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This is a pilot study pre-registration for the parental financial involvement research project

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-jmx-10.1177_0022242920984492 for They’re Just Not That into You: How to Leverage Existing Consumer–Brand Relationships Through Social Psychological Distance by Scott Connors, Mansur Khamitov, Matthew Thomson and Andrew Perkins in Journal of Marketing

Customer brand loyalty is one of the most important concepts to consumer researchers and marketing practitioners. A considerable amount of research over the last 20 years documents that different consumer-brand relationship constructs, such as those characterized by attachment, identification, brand love, self-brand connection and trust, are positive predictors of customer brand loyalty. However, there is little consensus on what consumer-brand relationship constructs are superior predictors of loyalty and under what conditions each type performs relatively better. To advance understanding of how well different consumer-brand relationship constructs drive customer brand loyalty and to help companies improve the effectiveness of their relationship-building investments, I conduct a meta-analysis of the link between three categories of consumer-brand relationship constructs and customer brand loyalty in Essay 1. The analysis of 304 elasticities from 143 studies reported in 127 publications over 21 years (n = 179,395 across 35 countries) reveals that the aggregate brand relationship elasticity is .404. More importantly, my results demonstrate under what conditions various consumer-brand relationship constructs increase customer brand loyalty. For example, while elasticities are generally highest for affect-based brand relationships and when customer brand loyalty is operationalized in attitudinal (vs. behavioral), absolute (vs. relative) or retrospective (vs. prospective) terms, identity-based brand relationship elasticities are higher for estimates using behavioral loyalty, retrospective loyalty or non-student consumers, and trust-based brand relationship elasticities are higher among American consumers. Essay 2 focuses on theory by developing an explanatory framework for Essay 1’s meta-analysis results. Specifically, I proceed to link individual brand relationship elasticities with a wide array of country-level cultural and institutional moderating factors to better understand the magnitude of the elasticities identified in the Essay 1 meta-analysis. In other words, this Essay adopts an explanatory perspective on why certain consumer-brand relationship constructs drive customer brand loyalty best in some country and institutional contexts but not others. Drawing on these findings, I advance implications for managers and scholars and provide avenues for future research.

While brand punishment—through either individual or collective action—has received ample attention by consumer psychologists, absent from this literature is that such punishment can take the form of unethical actions that can occur even when the consumer is not personally harmed. Across three studies, we examine consumers’ propensity to act unethically towards a brand that they perceive to be harmful. We document that when consumers come to see brands as harmful—even in the absence of a direct, personal transgression—they can be motivated to seek retribution in the form of unethical intentions and behaviors. That is, consumers are more likely to lie, cheat, or steal to punish a harmful brand. Drawing on these findings, we advance implications for consumer psychologists and marketing practitioners and provide avenues for future research in the area.

Consumers develop committed and meaningful relationships with brands, yet still sometimes buy or use options that compete directly with these ‘relationship partners’, an activity that might be understood as a form of cheating or infidelity. Using data from three studies, we assess whether so-called triadic brand relationships – those that implicate an interpersonal third party (i.e., some form of interpersonal bond) – safeguard against cheating. We find compared to dyadic brand relationships that implicate only the consumer and the brand, triadic brand relationships protect against emotional and behavioral cheating by virtue of reinforcing expectations of consumer’s exclusive behavior and monogamy within the relationship.