Emotional brand attachment and brand love: the emotional bridges in the process of transition from satisfaction to loyalty

Abstract

Purpose Satisfaction and loyalty as vital and strategic concepts in the marketing literature are highly important to companies and marketers. The review of the existing literature reveals a gap of the role of emotional constructs that can begin in a regular and rational sequence of satisfaction and ultimately lead to the formation of consumer loyalty. Hence, this study aims to answer the question of whether emotional constructs such as emotional attachment and love play a mediating role in the process of transitioning from satisfaction to loyalty in the correct sequence. Design/methodology/approach A total of 300 valid questionnaires on smartphone and apparel brands were collected from respondents and analyzed using the partial least squares method. Findings The results showed that brand love is the strongest antecedent of brand loyalty and is the only variable that directly influences brand loyalty in comparison to satisfaction and emotional brand attachment. Moreover, the examination of indirect effects revealed that our assumption based on that the emotional structures such as emotional attachment and brand love play a mediating role in the process of transitioning from satisfaction to loyalty in a correct sequence is supported. Research limitations/implications Generalizability needs to be established with a wider range of consumer groups. The survey was conducted in Iran, and future research should assess the same product categories in other cultural settings as well as consider other product categories to assess the external validity of these results. The insights on consumers’ brand relationships help brand managers devise effective brand management strategies. Practical implications The managerial implications can guide managers toward enhancing the consumers’ loyalty to the brand through a better understanding of the consumer loyalty process to a brand as well as better relational marketing practices. Originality/value The study validates the mediating role of emotional brand attachment and brand love in the relationship between brand satisfaction and brand loyalty, is one of the first to develop a conceptual model that examines the role of emotional structures in the process of transition from satisfaction to loyalty, is one of few studies to develop the role of emotional structures in the form of a relational chain of brands in the process of transition from satisfaction to loyalty.

The role of storytelling in the creation of brand love: the PANDORA case

“…Amaro et al (2020) point to an important difference between satisfaction and loyalty: Satisfaction is a momentary cognitive judgment resulting from a transaction with a brand, while loyalty implies a long-term affective connection with a brand. However, Ghorbanzadeh and Rahehagh (2020) argue that a theoretical construct that explains "the regular and rational sequence of satisfaction ultimately leading to the formation of consumer loyalty" (p. 1) is lacking and point to emotional attachment and love as possibilities to explore.…”

“…Loyalty, the degree to which the consumer is committed with the repurchase of a brand, is considered the most important consequence of brand love (Oliver, 1999;Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006), as it is directly reflected in the performance of the brand, in its profitability. Ghorbanzadeh and Rahehagh (2020) agree, claiming that "brand love is the strongest antecedent of brand loyalty" (p. 1). Furthermore, Palazon et al (2019) argued that brand equity can increase as a result of brand love.…”

“…(2013);Batra et al (2012);Albert and Merunka (2013);Bairrada, Coelho and Coelho (2018),Junaid et al (2019);Palazon et al (2019);Amaro et al (2020);Ghorbanzadeh and Rahehagh (2020) …”

Power Brand Defense Up, My Friend! Stimulating Brand Defense through Digital Content Marketing

“…Thus, to engage with a brand on a social media network, the customer must have an attachment sensation to that brand [84], and few scholars portrayed the attachment as the consumers' robust emotional bonds to some brands that prohibit them to switch to other brands and build stronger and long-term nexuses between customers and the brands [90,91]. There are three forms of attachment: social structure, bond, and identity attachment [92]. Within the online brand community, the individual's attachment is consisting of bond and identity-based attachment [93].…”

Covid-19 Pandemisi Döneminde Türkiye’deki Aşk Markalarının Twitter Kapsamında Kelime İlişkilendirme Testi ile Değerlendirilmesi

“…Kod kelimelerinin belirlenmesi için marka aşkı ile ilgili literatür taraması yapılmış ve literatürde marka aşkı ile sık kullanılan anahtar kelimeler belirlenmiştir. Literatürden seçilen kelimeler; müşteri memnuniyeti (Song vd., 2019;Ghorbanzadeh ve Rahehagh, 2020;Özbek vd., 2017), markaya duyulan güven (Onurlubaş ve Song vd., 2019;Aydın, 2017), aşk (Çavuşoğlu ve Demirbağ, 2020;Song, 2019), marka sadakati (Çavuşoğlu ve Demirbağ, 2020;Özmen ve Kocakuş, 2020;Aşkın ve İpek, 2016;Le, 2020), tercih edilen marka (Aytekin ve Taştepe, 2020), sevilen marka (Wang vd., 2019;Palusuk vd., 2019;Fernandes ve Inverneiro, 2020), ve marka tutkusu (Heinrich vd., 2012) şeklindedir. Kodlamada geçen diğer yedi kelime Twitter'da konuyla ilgili ulaşılan güncel beş yüz tweet içerisindeki mesaj ifadelerine göre belirlenmiştir.…”