Expressive Brand Relationship, Brand Love, and Brand Loyalty for Tablet PCs: Building a Sustainable Brand.

Shikun Zhang,Yuan Zhang,Guoying Ren,Yaoping Peng,Chun-Chun Chen,Michael Yao-Ping Peng

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00231

Abstract

This study was conducted from the strategic marketing perspective to test the impact of brand relationship types on brand loyalty. We also test three path effects of brand love and brand trust. Data were collected from three metropolitan customers who use tablet PCs. We obtained 383 valid samples, giving a valid response rate of 89%. Data analysis was performed with SmartPLS2.0 and SPSS 23.0 to test the proposed model. The results indicate that an expressive brand relationship significantly predicts brand trust and brand loyalty. In turn, brand trust has a positive influence on brand love, while brand awareness and brand love influence attitudinal and behavioral loyalty. Expressive brand relationship has two indirect mediating affects via brand trust and brand love, which influence brand loyalty. Finally, we suggest managerial implications and directions for future research.

Highlights

Computer-related products bring great changes to people’s lives, and the brand war between companies such as HP, Dell, Apple, Lenovo, ASUS, and so on is becoming increasingly intense
The results indicate that a significant increase in the brand relationship increases brand trust (β = 0.731, p < 0.001), which supports H1
The expressive brand relationship is based on a good relationship between customer and brand, wherein a close, continuous, and stable relationship is formed on the basis of interaction (Aggarwal, 2004)

Summary

Introduction

Computer-related products bring great changes to people’s lives, and the brand war between companies such as HP, Dell, Apple, Lenovo, ASUS, and so on is becoming increasingly intense. The computer-related product industry in Taiwan has often held a dominant market position based on superior manufacturing and branding. Taiwan has been a place where OEMs of international known brands gather, such as Dell, Apple, and HP (Chang et al, 2008). This implies that the relationship between customers and brands has become an important issue for the academia and practice in terms of building sustainable brands in Taiwan. This study aims to improve our understanding of brand relationships by investigating involvement in a highly competitive context of computerrelated products. Chandler and Owen (2002) emphasize that brands send out signals that provide symbolic meanings that meet customer needs, express customer wants, and interact with customers, thereby affecting customer behaviors. Aggarwal (2004) points out that the interaction between customers and brands, which can be characterized as a relationship, can be explored only by personifying that relationship (Lombart and Louis, 2016; Charton-Vachet and Lombart, 2018)

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