multidimensional constructs comprising three main aspects: cognitive processing (CP), affection (AF), and activation (AC). It was also proposed a direct influence for these three aspects of CBE on consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). Using online surveys, we gathered data from fans/followers of mobile phone service providers, via Facebook fan pages in Jordan. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Based on structural equation modelling analyses (SEM), it was supported that CBE aspects were largely predicted by the role of consumer involvement (INV), consumer participation (COP), and self-expressive brand (SEB). However, we find that activation impact one dimension of the CBBE dimensions, namely, brand loyalty. Further, we find that brand awareness/associations affect perceived quality but not brand loyalty. To validate the CBE scale, future studies could investigate the impact of the scale using other social media platforms for different brands. The limited amount of empirical research on CBE was the motivation behind this research. In particular, there is no study that has investigated the main predictors of CBE and its consequences over developing context by proposing and testing the association between the antecedents of CBE with the dimensions of CBE, which in turn affect the dimensions of CBBE.     

Tie the knot: building stronger consumers’ attachment toward a brand

Extant research has promoted the importance and seeking to establish a deeper understanding of brand loyalty. However, it still remains elusive and uncertain. A study with more than 1,500 CEOs worldwide believes that creating a bond with consumers and continuing to learn how to strengthen the bond are essential for realizing strategies and delivering on shareholder expectations. Not surprisingly, firms and researchers are seeking ways to build a stronger connection with consumers, because such attachment acts as a key requisite in a firm’s success. Consequently, understanding how marketers can intensify the attachment is important. This article offers a framework for building stronger consumers’ attachment and testing it based on a survey of 432 participants. Four factors are deemed to be important: ideal self-congruence, sensory experience, responsiveness, and CSR beliefs. Attachment influences loyalty and resilience to negative information. Additionally, attachment fully mediates ideal self-congruence and responsiveness to loyalty, as well as ideal self-congruence and sensory experience to resilience to negative information.     

The Role of Trust in Understanding the Impact of Social Media Marketing on Brand Equity and Brand Loyalty

Abstract

In this era, social media platform is integrated into the marketing strategy. This new technology sets out new mechanisms and communication tools that companies can rely on to interact and engage with actual and potential customers. This study aimed at exploring the impact of social media marketing activities (SMM) on brand loyalty via brand trust and brand equity. Based on an online survey of 287 users who follow telecommunications companies on social media located in Egypt, data was collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results revealed that SMM activities comprise only three dimensions; trendiness, customization and word-of-mouth. These attributes of social media marketing directly influence brand loyalty and indirectly influence brand equity mediated by brand trust. The study emphasis the role of trust and provide guidance toward measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing.     

How does attachment style influence the brand attachment – brand trust and brand loyalty chain in adolescents?

This study contributes to the growing body of literature investigating how and why consumers form connections to brands by applying an attachment theoretical framework. According to the attachment theory, children develop internal working models of the reliability of others in the interaction with the primary caregiver(s). It can be assumed that this attachment style, which is conceptualized along two dimensions (secure–anxious and dependent–independent), not only influences intimate relationships in the long run, but may also play an important role in customer relationships. The author investigates the influence of attachment style along the brand attachment – brand trust and brand loyalty chain. The sample consists of 216 adolescents. The results derived from structural equation modeling (SEM) by proposing a non-recursive model show that the dependent–independent dimension of parental attachment style positively influences the corresponding dimension of brand attachment predisposition and is important for all of the constructs along the brand attachment – brand trust and brand loyalty chain. However, this is not the case with the secure–anxious dimension of parental attachment style. The secure–anxious dimension of brand attachment predisposition does, on the other hand, have a significant impact at least on brand trust. The results are discussed from an attachment theoretical point of view and corroborate the suppositions of Rindfleisch, Burroughs, and Wong (2009 Rindfleisch, Aric, James E. Burroughs, and Nancy Wong. 2009. The safety of objects: Materialism, existential insecurity, and brand connection. Journal of Consumer Research 36 (1): 1–16.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), who grounded their findings on terror management theory. Several possible implications of these results for the theory and practice of brand management and advertising, especially in the light of the gamification of advertising, are discussed.     

Brand Attachment and Consumer Emotional Response to Unethical Firm Behavior

Attaching consumers to a brand is a cornerstone of relationship marketing as attachment increases loyalty. This research investigates another possible benefit of attachment, its potential and limits for shielding brands from firms’ ethical missteps. Merging motivated reasoning and attachment theories, two studies focus on how brand attachment influences consumer judgments of firm ethics and the emotional and behavioral consequences developing from those. A field study indicates that attachment attenuates judgments of unethical behavior, contributes to emotional ambivalence, and affects purchase intentions. A subsequent experiment corroborates these findings and shows that the buffering role of attachment is limited to conditions when the information about firm ethics is moderately rather than extremely negative. Implications focus on advancing research on ethics and emotional ambivalence in consumer brand relationships and on managerial implications.     

Exploring the Antecedents of Brand Loyalty and Electronic Word of Mouth in Social-Media-Based Brand Communities: Do Gender Differences Matter?

ABSTRACT

Recently, social media have emerged as key marketing communication channels. In this context, consumers are increasingly gathering in online communities which have been identified as social-media-based brand communities (SMBBCs). However, notwithstanding scholars' attention towards SMBBCs, the role of consumers' gender in developing brand loyalty intention (BLI) has been scarcely explored by literature. Moreover, scant attention has been given to the analysis of whether gender is related to different propensities towards brand recommendation—identified as a proactive behavior towards a positive electronic word of-mouth diffusion (E-WOM)—in the social media context. Hence, this research aims to explore the antecedents of BLI and E-WOM by focusing on consumers' gender differences. A structural equation model has been created based on 250 surveys collected among SMBBCs of an American sportswear brand. The results showed that male consumers' BLI is influenced by engagement in SMBBCs. Instead, brand trust was the main antecedent of females' BLI.     

Antecedents of emotional attachment to brands

Marketers desire exclusive brand repurchase. This can occur when customers develop deep emotional “bonds” with brands, as elaborated in the emotional attachment to brands construct. To create emotionally attached repurchase, marketers must understand controllable antecedents of the phenomenon. However, a comprehensive study of antecedents is missing from the literature. We use qualitative methods to derive five primary antecedents of emotional attachment to brands. Our summary model allows for simultaneous operation of multiple antecedents, as we consistently observed in our data. We offer applied suggestions for leveraging antecedents to evoke exclusive repurchase based on emotional attachment to brands.     

Consumer brand engagement and its social side on brand-hosted social media: how do they contribute to brand loyalty?

ABSTRACT

Social media offer brands new opportunities to interact with their customers. This paper focuses on consumer brand engagement (CBE) and its social facet in the context of brand-hosted social media. It highlights that CBE (consumer–brand interactions encompassing cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions) and brand-based consumer–consumer interactions (social brand engagement (SBE)) lead to brand loyalty intentions. Brand customers were surveyed about their favourite brands on Facebook. Results indicate that self-brand connections and SBE are two drivers of CBE, and that CBE is the key element in inducing brand loyalty. In addition, configural analysis shows that high brand loyalty can be achieved through several combinations of social and CBE with various levels of cognitive, affective and behavioural engagement.     

Following brands on Twitter: an extension of theory of planned behavior

Due to its immediacy and efficiency, Twitter has recently emerged as a form of marketing communication tool that offers unique advantages for two-way communication between marketers and consumers. This study examines brand-following behavior on Twitter using the Ajzen's model of theory of planned behavior (TPB). Results show that attitude toward brand following, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and brand attachment are positively associated with intention to follow brands on Twitter. Consumers’ intention to create (i.e., intention to tweet at brands) and disseminate (i.e., intention to retweet the links of brands) brand-related information, as well as purchase intention, are the outcomes of intention to follow brands on Twitter. Overall findings suggest that TPB model can be used to predict Twitter users’ brand-following behavior. More importantly, our finding that brand attachment drives consumer intention to follow brands on Twitter extends the TPB framework. This study provides both theoretical and managerial implications.