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Customers, constantly in search of hedonic wellbeing, are increasingly interacting with brands on digital platforms. While doing so, negative digital experiences often reduce their hedonic wellbeing. However, the reasons and remedies for unintended consequences of negative experiences are not clear. We conducted three experiments to uncover how and when the impact of negative digital experiences on hedonic wellbeing could be mitigated. Our findings suggest that digital brand attachment is the underlying mechanism for the influence of negative digital customer experience on customers’ hedonic wellbeing. Both adaptive coping ability and online brand community support alleviate the undesirable influence of negative digital customer experience on hedonic wellbeing through digital brand attachment. However, adaptive coping and online brand community support have no effect on the direct relationship between negative digital experience and hedonic wellbeing, a counterintuitive finding. Our findings offer theoretical insights into how negative digital customer experience affects hedonic wellbeing, and by uncovering the underlying psychological mechanism; this research also demonstrates the boundary conditions for the relationship between negative digital experience and hedonic wellbeing. We offer remedies for firms to increase brand community support and design different redressal strategies for customers with distinct levels of adaptive coping.

The current study develops and tests a model taking into consideration constructs including university reputation, university brand attachment and university brand personality, and investigates how these university brand components translate into student loyalty in the context of higher education. While analysing causal relationships, the study also considers the effects of moderating variables like age, gender, seniority and scholarship assistance, and also the mediating effects of satisfaction between university reputation and university brand personality on student loyalty. In the empirical analysis, it was found that university reputation had both direct and indirect effects through satisfaction on student-loyalty behaviour. Students’ age, seniority and provision of financial assistance in the form of scholarships were found to be affecting satisfaction–loyalty relationships to various degrees. The study utilised a sample of higher education students enroled in various programmes in a large private Indian university. Findings and relevant implications in theory and practice are also discussed.

To advance understanding of how well different types of brand relationships drive customer brand loyalty and to help companies improve the effectiveness of their relationship-building investments, this article conducts a meta-analysis of the link between five consumer-brand relationship constructs and customer brand loyalty. The analysis of 588 elasticities from 290 studies reported in 255 publications over 24 years (n = 348,541 across 46 countries) reveals that the aggregate brand relationship elasticity is .439. More importantly, results demonstrate under what conditions various types of brand relationships increase loyalty. For example, while elasticities are generally highest for love-based and attachment-based brand relationships, the positive influence of brand relationships on customer brand loyalty is stronger in more recent (vs. earlier) years, for nonstatus (vs. status) and publicly (vs. privately) consumed brands, and for estimates using attitudinal (vs. behavioral) customer brand loyalty. Overall, the results suggest that brand relationship elasticities vary considerably across brand, loyalty, time, and consumer characteristics. Drawing on these findings, the current research advances implications for managers and scholars and provide avenues for future research.

We investigated the impact of consistency between consumer personality and brand personality on emotional brand attachment. Participants were 200 undergraduate students at Tsinghua University and we used leading brands in the product category of mobile phone as the survey's stimuli. The results of a structural equation model suggested that consistency in the personality dimensions of sincere, cool, and young had a significant positive impact on the participants' brand attachment compared with consistency in the dimensions of simple, sensitive, reliable, and competent. The results provide strong support for the hypothesis that people feel emotionally attached to brands that match their personality or reflect who they believe they are. We also discuss important theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

We review a growing body of research in consumer behavior that has examined when consumers humanize brands by perceiving them as like, part of, or in a relationship with themselves. One research stream shows that sometimes consumers perceive brands as having human-like forms, minds, and personality characteristics. A second stream identifies ways that a consumer perceives a brand as being congruent with or connected to the self. Finally, a third highlights that consumers can view brands in ways that are analogous to the types of relationships they have with people. We review research in these three areas and point out connections among these research streams. In part, we accomplish this by showing that factors associated with the SEEK model, which are designed to explain anthropomorphic tendencies, are also relevant to other ways of humanizing brands. We identify major propositions derived from this research and several areas for which additional research is needed. We conclude with recommendations for the many opportunities for expanding our conceptual and empirical understanding of this domain.

Using a grounded theory approach, the authors investigate the nature and consequences of brand love. Arguing that research on brand love needs to be built on an understanding of how consumers actually experience this phenomenon, they conduct two qualitative studies to uncover the different elements (\"features\") of the consumer prototype of brand love. Then, they use structural equations modeling on survey data to explore how these elements can be modeled as both first-order and higher-order structural models. A higher-order model yields seven core elements: self-brand integration, passion-driven behaviors, positive emotional connection, long-term relationship, positive overall attitude valence, attitude certainty and confidence (strength), and anticipated separation distress. In addition to these seven core elements of brand love itself, the prototype includes quality beliefs as an antecedent of brand love and brand loyalty, word of mouth, and resistance to negative information as outcomes. Both the firstorder and higher-order brand love models predict loyalty, word of mouth, and resistance better, and provide a greater understanding, than an overall summary measure of brand love. The authors conclude by presenting theoretical and managerial implications.

Research has not verified the theoretical or practical value of the brand attachment construct in relation to alternative constructs, particularly brand attitude strength. The authors make conceptual, measurement, and managerial contributions to this research issue. Conceptually, they define brand attachment, articulate its defining properties, and differentiate it from brand attitude strength. From a measurement perspective, they develop and validate a parsimonious measure of brand attachment, test the assumptions that underlie it, and demonstrate that it indicates the concept of attachment. They also demonstrate the convergent and discriminant validity of this measure in relation to brand attitude strength. Managerially, they demonstrate that brand attachment offers value over brand attitude strength in predicting (1) consumers' intentions to perform difficult behaviors (those they regard as using consumer resources), (2) actual purchase behaviors, (3) brand purchase share (the share of a brand among directly competing brands), and (4) need share (the extent to which consumers rely on a brand to address relevant needs, including those brands in substitutable product categories).

Purpose The ever-growing popularity of social media platforms is evidence of consumers engaging emotionally with these brands. Given the prominence of social media in society, the purpose of this paper is to understand social media platforms from a “brand” perspective through examining the effect of consumers’ emotional attachment on social media consumer-based brand equity (CBBE). Design/methodology/approach This paper develops a model that outlines how emotional brand attachment with social media explains social media CBBE via shaping consumer perceptions of brand credibility and consumer satisfaction. An online survey of 340 Australian social media consumers provided data for empirical testing. The inclusion of multiple context-relevant covariates and use of a method-variance-adjusted data matrix, as well as an examination of an alternative model, adds robustness to the results. Findings The findings of this paper support the conceptual model, and the authors identify strong relationships between the focal variables. A phantom model analysis explicates specific indirect effects of emotional brand attachment on CBBE. The authors also find support for a fully mediated effect of emotional brand attachment on social media brand equity. Further, they broaden the nomological network of emotional brand attachment, outlining key outcomes. Research limitations/implications This paper offers a conceptual mechanism (a chain-of-effects) of how consumer emotional brand attachment with social media brands translates into social media CBBE. It also finds that a brand’s credibility as well as its ability to perform against consumer expectations (i.e. satisfaction) are equally effective in translating emotional brand attachment into social media CBBE. Practical implications Social media brands are constantly challenged by rapid change and ongoing criticism over such issues as data privacy. The implications from this paper suggest that managers should make investments in creating (reinforcing) emotional connections with social media consumers, as this will favorably impact CBBE by way of a relational mechanism, that is, via enhancing credibility and consumer satisfaction. Social implications Lately, social media in general has suffered from a crisis of trust in society. The enhanced credibility of social media brands resulting from consumers’ emotional attachments will potentially serve to enhance its acceptance as a credible form of media in society. Originality/value Social media platforms are often examined as brand-building platforms. This paper adopts a different perspective, examining social media platforms as brands per se and the effects of emotional attachments that consumers develop towards these. This paper offers valuable insights into how consumers’ emotional attachments drive vital brand judgments such as credibility and satisfaction, ultimately culminating into social media CBBE.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between brand attachment and consumers’ positive and negative behaviours. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating effects of attachment styles on these relationships.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on a survey of 432 respondents, and the data are analysed using the structural equation modelling approach.FindingsThis study empirically supports that brand attachment and attachment styles (i.e. anxiety attachment and avoidance attachment) are distinct. Brand attachment influences consumers’ not only positive behaviour (i.e. brand loyalty) but also negative behaviours, such as trash-talking, schadenfreude and anti-brand actions. The findings of the study suggest that only avoidance attachment style moderates the relationships between brand attachment and these consumer behaviours. The link between brand attachment and brand loyalty is attenuated for high-attachment-avoidance consumers. In contrast, the links between brand attachment and trash-talking, schadenfreude and anti-brand actions are strengthened.Practical implicationsThis study assists marketing managers in understanding that a strong brand attachment may result in negative behaviours that can harm a company’s brand image. Thus, building a strong relationship with consumers will not always be beneficial. Companies should be aware of the consequences of building relationships with consumers who have a high level of attachment anxiety and/or avoidance.Originality/valueThis paper highlights that brand attachment not only influences brand loyalty behaviour but also three negative behaviours: trash-talking, schadenfreude and anti-brand actions. Moreover, the links between brand attachment and negative behaviours are strengthened when consumers have a high level of attachment avoidance.

Creating emotional brand attachment is a key branding issue in today's marketing world. One way to accomplish this is to match the brand's personality with the consumer's self. A key question, however, is whether the brand's personality should match the consumer's actual self or the consumer's ideal self. On the basis of two empirical studies of 167 brands (evaluated by 1329 and 980 consumers), the authors show that the implications of self-congruence for consumers' emotional brand attachment are complex and differ by consumers' product involvement, consumers' individual difference variables, and the type of self-congruence (fit of the brand's personality with the consumer's actual self versus with the consumer's ideal self). On a general level, actual self-congruence has the greatest impact on emotional brand attachment. Product involvement, self-esteem, and public self-consciousness increase the positive impact of actual self-congruence but decrease the impact of ideal self-congruence on emotional brand attachment. The authors discuss important managerial and academic implications of these findings.