Customer-brand Relationship Research Articles

When review verification does more harm than good: How certified reviews determine customer–brand relationship quality

Faced with the mistrust of consumers toward customer reviews due to the multiplication of scandals involving fake reviews, review verification systems offer a solution to reassure Internet users. However, their effectiveness raises questions. Based on the Elaboration Likelihood Model and signaling theory, this research examines the moderating effect of review verification on the relationship between review valence and customers’ behavioral intentions toward brands. With data from 9,219 online reviews and two survey–based designs, the authors highlight the existence of a “dark side” of verification systems. Results specifically reveal that perceived manipulative intentions of firms lead to weaker perceived credibility of reviews when they include verification badges and, consequently, diminish the effect of review valence on customers’ behavioral intentions toward brands.

Does crowdsourcing necessarily lead to brand engagement? The role of crowdsourcing cues and relationship norms on customer-brand relationships

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how the relationship norms established between customers and brands influence customer perceptions of crowdsourcing (vs firm-generated) cues.Design/methodology/approachFour studies (N = 851) examine the moderating role of relationship norms on product labeling cues (crowdsourcing vs firm-generated) effects on brand engagement, and the underlying mechanism of self-brand connection.FindingsThe findings suggest that crowdsourcing (vs firm-generated) cues lead to higher brand engagement (Studies 1A–1B), mediated by self-brand connection (Studies 2–3). In addition, relationship norms moderate the effects (Study 3), such that under exchange brand relationships crowdsourcing (vs firm-generated) cues yield higher brand engagement, whereas communal brand relationships reverse such effects.Practical implicationsThe findings provide valuable managerial implications by highlighting the importance of using relationship norms as diagnostic cues to successfully implement crowdsourcing initiatives.Originality/valueThis research adds to the customer-brand relationship literature by revealing an accessibility-diagnosticity perspective of consumers’ reactions to crowdsourcing (vs firm-generated) cues.

How can brands become central in the consumers’ life?

PurposeBrand centrality is a religion-like brand–customer relationship, which refers to the extent to which a brand is in the center or heart of a consumer’s life. While its role in the fast fashion industry is prominent, its drivers and effects have not been comprehensively studied. This study aims to investigate the relationships between three psychological drivers (i.e. fashion-conscious, chronic shopping orientation and self-esteem), one behavioral driver (i.e. the average frequency of shopping), brand centrality and relationship quality in the fast fashion industry.Design/methodology/approachA survey of 250 fast fashion consumers was conducted and partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data.FindingsThe study shows that fashion consciousness and chronic shopping orientation are positively related to brand centrality, whereas self-esteem is negatively related to brand centrality. The findings also show that shopping frequency moderates the relationship between fashion consciousness and brand centrality, and between chronic shopping orientation and brand centrality.Post hocanalysis indicates that brand centrality fully mediates the relationship between chronic shopping orientation and relationship quality.Originality/valueThis study is one of the first studies to investigate the psychological and behavioral drivers of brand centrality.

Nexus Among Augmented Reality, Customer Purchase Intention, Customer Experience And Customer Brand Relationship: Application on Vichy Brand

Nexus Among Augmented Reality, Customer Purchase Intention, Customer Experience And Customer Brand Relationship: Application on Vichy Brand

A netnographic qualitative inquiry of antecedents and outcomes of online brand engagement

This study aims at exploring the role of Online Brand Engagement (OBE) in retaining customers, augmenting brand loyalty elevating brand image & strengthening brand association. This is an exploratory study with qualitative approach & netnographic technique of data collection. Using purposive sampling, 20 social media users were voluntarily selected to participate in this study, they strived to engage themselves with the restaurant brands on their online pages for more than a month, the researchers then conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews from those participants to explore the framework of online brand engagement in Pakistan. Thematic finding indicates that satisfactory online brand engagement triggers special feeling for the brand and that results in generation of word of mouth. It also creates ease and convenience that foster the customer-brand relationship. Moreover, positive OBE develops sense of trust which strength image of that brand, customer feel associated with the brands. This whole process culminates into customer retention and brand loyalty.

The Relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility on Social Media and Brand Advocacy Behavior of Customers in the Banking Context.

This research study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related communication on social media and brand advocacy behavior of retail banking customers in a developing country. This study also proposes a dual mediating mechanism of customer engagement and customer-company identification in the above-proposed relationship. The data were collected from retail banking customers with the help of a self-administered questionnaire (n = 356). To test the hypothesized relationships, a theoretical model was developed in this study. For hypothesis testing, we used the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique in AMOS software. The empirical analysis results confirmed our theoretical assumption that the manifestation of CSR-related communication on social media by a bank significantly influenced the advocacy behavior of retail banking customers. Our study also confirmed the mediating function of customer engagement and customer-company identification. The findings of this study offer different implications for the banking sector. For example, our study highlights the critical role of CSR-related communication on social media for meaningful customer-brand relationships by promoting the advocacy behavior of customers.

Exploring the changing role of brand archetypes in customer-brand relationships: Why try to be a hero when your brand can be more?

For over 20 years, managers have been encouraged to leverage archetypal meaning to strengthen their brands. Prior research has studied archetypes as universal patterns present in the collective unconscious that trigger an instinctive response in customers, arguing that brands should evoke one archetype at a time. However, recent evidence seems to suggest that the single archetype view proposed in previous work may have lost its relevance in the marketplace. This article responds to calls for further research into brand archetypes by analyzing more than 2,400 brands and the archetypes they evoke in their marketing communications. The current findings support the continued relevance and importance of brand archetypes in marketing, showing that brands connect with customers by consistently evoking specific archetypes. Critically, however, strong brands tend to leverage multiple archetypes at a time rather than just one as previously believed. We explore key implications of our findings for theory and management, discuss avenues for future research, and provide actionable guidelines for managers wishing to leverage archetypal meaning to build strong brands.

Using Classification Based Approach on Online Social Media as a Marketing Channel for Building and Improving Consumer Perception of Brands: An Empirical Analysis of Facebook Users in Pakistan

Research scholars are continuously trying to comprehend the effects of the use of social media as a marketing channel and tool on consumer perception of brands, however there are still loopholes exist when it comes to the question as how consumer perceive brands?. This research paper stresses on the optimal techniques of using Facebook as a tool of marketing in order to build and improve online brand equity. Online survey through questionnaire was conducted by targeting the active users (urban areas) of Facebook in big cities of Pakistan. The results clarified that there is a strong impact of Facebook on brand awareness and brand image which then lead to brand equity by using the Keller model. Research demonstrates that in order to create customer brand relationships on social networking sites, it is important to comprehend both media system reliance i.e. GOALS and uses and gratifications i.e. NEEDS, that is a classification based approach on social media users, which in turn produced positive results.

"We buy what we wanna be": Understanding the effect of brand identity driven by consumer perceived value in the luxury sector.

Prior studies focused on consumer satisfaction and loyalty have brought undeniable benefits to luxury brand marketing but are not sufficient to ensure a long-lasting and profitable customer-brand relationship in the new setting. Brand identity provides a valuable exploration of this issue. However, the current measurement of brand identity is relatively simple, and there is no clear answer to what factors encourage brand identity development. This study attempts to address this gap by dividing the brand identity structure from a multi-dimensional perspective, considering the role of luxury consumer perceived value and brand information quality in shaping the brand identity. Data was gathered by an online questionnaire survey from Chinese consumers who had purchased luxury jewelry, employing regression methods for analysis. The results show that four predictors representing luxury consumer perceived value all have a significant impact on the brand’s social identity and personal identity. In addition, brand information quality also positively moderates the relationship between the luxury consumer perceived value and the brand’s social identity. This study opens new horizons for considering dimensions other than the satisfaction or intention to use, expanding the applications of brand identity in a new context. The results contribute to increasing the awareness level of brand identity for luxury brand practitioners and offering them a new method of market strategy.

Higher Price: A Benefit of Online Value Co-Creation Activities in Sponsored Communities

This study examines how online value co-creation activities benefit brands in the form of willingness to pay a higher price (WPHP). We propose a framework of value co-creation in three management fields (product design, marketing, and after-sales service) and empirically examine the relationships among co-creation activities, customer-brand relationships, and customers’ WPHP. Interestingly, we find that the co-creation activities in two of the three management fields can enhance both customers’ brand passion and self-brand connection, which increases their WPHP only through the full mediation of brand satisfaction. Our findings contribute to theories on IT value and value co-creation.

Impact of augmented reality marketing on customer engagement, behavior, loyalty, and buying decisions

Technological possibilities intrinsically shape marketing choices. While scientific progress has always been propelled by marketing needs or vision, emerging technologies have exposed marketing executives to unforeseen ways to interact with and influence clients. Augmented reality marketing is an engineered environment on a digital platform that incorporates realism and ads or enhanced themes that communicate with five sensory organs and perspectives. Augmented Reality Marketing (ARM) was recently introduced to express a pretty popular marketing and promotional strategy that aims to leverage the power of mobile phone capabilities as portable smart gadgets are rapidly becoming omnipresent worldwide. This paper presents the Impact of Augmented Reality Marketing on better customer engagement, customer behavior, customer loyalty, and buying decisions. The study’s upshot proves that ARM possesses the capability of “putting the product in the consumer’s hand” and allows companies to bridge the gap between experience and action. It also proves that AR is more than a promotional tool and can effectively contribute to increased customer-brand relationships and experiences.

The retail brand personality-Behavioral outcomes framework: Applications to identity and social identity theories.

This study applies identity and social identity theories to develop and test a framework in which retail brand personality influences consumer outcomes [i.e., positive word-of-mouth (WOM) about and patronage intention toward the retailer] through public and/or private self-congruity, strengthened by shopping conspicuousness situation, and retail brand identification (RBI). This is the first study to include social shopping situations to study brand personality and self-congruity. A questionnaire with a 2 (retailer image format) × 2 (shopping situation conspicuousness) between-subjects design was conducted on a sample of US consumers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest a framework in which Genuine, the most influential dimension of retail brand personality, predicted outcome behaviors both directly and indirectly through self-congruities and RBI. The high shopping conspicuousness situation strengthened the relationship between public self-congruity and the overall RBI. The concept of RBI provides an additional theoretical perspective for guiding future research on shopper–brand relationships. In addition, this framework provides practical implications for retail environment design and customer-brand relationship management.

What becomes sacred to the consumer: Implications for marketers

In their classic 1989 consumer-research paper, Belk, Wallendorf, and Sherry illustrated how the sacred can be seen in the consumption of everyday products and services. We extend their work by arguing that sacredness is intimately connected with the human experience of strong positive feelings and that the study of everyday sacredness can contribute to our understanding of such feelings. As marketing influence involves enhancing strong positive feelings in customers, we propose that Belk et al.’s twelve properties of the sacred can be used as a framework for guiding marketing influence, and we introduce a new thirteenth property. We illustrate guidance for marketing influence with detailed descriptions of a sacred brand and a success in social marketing. We discuss the implications of these sacredness-based influence techniques for facilitating special, valuable, and powerful customer-brand relationships as well as for accomplishing social change.

The customer-brand relationship in the gambling industry: positive play predicts attitudinal and behavioral loyalty

ABSTRACT This research draws on the model of positive play (i.e. responsible gambling) to investigate whether positive play beliefs (e.g. accurate understanding about the odds of success on games of chance) and behavior (e.g. setting a limit on gambling expenditures) are associated with attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. Results from Study 1 indicated that among American casino loyalty program members (N = 188), positive play was predictive of attitudinal loyalty when controlling for disordered gambling symptomatology. In Study 2, using survey and player-account data from 383 members of a Canadian casino loyalty program, we found that positive play was negatively associated with behavioral loyalty, but that this association was eliminated after accounting for disordered gambling symptomatology. These results suggest that fostering positive play may help increase positive perceptions of a casino and its loyalty program without undermining the amount of money a player spends at that casino.

Creating a Sincere Sustainable Brand: The Application of Aristotle's Rhetorical Theory to Green Brand Storytelling.

As consumers become skeptical of green products, green brands may need to put trust-building on their business agenda. The study aims to use the rhetorical theory of Aristotle to examine the influence of a green brand story on perceived brand sincerity and brand trust. The study explores whether customer perceived value (CPV) mediates the effect between three means of persuasion used by a green brand story and perceived brand sincerity, and whether the need for cognition (NFC) plays a moderating role. A model is proposed and tested through three independent experiments in which participants were exposed to green brand stories and asked to complete a questionnaire. The results show that the green brand story with three means of persuasion has a more positive impact on perceived brand sincerity and brand trust than the green brand story without, and the impact is partially mediated by CPV. Besides, NFC moderates the effect: perceived brand sincerity of green brands improves with three means of the persuasion-laden story when NFC is relatively high. Specifically, the study reveals that pathos and ethos in a green brand story have positive effects on perceived brand sincerity through emotional value and social value, but the effect of logos is not identified. The findings contribute to the literature on brand storytelling, brand personality, and green marketing and have managerial implications for green brands to sustain a customer-brand relationship.

Customer engagement and hotel booking intention: The mediating and moderating roles of customer-perceived value and brand reputation

This study develops and examines a proposed conceptual model of customer engagement (CE) with brand social media pages (BSMPs) in the hospitality context. Based on limitations in the previous literature, the study investigates several consequences of CE with hotel BSMPs: customer-perceived value (CPV) (functional, social, and entertainment), customer-brand relationship strength (CBRS) (commitment, self-connection, and intimacy), and hotel booking intention. The current paper also examines the mediating role of CPV in the relationship between CE and CBRS, as well as assesses, for the first time, the moderating effect of brand reputation on the relationships among these constructs. Using partial least squares-structural equation modeling, the study analyzes data on 396 social media users who are hotel customers. The findings support all the hypotheses related to direct relationships between CE, CPV, CBRS, and hotel booking intention, besides the mediating effect of CPV. This research addresses a knowledge gap and provides valuable practical implications.

The effect of the valence of forgiveness to service recovery strategies and service outcomes in food delivery apps

The literature offers valuable insights into various aspects of service recovery and service outcomes. However, the available findings are limited relative to the size of the ever-expanding service economy. In particular, past studies have left more granular nuances of the association between service recovery strategies and service outcomes, such as the mediating role of forgiveness or the valence of forgiveness, under-explored. Recognising that an improved understanding of recovery from failures is crucial for sustaining positive customer–brand relationships in the service economy, the present study investigates the mediating effect of the valence of forgiveness (both exoneration and resentment) on the association between various service recovery strategies (apology, compensation and voice) and service outcomes (brand trust and negative word of mouth [NWOM]) in the context of food delivery apps (FDAs). We tested the proposed model by analysing data from 294 FDA users who had experienced FDA service failures and recovery efforts in the recent past. The findings suggest that recovery strategies are associated with exoneration, resentment and brand trust but not with NWOM. While exoneration mediates the association of these strategies with both brand trust and NWOM, resentment mediates only the association of these strategies with NWOM. Finally, the severity of previously experienced service failures and the speed of the service provider’s response moderates the association of the valence of forgiveness with brand trust and NWOM. By uncovering the key role of the valence of forgiveness in service recovery, our study offers significant theoretical and practical implications for stakeholders.

Cognitive drivers of brand love and store brand loyalty: lessons for retailers in a developing country setting

ABSTRACT This paper aims to extend an understanding of the cognitive drivers, namely excitement and sincerity, of brand love and store brand loyalty. It also examines the mediating role of brand love in the relationship between excitement and sincerity, and store brand loyalty. Field research, complemented with mall intercept method, was conducted within eight retail facilities of the biggest trade center in a developing country setting. A total of 450 useful questionnaires were collected and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The results show that excitement and sincerity, as cognitive drivers, are important predictors of brand love. It has been also proved that brand love fully mediates the relationship between excitement and sincerity, and store brand loyalty. The paper contributes to the retailing and brand–customer relationship literature by revealing new predictors of brand love and store brand loyalty, and enriching the existing, faintly researched brand love mediation body of knowledge in the developing country context. It also highlights the features relevant for a better retail store positioning toward creating store brand loyalty. It is expected that the findings can make changes in store brand positioning, as appropriately positioned store brands could lead to emotional connections and loyalty. More specifically, the findings of the paper highlight which store brand cognitive elements could lead to consumer involvement in the buying process.

“Thank you for reaching out:” Brand relationship management and the conversational human voice of customer care in online service encounters

Motivated by increased calls for research on language use in service encounters, this study examines how customer care agents working in the retail banking sector linguistically operationalize a conversational human voice in their online service encounters to support brand-customer relationships on social media. Applying a rhetorical move analysis framework to an extensive corpus of customer care agents’ responses to customers’ queries, comments, and complaints on Facebook, this study describes the discourse structure of these responses to identify the conventionalized moves performing the relational work in these brief online encounters. By examining the linguistic features that characterize these moves, my findings confirm that the linguistic elements supporting message personalization, positive politeness strategies, and invitational rhetoric collectively create the recognizable conversational voice that supports agents’ efforts to initiate and manage brand-customer relationships online. My findings also highlight the role of digital punctuation and emoji usage to support positive politeness strategies and to communicate agents’ attitudinal stance in their efforts to deliver service with a smile in an online environment. Finally, this study calls attention to and provides insights into language usage, online social interaction, and webcare discourse within one facet of the banking services industry.

Impact of Brand Prominence on Customer Satisfaction: The Moderating Role of Online/Offline Environment

The customer-brand relationship is critical to a company's bottom line, particularly in the service industry that adopts online services. Virtual interfaces are becoming a major point of consumer contact for many companies. Some traditional service quality variables that impact customer satisfaction, such as the physical appearance of buildings, staff, and equipment and the responsiveness and empathy of employees, are not apparent in this setting. However, brand prominence may play a key role in improving consumer satisfaction. To satisfy customers and survive in the marketplace, service providers employ both online and physical purchasing channels wisely. Our research attempts to fill a gap in understanding what motivates customers' contentment and, hence, their expectations by comparing performance quality when consumers buy online vs. offline store. We analyze how brand prominence affects consumer satisfaction through the moderating effect of online and offline environments. The hypotheses were empirically validated using structural equation modeling after collecting 8533 valid responses. The findings show that both direct and indirect channel-induced expectations positively affect satisfaction, with the latter having a stronger influence. The results contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence of the effect of expectations and performance quality on consumer satisfaction and extend the expectation-confirmation theory by including brand prominence as a component. This study contributes to a better understanding of how consumer satisfaction develops in an online or offline environment.