An investigation of antecedents and consequences of brand love in India

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors that drive consumer love toward a brand and the opportunities a consumer’s love create for a brand in India. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 23 in-depth interviews were conducted with consumers. The interview transcripts were analyzed through thematic analysis using qualitative software Nvivo10. Findings – This paper proposes a conceptual model where respect, brand experience, and brand reputation have been identified as factors driving brand love and affective commitment, consumer citizenship behavior, repurchases intention, consumer forgiveness, and attitude toward the extension as outcomes of brand love. Practical implications – Consumers bond with brand helps in mitigating the feelings of transgressions by the brand, and also protects brand from negative word of mouth. Consumers who are in love with a brand show positive attitude toward its extensions. These results provide pointers to brand managers on how to protect and expand the business. Originality/value – The extant brand love research seems to be solely in the western context. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study of its kind that empirically investigates antecedents and consequences of brand love in India.

Brand Reputation, Brand Experience, and Electronic Word of Mouth Toward Smartphone: Investigating the Mediating Role of Brand Love

“…Our research has shown similar findings that a brand's reputation and brand experience are positively related with brand love and brand love is subsequently associated with eWOM in Smartphone industry. These results are consistent with the previous research conducted in other sectors (Garg et al, 2015; Karjaluoto et al, 2016; Unal & Aydın, 2013). Our research therefore fills the gap in identifying the relationship between a brand reputation and brand experience with brand love and with eWOM in Smartphone industry in Pakistan.…”

“…The concept of brand love is in an infancy stage. The effect of self‐expressiveness, brand trust, and hedonic value on brand love have been studied in previous research (Albert & Merunka, 2013; Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006), yet the past research suggests that there is a need for further investigation on brand experience as an antecedent of brand love (Garg, Mukherjee, Biswas, & Kataria, 2015). Moreover, in previous studies, there was not any significant relationship found between brand love and eWOM (Karjaluoto, Munnukka, & Kiuru, 2016).…”

The meditating effect of brand love in the relationship between brand experience and brand equity

“…Another hypothesis of the research is the H2 hypothesis, which claims that the brand experience positively affects brand love. The positive effect of brand experience on brand love was determined in the literature in various studies (Roy et al, 2013, p. 330;Garg et al, 2015, Garg, Mukherjee, Biswas andKataria, 2016;Pandowo, 2016;Erdoğan and Enginkaya, 2018;Zhang, 2019). Rodrigues et al (2007) determined in their research that brand experience in online shopping has no positive effect on brand love.…”

“…In the study, the participants were asked to answer the questionnaire questions by stating a brand name that they thought was special for them and that they had experienced for many years without naming any product category or sector. This approach was used in similar studies in the literature (Baycur, 2015, p. 15;Garg et al, 2015;Uyar and Lekesizcan, 2017). Thus, in evaluating experiences with a private brand, the cumulative brand experiences created by sensory, emotional, intellectual and behavioral experiences based on stimuli related to a brand can be evaluated together (van der Westhuizen, 2018, p.174).…”

“…Thus, in evaluating experiences with a private brand, the cumulative brand experiences created by sensory, emotional, intellectual and behavioral experiences based on stimuli related to a brand can be evaluated together (van der Westhuizen, 2018, p.174). This situation caused some clothing and electronics brands (Malik and Guptha, 2013;Garg et al, 2015) to come to the fore among the brands mentioned by the participants. One hundred twenty-eight brand names were specified by 503 participants who made up the sample of the study.…”