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We analyse the divorce paths of consumers' relationships with loved brands from consumers' perspectives. We conducted 20 in-depth interviews with photo-elicitation and graphical sketches. Combining content analysis with song lyrics of Música Popular Brasileira (Popular Brazilian Music), we uncover five divorce trajectories based on sketch patterns: 'Ultimatum', 'Erratic Healing', 'Summer Love', 'Leap of Faith', and 'Downhill'. We offer a framework connecting the brand love maintenance cycle – based on product performance, social experience, and shared values entangled in consumption rituals – with the trajectories identified. Developments of divorce trajectories depend on 1) which maintenance pillar is ruptured and 2) the actor (consumer or brand) responsible. Our findings unveil different processes experienced by consumers and offer contributions for managing consumer-brand relationships, and divorce, more specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media offers brands the ability to gauge consumer reactions to marketing and brand crises. While social media listening has focused on aggregate patterns, consumers differ in how they react to a crisis faced by a particular brand. Analyzing consumer behavior for 39 brands pertaining to 77 brand crises through the lens of consumer posts on brands' Facebook pages, we find that consumers' prior online interactions with the brand and the nature of the brand crisis moderate the language they employ in their posts. Specifically, these factors affect the extent to which consumers express anger and the familiarity of their language. While consumers who have not engaged with the brand previously employ more familiar language and self-referencing following values-related crises compared to consumers who have interacted with the brand, these individuals express more anger after performance-related crises. In contrast, consumers who have previously interacted with the brand express more anger in the wake of values-related crises. We discuss the implications of our findings for brand managers using social media posts as a means of monitoring consumer perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to investigate how perceived benefits and risks affect perceived value, as well as to examine the relationship between perceived value, consumer–brand relationships, and loyalty. The study examines the moderating effects of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance on the abovementioned relationships by applying a value-based adoption model. An online survey was conducted with consumers who used a food-delivery-service platform, totaling 754 participants. The SPSS 27 statistical package and SmartPLS 4.0 were used to test the research hypotheses, as well as to verify the moderating effects. The results indicate that product quality and specialization have positive effects on perceived value; however, delivery convenience does not. The analysis also found that perceived risk factors associated with delivery-service platforms, specifically, delivery risk, delivery security, and product heterogeneity, have positive effects on perceived value. These results imply that perceived value is linked to consumer perceptions of perceived benefits or risks and is closely related to the formation of customer–brand relationships with delivery platform companies. In addition, it was found that consumer–brand relationships formed in this way act as a decisive factor in the formation of corporate brand loyalty. ESG activity was found to play an important role in moderating the relationship between product quality and specialization, which are factors regarding perceived benefits and value. The ESG performance of delivery-service platforms plays a moderating role in the relationship between perceived value, consumer–brand relationships, and brand loyalty. The results of this study contribute to the development of strategic guidelines for marketers seeking to establish delivery-service platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of GeSec: Revista de Gestao e Secretariado is the property of Sindicato das Secretarias e Secretarios do Estado de Sao Paulo (SINSESP) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Should online retailers be concerned about being perceived as ethical? Previously, researchers found that being perceived as ethical can help online retailers develop trust and satisfaction among consumers and convert them into loyal customers. Most studies have focused on the role of online retailers' ethics in enabling trust, satisfaction, and loyalty; almost none of the previous studies have focused on its impact on consumer–brand relationships, such as brand love. We investigated how becoming ethical can help online retailers garner brand love. The dataset (n = 407) was sourced from an online survey using a structured questionnaire. We tested the influence of the multidimensional construct of ethics of online retailing on brand love and the influence of brand love on trust, satisfaction, and loyalty. This research finds that being perceived as ethical can help online retailers enhance brand love and gain consumers' trust, satisfaction, and loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research highlights the relationship between perceived brand ethicality (PBE), consumer purchase intention, and the consumer–brand relationship. Existing empirical studies offer mixed findings on whether these three relate positively, negatively, or not at all. Moreover, their relationships have not been the primary focus of existing meta‐analytic reviews. Therefore, we conducted a meta‐analysis to provide an empirical consensus to this debate by studying the magnitude of the association between PBE and consumer responses (purchase intention, brand trust, and brand loyalty). Moreover, we examined the moderating effects of self‐accountability and brand experience to expand our understanding of this relationship. After a thorough literature review from major databases and cross‐referencing of the relevant articles, we selected 31 peer‐reviewed articles for this meta‐analysis. The results reveal that consumer response to PBE positively influences attitude formation towards the brand and purchase intentions. Additionally, moderation analyses reveal the crucial roles of self‐accountability and brand experience in influencing the effects of PBE on consumer–brand relationships and purchase intention. Crucial theoretical and practical implications are discussed regarding these relationships, followed by limitations and future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's advanced economies, consumers are constantly exposed to an increasing number of upgraded products. This research examines consumer response to a brand's launching of an upgraded product and identifies the consumer's ownership status of a previous version of the product as a key dimension that can influence their reaction. Contrary to common intuition, the research demonstrates that while the release of an upgraded product is received positively by nonowners of a previous version, this is not always the case for owners. The authors propose that owners respond unfavorably because the new upgrade increases perceived distance between the owners and the brand as the brand progresses forward with the enhanced products. That is, when the new product replaces an existing product the consumers own, consumers perceive that the brand is moving away from them. This negative effect of an upgrade is attenuated if the owners are provided with an extra source of connection to the brand. The authors investigate this phenomenon in five studies and discuss the implications of their findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In light of the rapid proliferation of socially responsible corporate practices, this study aims to verify the effects of cause-related ads. Specifically, we seek to investigate four factors that influence the effectiveness of cause-related ads: customers' perception of cause-related ads, brand-consumer relationships, brand attachment, and loyalty. Design/Methodology/Approach: This study conducted a combination of experimentation and a questionnaire survey on 324 undergraduate students in an in-class setting. Pretests were performed on 100 participants to select two video ads featuring two different themes with contrasting appeals (rational vs. affective). Findings: The result shows that customers' perception of cause-related ads positively influenced the consumer-brand relationship. In addition, the brand-consumer relationship significantly influenced brand attachment and customer loyalty. Conclusion: This result confirms that corporate social responsibility activities or cause-related ads form a favorable corporate image, resulting in a positive relationship with the company's product or service brand, repurchase or repurchase of the company's products, and positive word of mouth. Practical Implications: The result suggests that the formation of an amicable image with brands through attachment to corporate brands can increase corporate love and loyalty. Therefore, to create highly loyal customers, companies will need to create a favorable image through a continuous influx of socially responsible ads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to empirically validate the holistic consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) framework and establishment of the cross-over effect using consumer preferences for wine "regions." Design/methodology/approach: The authors utilize a sample of 275 regular wine purchasers in Australia, who were aged above 30 years old and had consumed regional wine in the last 3 months through an online consumer panel survey. Findings: By testing competing CBBE models, the main research model was found to have the greatest predictive ability, due to its inclusion of both the rational and emotional paths and the cross-over effect between consumer brand judgment and brand feeling. This paper indicates that consumers enhance brand equity and develop a strong ongoing relationship with regional wine brands by simultaneously engaging in both mental behavior paths, where, in the meantime, rational processing has a cross-over effect on emotional processing. Originality/value: This study expands the brand management literature by answering the future research on the CBBE model identified by Hall et al. (2021). Moreover, it establishes the underexplored cross-over effect within the CBBE literature. Furthermore, it adds to the marketing and wine-marketing literature by extending the concept of the brand to other attributes in consumer choice, such as a wine region as outlined by Giacomarra et al. (2020). Thus, this study advances the existing branding knowledge in a practical sense, which enables regional wine marketers and wine retailers to undertake promotional and product development strategies accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research illustrates how marketing perks can be leveraged to spur WOM. Specifically, this research introduces a previously overlooked yet practically relevant dimension on which perks differ: "contractuality," defined as the extent to which consumers perceive a perk to be conditional on specific behaviors and contingencies dictated by a company. Importantly, consumers can perceive the exact same perk as more versus less contractual depending on the way it is conferred, structured, or framed. This research demonstrates that low-contractuality perks can be more effective than high-contractuality perks at fostering WOM in the absence of explicit incentives to do so. In particular, low-contractuality perks are more likely than high-contractuality perks to convey a relational signal that motivates consumers to help the company by sharing WOM. Seven experiments, two of which were conducted in the field, support this hypothesis and illustrate conditions under which the effect attenuates or reverses. On the whole, this work offers insights into how managers might design interventions that foster WOM, and it reveals potential trade-offs of commonly used high-contractuality perks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study employs a multimethod approach to examine the factors motivating consumers to interact with brands through live‐streaming platforms and how they affect their hedonic well‐being. The result indicates that exclusively relying on the net effects of the motivating factors could be misleading. It presents an insight into how a mediation effect (psychological engagement) affects the interdependence of the independent variables in achieving hedonic well‐being. Although the structural equation modeling results highlight the significant mediating impact of psychological engagement, the fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis shows that psychological engagement is only a core condition in one configuration (out of the three configurations). That is when two motivational factors (brand awareness and real‐time customer service) act as a substitute, and the others (convenience and consumer–brand relationship quality) are present. Therefore, psychological engagement is indifferent when all motivational factors are present. This study, through the application of a multimethod approach, shows that motivational factors for using live‐streaming are only necessary for escalating consumer well‐being but not sufficient in themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Firms can now access users' digital histories due to advances in technology and deliver personalized recommendations through social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook that offers advanced targeting options and reliable conversion tracking. This paper aims to examine the effects of personalized advertisements on SNS on the relationship between consumers and brands, tests the impact of brand attachment and experience on brand equity through personalized SNS ads and investigates the influence of such ads on branded products and services. Design/methodology/approach: Two studies were conducted. Study 1 (n = 275) was a survey-based design that leveraged structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses, while Study 2 (n = 350) used experimental design to compare two groups who saw service brand ads versus those who saw product brand ads. Findings: Results showed that SNS ads supporting the brand had a significant positive impact on respondents' brand attachment and brand experience. In both studies, brand experience positively impacted all the elements of brand equity, while brand attachment was found to impact brand loyalty. Originality/value: The findings illustrate how personalized ads for brands appearing on SNS can change consumer perceptions, thus affecting the consumer–brand relationship. The results bode well for brands considering leveraging SNS in their marketing mix, particularly when the strategy behind the advertising is brand building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brands are increasingly struggling to establish and maintain strong relationships with their customers. But such relationship status is rare, and consumers are often relationship‐averse or satisfied with the relationship status quo. Drawing upon construal level theory (CLT) and consumer–brand relationship (CBR) literature, this study provides empirical support for the connection between CBRs and social distance and demonstrates that changes in CBRs foster variation of consumers' preferences to primary and secondary product features, which reflects their varying construal levels and consumer–brand social distances (study 1). Furthermore, we assessed whether the congruency between consumer–brand social distance and construal levels can contribute to more favorable product evaluations. Studies 2 and 3 reveal that when consumers are socially close to brands, product attributes (low‐level construal) exert a higher impact on product assessments, whereas when consumers are socially distant from the brand, price (high‐level construal) exerts a greater impact on product evaluations. Additionally, unlike the common belief that high prices lead to higher perceived quality, our findings suggest that a positive perception of a product attribute for low‐priced products leads to more favorable product evaluations. These results indicate that marketers can nurture existing CBRs for developing their communication strategy to achieve better consumer evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Marketing & Marketing Research / Pazarlama ve Pazarlama Araştırmaları Dergisi is the property of Pazarlama & Pazarlama Arastirmalari Dernegi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brand love has received increasing attention given its potential to enhance customer engagement, brand advocacy, commitment and loyalty. Despite its relevance, few studies explore brand love per se, and existing conceptualisations remain sporadic and fragmented. The purpose of the current paper is to critically assess available work on brand love, reviewing conceptualisations, measurements and key proximal constructs. Expanding upon and synthesising earlier work and conceptualisations, we develop and propose a comprehensive conceptual framework for brand love that is innovative for the following reasons. In particular, our model takes a developmental rather than a snapshot approach to capture brand love trajectories as a function of their onset and evolution; incorporates key frameworks and as such builds on interpersonal, parasocial and experiential theories; and acknowledges the important role of brand hate. Managerial implications and future research directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advertising and marketing managers understand that not all brands need to be on social media, but what is not clearly understood is consumers’ engagement expectations for brands that are on social media. Therefore, this study investigates the impact of brand personality, specifically sophisticated and rugged brands, and gendered communication styles on consumers’ expectations of social media engagement. A scenario-based experiment is performed to test the hypotheses using a mock brand. The main study consisted of a Qualtrics consumer panel, and a MANOVA was utilized to examine three components of social media engagement (consumption, contribution, and creation) on the two brand personality dimensions. Results suggest that not all brands are expected to be as engaging on social media. Specifically, consumers expect higher levels of engagement with sophisticated brands (feminine traits) compared to rugged brands (masculine traits).

The literature on Perceived brand relationship orientation cannot be easily integrated due to the non-consensual designation of this concept. Moreover, managerial implications can hardly be deduced with the global unidimensional operationalizations of this concept. Then, the present research aims at (1) deepening the conceptual understanding of Perceived brand relationship orientation and associating it with a consensual and integrative definition, and (2) identifying its different dimensions through a qualitative study which used 23 semi-structured interviews and two focus groups. As result, Perceived brand relationship orientation declines into six reflexive dimensions: (1) Endeavor in relational communication, (2) Endeavor in physical and psychological proximity, (3) Endeavor to create a warm atmosphere, (4) Endeavor directed toward the mutuality of benefits, (5) Endeavor in continuous innovation, and (6) Endeavor in personalization. Therefore, it is recommended to move away from conceptualizing Perceived brand relationship orientation as a one-dimensional global perception and to exploit its multiple dimensions to adjust brand's strategy to consumers' expectations in term of brand relationship orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The business landscape has shifted from simply delivering quality products and services to creating shared value. It does this by fulfilling consumers' deeper needs and meeting their increasingly high expectations. Brand transgressions inhibit organizations' ability to meet consumers' demands, complicating the consumer-brand relationship. As a result, brands are often unprepared to deal with the consequences of transgressions, which can be costly. The purpose of this research is to explore the influence of prior consumer-brand relationships on the organizational outcomes of brand transgressions through the lens of social contract theory. This systematic review synthesizes 39 articles to derive five analytical themes: (1) Relationships are complicated; (2) consumers form expectations in brand relationships; (3) love and hate: organizational outcomes of brand transgressions; (4) the severity of the brand transgression matters; and (5) changing the trajectory through forgiveness. Furthermore, evidence suggests that though brands transgressions are inevitable, negative organizational outcomes are not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to investigate the causes and consequences of high-tech brands. We surveyed 360 customers in Lebanon on the causes and effects of brand addiction. The results show that brand love, brand liking, brand attachment, and brand passion have a positive impact on brand addiction. Also, our study reveals that addiction to high-tech brands has a positive impact on life happiness and self-esteem. This research offers new theoretical and managerial contributions to the research of brand addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conducts an integrative review and provides a synthesisation of key themes in the brand attachment literature. A total of 171 papers were selected and analysed using a framework-based approach. In addition to exploring the theories and frameworks, this review summarises the contexts, antecedents, outcomes, mediators, and moderators of brand attachment. Based on the gaps identified in current studies, directions are provided for future brand attachment research. The review suggests that there are multiple directions in which to take the domain further. Theoretical underpinnings require conceptual clarity and consistency with attachment theory, and the development and validation of research frameworks are essential. Furthermore, the application of contextual measurements and rigorous methodologies is warranted to address the shortcomings of the current literature. The recommendations of this review are expected to facilitate advancements in brand attachment research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explicating and specifying the origins of brand love, as well as how it affects consumer behavior, establishes vital insights into how brand managers might reap favorable economic consequences from promoting brand love effectively. Therefore, this article presents and validates a holistic, causal model of brand love that accounts for brand stimulus features and the internal, mental processes of consumers, along with the behavioral outcomes of their resulting brand love. Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, the authors propose and test seven antecedents (including three mediators) and four consequences: Functional and sensory brand uniqueness emerge as indirect antecedents of brand love; brand satisfaction, brand fit with the inner self, and personal experiences are direct antecedents. Contrary to expectations, communicative uniqueness and brand pleasure are not influential factors. This study also verifies four desirable behavioral consequences of brand love: brand loyalty, willingness to pay a price premium, word-of-mouth intentions, and forgiveness of brand mistakes. These findings offer several theoretical and managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]