8.5 Brand Relationship
Fournier (1998)
Brands can serve as relationship partners (p. 344)
Interdependence must be present in a relationship (i..e, partners can affect, define and redefine the relationship). (Hinde 1979)
Three ways brands are animated (animism):
brand is possessed by the spirit of a past or present other (e.g., spokesperson, significant others who use it, or givers)
Anthropomorphization of the brand object with human qualities such as emotionality, thought and volition (p. 345)
Perform as active relationship partner
“Consumer-brand relationships are valid at the level of lived experience” (p. 344)
Brand can be defined as “a collection of perceptions held in the mind of the consumer.” (p. 345)
Sources of relationship meaning: psychological, socio-cultural and relational
- 5 socio-cultural contexts: age/cohort, life cycle, gender, family/social network, and culture
Relationships
as Multiplex phenomena
in Dynamic Perspective
Brand Relationship Quality BRQ (6 facets):
Love/passion
Self-connection
Commitment
Interdependence
Intimacy
Brand Partner Quality: brand performance in its partnership role.
Related to Brand Loyalty and Brand Personality
Aggarwal (2004)
When people form a relationship with brands, they use international relationship norms to guide this relationship.
There are two relationship types
Exchange relationship: (reciprocal favors)
Communal relationship: benefits are given to show concern for others’ needs.
Norm violation can influence overall brand evaluations.
Initial judgments of social stimuli (e.g., people) depend on inferred, abstract information while initial judgment of nonsocial stimuli (e.g., products) depend on concrete attributes because people use self as a frame of reference when comparing to other people (G. T. Fong and Markus 1982)
Norms of exchange relationship (i.e., quid pro quo): expected return, and prompt repayment
Norms of communal relationship (to demonstrate a concern for partners and to attend their needs): no expected return, or prompt repayment
“When consumers form relationships with brands, brands are evaluated as if they are members of a culture and need to conform to its norm” (p. 89)
The relationship between brands and consumers are more in line with celebrity and fan (p. 89)
J. Aaker, Vohs, and Mogilner (2010)
People use warmth and competence (social judgments of people Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick (2007)) to form perceptions of firms.
For-profit = competent but less warmth, nonprofits = warm but less competent
If we can increase competence (through subtle cues that increase credibility) then we can recover willingness to buy products for nonprofits.
“Warmth judgments include perceptions of generosity, kindness, honesty, sincerity, helpfulness, trustworthiness, and thoughtfulness, whereas competence judgments include confidence, effectiveness, intelligence, capability, skillfulness, and competitiveness” (p. 225) (Jennifer L. Aaker 1997; Yzerbyt, Provost, and Corneille 2005)
Warmth = other-focused, competence = self-focused (Cuddy, Fiske, and Glick 2008)
People trust non-profits more than for-profits (Hansmann 1981; Arrow 2020)
Stereotype is defined as “a shorthand, blanket judgment containing evaluative components.” (p. 225)
Puzakova, Kwak, and Rocereto (2013)
The negative side of brand humanization (i.e., anthropomorphization of a brand): it can decrease consumers’ brand evaluations when brand faces negative publicity as compared to non-humanized brands.
Because brands are living entities (after the humanization process) and attributions are due to stable traits instead of unstable contextual influences in human minds (Gawronski 2004), it is seen as having intention and responsibility for its actions
The extent of this negative effect depends on consumer-based factor (e.g., implicit theory of personality):
Those who believe in stable human traits (i.e., entity theorists) are more likely to devalue humanized brands because they attribute the wrongdoing to the underlying trait - indicative of future transgression. (p. 82)
“Those who believe personality traits as more malleable (i.e., incremental theorist) don’t form impression based on a single transgression and do not deem a single misbehavior a predictor of a future pattern of action” (p. 82)
Leveraging perceptual fluency when products are under human schemas, the product can enjoy greater liking (Delbaere, McQuarrie, and Phillips 2011)
Compensation (vs. denial or apology) is the only effective response among entity theorists.
MacInnis and Folkes (2017)
A summary of “humanizing brands” literature
Drivers of Humnaizing brands Epley, Waytz, and Cacioppo (2007)
Human-Focused Perspective (Anthropomorphism). Brands can be perceived as .. with consumers:
like
part of
in a relationship
Self-Focused Perspective. brands can also be perceived as
congruent or
connected to the self
Relationship-Focused Perspective: brand relationships are analogous to human relationships
(Ordabayeva, Cavanaugh, and Dahl 2022)
Negative internet reviews from socially distant (but not socially close) individuals may not be as harmful to identity-relevant brands. Because a negative review of an identity-relevant brand can threaten a client’s identity, the consumer will seek to strengthen their relationship with the brand.
They show that this effect does not appear when the review is positive or when the brand is irrelevant.
(Swaminathan, Page, and Gürhan-Canli 2007)
Self-concept is “the amount that the brand contributes to one’s identity, values, and goals.” (p. 248)
Under independent self-construal, self-concept connection (with its focus on the individual) is more important
Under interdependent self-construal, brand country-of-origin connections (with its focus on the group) is more important.
(Swaminathan, Stilley, and Ahluwalia 2009)
Attachment theory posits two dimensions of attachment style: anxiety and avoidance.
Level of avoidance predicts anxiety-related brand personality.
- Under high avoidance and anxiety, individuals favor exciting brands; under low avoidance and anxiety, they prefer sincere brands.
(Aggarwal 2004) With certain businesses, customers can form enduring relationships that are “humanlike.” Strength type (fling vs. partner) and relationship norm (communal vs. exchange) can differ among brand partnerships.
8.5.1 Brand Love
It exists on the same level as Brand Equity and it subsumes Brand Affect
Batra, Ahuvia, and Bagozzi (2012)
Brands are defined as “the totality of perceptions and feelings that consumers have about any item identified by a brand name, including its identity (e.g., its packaging and logos), quality and performance, familiarity, trust, perception about the emotions and values the brand symbolizes, and user imagery.” (p. 1)
Love emotion is a single, specific feeling, short term and episodic, while love relationship is long-lasting and involves numerous affective, cognitive, and behavioral experiences.
Brand love is measured based on reflective measurement (reflective indicators of hierarchical organized factors)
Brand love is a component of brand relationships.
Richard P. Bagozzi, Batra, and Ahuvia (2016)
Developed a parsimonious brand love scale
Reflective Higher-order factor
Self-brand integration
Positive emotional connection
Passion driven behavior
Used Multitrait-Multimethod Matrix (MTMM) of method bias