Love letters to Patagonia: Fostering sustainable consumption via consumer–brand relationships

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate how consumers’ meaningful experiences with an apparel brand’s quality products can result in a strong consumer–brand relationship, fostering product longevity and sustainable consumption behaviours. Consumer–brand relationship theory was used as a theoretical lens to examine consumer–brand relationships developed via the use of a brand’s quality products. In this analysis, an outdoor apparel brand, Patagonia, was selected as a representative brand because of its effort to deliver quality products and initiatives to foster meaningful consumer–brand relationships and sustainable consumption. Netnography, an interpretive analysis of online textual discourse, was used to collect the consumers’ essays from Patagonia’s website. These essays were about the consumers’ experiences with Patagonia products. The essays were analysed using a theory-driven content analysis based on the consumer–brand relationship theory. Results revealed six types of consumer–brand relationships with three dominant relationships, including ‘partner quality’, ‘love and passion’ and ‘interdependence’. It was also found that a strong relationship with the brand positively affects consumers’ emotional attachment with the brand’s products, reducing the disposal of garments and resulting in product longevity. Theoretically, this study furthers our understanding of the relationship that consumers develop with a sustainable apparel brand by providing empirical evidence about the formation of product attachment in the context of the consumer–brand relationship. The findings also offer managerial suggestions to apparel brands by providing insights into how to develop a meaningful, persistent consumer–brand relationship in a sustainability context.