Role of Brand Love in Consumer Brand Relationships

Abstract

Research into consumer brand relationships has proposed and tested various relational concepts, including brand trust (Hess, 1995), brand commitment (Fullerton, 2005) and brand identification (Escalas and Bettman, 2003). The brand relationship paradigm has been successful because of its relevance for understanding brand loyalty, conceptualized as long-lasting relationships with the brand that rely on deep, underlying feelings toward it (Fournier, 1998). More recent studies also demonstrate that consumers can experience a feeling of love for their brand (Albert et al., 2008a; Batra et al., 2012). Drawing on seminal work by Shimp and Madden (1988) and Ahuvia (1993), studies of brand love tend to focus on its conceptualization (Ahuvia, 1993) and measurement (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006). But even as brand love has emerged as an important consumer brand relationship construct, we still know little about what generates a love relationship (e.g., trust) and what its behavioral consequences may be (e.g., repeat purchase). For example, brand love may be influenced by product or brand characteristics (e.g., hedonic product, brand quality) and may influence loyalty toward the brand (Batra et al., 2012; Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006). Yet few studies have conceptualized or explored how established constructs from the consumer brand relationship paradigm explain brand love (e.g., commitment, trust, identification). Because love is essentially a relational construct, it logically should be linked to other relational constructs. We therefore investigate how brand love might be explained by other consumer brand relationship (CBR) constructs and its position in a nomological framework.