Table of Contents
CHAPTER 2: Literature Review
Chapter two is inclusive of detailed literature review for the topic brand love. It includes concept of brand love, theoretical framework, conceptual framework, role of brand love in consumer brand relationships, antecedents and consequences of brand love. Factors affecting brand love are also discussed in the literature review.
Fast Moving Products related to FMCG and Dietary Supplements
According to Vanelslander, Deke and Van Hove (2013: 243), fast moving consumers good or the consumer packaged products are those that are sold quickly and mostly on a relatively lower cost. The fast moving goods includes non-durable goods including over-the counter drugs, soft drinks and beverages, processed goods and many other consumer products.
According to Sarkar (2014: 481), consumers develop love related to specific brands and their fast moving goods. They show loyalty and commitment towards the brands through repeat purchases. The consumers love towards the brand comes mostly from the possessions of emotional feelings with the brand and the feelings include pleasure, love and consumers relationship with the brand. When a consumer becomes satisfied with a specific brand for instance a soft drink flavor that he loves, on the basis of the satisfaction the repeat purchases to buy those products increases. The consumers show his commitment and loyalty towards that specific brand and try to buy only that particular brand he loves. Marketers are developing how to increase brand love of FMCG products towards the consumer. According to Albert and Merunka (2013: 258), one strong point for FMCG marketers is that the FMCG products are inclusive of those goods and products that are a part of necessity and used on the daily basis. There is a chance that customer increases purchases both due to his needs and emotional attachment.
Branding and the Dietary Sector
According to one research it was found that the brand loyalty among the dietary sector appears to be higher which shows that branding has high power in short cut decision making process for the consumers (McAdam et al. 2014: 830). When consumers are loyal to a brand the time to search is reduced and they easily buy a product and make choices. Supermarkets aimed at selling dietary and FMCG products realize the importance of branding and developing ways to increase brand loyalty among its consumers. Evidence has shown that the consumers prefer to buy branded food products and dietary supplements although in periods of recession and there is little material difference among the brand supplements of supermarkets and the branded food products (McAdam et al. 2014: 830). However, the dietary segment does not much focus towards this fact.
Concept of Brand Love
According to Albert and Merunka (2013: 258), the concept of love is based on the interpersonal relationships between the brands but in the context of marketing it going beyond the interpersonal relationships. The determinants of love include impulsive desire, preeminent emotional contents in the context of consumer’s reactions towards their favourite brands. Psychology has emerged different definitions of brand love and has been related to a variety of different phenomenon and events.
According to Drennan (2015: 47), the individual interaction with the object shows the degree of emotional relationship. For instance, if an individual has a strong relationship with another person, for the strength of relationship that individual would sacrifice for the favour of that person. Likewise, when a consumer loves a certain brand and has strong connection to it, will show his commitment towards that specific brand and makes financial sacrifices to obtain that specific product.
According to Albert and Merunka (2013: 258) the concept of brand love appears as an exaggeration but in the more contemporary society, individuals are more devoted to the material goods in order to justify attitudes and behaviours. Marketing teams of the organizations have identified these facts and are now developing a focus to attract consumers towards their brands through effective sales strategy. The marketers are developing a focus in the development of amusing, desire or gratitude with preliminary benefits with the products so that it appears appealing to the customers and develop an emotional element with it. As a result consumer becomes inclined towards that specific product/brand. This approach is termed as the hedonist approach and the product is termed as the hedonist product.
Researchers investigated the consumers love for tenure and it was found that the consumer’s feelings towards a brand were mainly based on the desire, love and consumers connection with the brands (McAdam et al. 2014: 830).
Evidence shows that the relationship between the consumers and the goods appears unidirectional (Kiuru 2014). Consumer shows immense affection and agitation towards consumption of the specific product and the object cannot yield the love or recruit a relationship. The rationale of consumer’s relationship is marker of all types of relationships between consumers and the utilization of the products, services, advertisements etc.
According to Kiuru (2014) the triangular love theory stated by Stenburg is analogous to the “consumer of love objects” model. In accordance with these theories the consumer’s association to the brand may be categorised into three basic components including; fondness, desire and decision/conciliation. The three dimensions lead to categorization of eight more types of consumers relationships inclusive of; liking, disliking, passion, functionalism, repressed desire, utilitarianism, capitulated desire and loyalty.
The brand love may be defined as the love a customer has towards the brand. The love is the emotional part of relationship a consumer has with the brand. The customer in this situation is the satisfied one. The brand love is analogous to various concepts including; passion in association to the brand, personal attachment towards the brand, positive feelings and emotions with a brand is linked and declarations of love towards the specific brand. To Consumers respond loosely with reference to the specific word “Love” in relation to this category.
The Role of Brand Love in Consumer Brand Relationships
An empirical research was performed in order to understand the consumers love towards the products or the activities associated to the consumption of the products. The researcher found that the consumer showed strong preference towards the specific product. The author revealed an association between interpersonal love a person has and the love in relation to the consumer’s context.
Evidence has shown relationship between the brand concept including hedonism of the product, self-expressiveness, loyalty of the brand and the positive word of mouth communications. The hedonism nature of the product was found associated to the brand loyalty rather that the moderation of the brand love and shows that it has negative association to it. On the contrary, the direct association between the self-expressiveness and positive word of mouth was considered to impact positively on the relation.
According to Carroll and Ahuvia (2013), empirical evidence shows the effectiveness of the brand love construction in order to evaluate the different responses of the consumers in association to the brand satisfaction. The brand love is found to be strategically associated to the development of the physically powerful emotional associations with the consumers.
According to Albert and Merunka (2013: 258), brand love and satisfaction of the brand are two different concepts. The brand love although is considered part of the brand satisfaction. This is a response experienced by the consumers loving a specific brand. The satisfaction a consumer receives from a brand is basically a cognitive judgement; the brand love is found to have a stronger effective focus. The brand love is an outcome of the long term relation a consumer has to a specific brand. The brand satisfaction on the other hand is specific outcome of the result of operation. Brand love does not demand any expectation or confirmation but the brand satisfaction is based on the paradigm of expectation confirmation.
The brand love concept in the perspectives of many authors is declared as “I love this brand” by the consumers and integrates the consumers identity with a specific brand. The love for brand concept is highly differentiated from the consumer’s influence of the brands including “I like this brand”. Brand love is considered an immense and strong response towards the brand than simply just liking it.
Antecedents of Brand Love
The antecedents of brand love include the following;
Brand Love and Satisfaction
According to Roy, Eshghi and Sarkar (2013: 325), satisfaction is considered as an evaluative judgment after the brand product has been consumed. The brand satisfaction is not considered completely cognitive. The satisfaction associated to the brand leads to long term attachment with the brand involving many interactions with the brand. It is representative of cumulative interaction of the brands with the consumers.
Brand Experience and Brand Love
The brand love is presented as an attitude towards a brand. Brand love is considered greatly affective in context. The brand experience that appears positive and favourable increases the love of the brand over time.
Customer Delight and Brand Love
If the interaction between the brand and the consumer is perceived as positive, it is considered that the consumer feels delighted. This leads to a strong emotional bonding between the brand and the consumer. The customers delight may be described as a feeling of joy, pleasure and surprise in association with consumption of a brands product. The customer delight is expected to increase the love of brand over time as it is already known that the brand love has a strong affective focus.
Satisfaction and Customers Delight
According to Roy, Eshghi and Sarkar (2013: 325), there are two dimensions of satisfaction including cognitive and affective. The affect dimension is considered part of the customer delight. Satisfaction is considered an element of customers delight and both are experiences developed after the consumption of the product. The satisfaction is known to influence the customers delight positively.
Individual Materialism and Brand Experiences
According to Albert and Merunka (2013: 258), a non-materialistic individual gets involved in the consumption of the product or service through experience. However, the materialistic one is not influenced by the experience and do not engage in the consumption on this basis. These individuals buy these products in order to show off and enhance their social status. Materialism is found significantly associated to the status consumption (Schmitt,Brakus and Zarantonello 2014: 727).
Consequences of Brand Love
Brand Love and Intention to Pay Price Premium
According to Kiuru (2014), brand love is associated to the emotional element of individual and as a consequence individual is highly convinced to premium pricing of the brand. Brand love is considered a combination of emotion and the passion to a specific brand. The premium pricing concept is often under consideration for marketers and they are developing strategies to attract its consumers.
Brand love and Brand Loyalty
The brand love is associated to brand loyalty. When a consumer starts to love a brand and prefers it on the other brands. This shows his commitment and loyalty towards a brand and expectations are that the consumers will stay loyal to a specific brand. This will increase the purchase for the specific brand and preference of the consumer towards one brand over the other. The consumer prefers one brand and thus ignoring competitor’s brand. The consumer’s loyalty and strong intention towards the brand is referred to as conative brand loyalty. According to Albert and Merunka (2013: 258), due to certain hindrances conative loyalty does not always change into action loyalty. In simple words reducing the obstacles leads to increase loyalty of the brands.
Positive Word-of-Mouth and Brand Love
According to Karjaluoto et al., (2016: 527), if the brand is considered loyal to a brand and is associated to the brand love is expected to spread positive word of mouth communications to other consumers. According to () Brand love is positively associated to the positive word of mouth communications.
Satisfaction and Positive Word of Mouth Communications
The increased satisfaction for a specific product leads to increase positive word of mouth communications. The negative word of mouth communications was found associated decreased satisfaction regarding the brand and its products.
Action Loyalty and Positive Word of Mouth Communication
When the consumers are satisfied with the products leads to increased customer loyalty and thus positive word of mouth communications. Satisfaction leads to higher amounts of customer loyalty. When the satisfaction increases consumers positively motivate others for preferring the brand and thus generating positive word of mouth communications.
Theoretical Framework
Evidence shows theoretical studies conducted on brand love. According to the work of Anderson (2016) there exist an emotional bond between the consumer and the brand. According to the Triangular theory of love customer-object relationship was categorized into eight different stages with differentiating them into three different components (Anderson 2016). These include;
Disliking: the feelings that are weaker in commitment and liking towards a brand may be considered as not liking. In this situation customers do not have the feelings of love towards the brand.
Liking: Liking represents that consumers are somewhat close to the object. They like it and represent commitment towards a brand.
Infatuation: It is based on the commitment and liking that appears to be weak. According to this concept consumers prefers objects on the basis of the functional properties and because they deal with on the symbolic needs of the consumers.
Functionalism: Functionalism refers to the strong commitment towards the brand but with weak yearnings and likings. Consumers who make decisions towards the brands appear more rationale rather emotionally. Their main focus here is the functionality of the brand.
Inhibited Desire: It is inclusive of infatuation and weak commitment. The consumers have some feelings of liking and passion towards the object but these feelings are concealed due to certain external factors and non-realizations of the buying process.
Utilitarianism: The utilitarian concept is inclusive of inhibited desire, commitment higher in strength and weak yearning. When the consumer buy the product through repeat purchase than the likeness toward the specific brand increases.
Succumbed Desire: This involves weak liking with strong commitment and passion. The consumers purchase the product due to their passion but they actually do not like the product.
Loyalty: Consumers are committed and loyal to the product with strong passion. Due to their strong likeness consumers prefers to buy the brand.
Brand Attachment Theory
According to Dunn and Hoegg (2014:152) the long lasting bond between the consumer and their commitment towards the brand is explained by the brand attachment theory. In accordance with the social development evidence attachment refers to the strong bond between the consumers and the objects. The attachments are developed among people during their childhood and continuous till life time. People as get to attached to several things including friends, pets, objects, places etc. Likewise, consumers fall for the products with strong and deep love. They become passionate about them, in order to obtain them; the consumers develop quasi-erotic charge from investigating, exhibiting and spending money on the brands.
In accordance with the attachment theory, a child shows feelings of anxiety and distress when someone he loves is not present at the moment (Japutra, Ekinci and Simkin 2014: 616). This can be related to the brands when the consumers develop and shows feelings of sadness and regret when they do not receive the brand.
Higher Order Brand Love Factor Model
Factors Affecting Brand Love
The factors affecting brand love includes the following:
Variety Seeking
According to Unal and Aydin (2013: 76) customers look for changes in their lives. There exist an association between variety seeking and brand love. When the customers have many options related to a brand or a brand or product, more chances are that the consumers switch the brand. The bond between the customer and the brand appears to be low. This variable is associated to the brand love.
Brand Image
Brand image is the perception that is as a whole perspective and subjective. The brand image develops an image of the “personality” or product users for any specific product. The brand image is developed as an impression in the minds of consumers when they receive information related to the brand from different resources. A study was conducted to evaluate the impact of brand image on perceived value, satisfaction and loyalty. The results showed that brand image was positively associated to these variables. The literature on brand love was found to be scarce (Mohammadian and Karimpour 2014).
Social-Self
The brands that are appealing to inner and social self are considered reflective of self. A study was conducted showing relationship between social self and brand. It was found that the love for the brands reflective of their identity appeared to be higher. When the brand represents personal identity, then the chances of positive word of mouth communications also increases.
Brand Loyalty
When a consumer loves a brand, he/she will also stay loyal and committed to the brand whenever they go to shopping. The more times, a brand is purchased by the consumer, the strength and loyalty towards that brand increases. The brand loyalty increases over time. When the consumers are having a feeling of satisfaction and love towards the brand the number of purchases are likely to be increased (Mohammadian and Karimpour 2014:94).
Positive Word of Mouth Communications
Positive word of communications represents the positive discourses and affection shown by the consumers towards a brand. According to the study conducted by () brand love was associated to positive word of mouth communications. When the consumers are satisfied related to a product, the chances are that there was more chance that they spread positive word of mouth communications.
Factors associated to Consumer Buying Behaviour
According to Albert and Merunka (2013: 258) a number of factors influence the behaviour of the individual to purchase a product and their association to brand love. The factors includes social, cultural, personal and psychological. The social factors are associated to the influence of family, reference groups and the roles and the consumer’s status. On the basis of social circles consumers develop preferences to buy a product. The cultural variables include culture, sub culture and social class. The consumer gets attracted to a variety of brands and stay loyal to them and develops intentions to purchase them. The personal factors affecting the consumer buying behaviour includes the age and life cycle stages, occupation, income and life style variables and personality. The consumer is greatly affected by these factors. The fourth factor affecting consumer buying behaviour includes the psychological variables including motivation, perceptions, learning, believes and attitudes.
Measuring Brand Love by Scales
In the light of Carroll and Ahuvia (2006), the authors proposed a brand love scale which is composed of ten different items which are reflected on determining the unique dimensions of brand love. The items which are used to measure brand love for a particular brand is also presented in the questionnaire of this research. However, the items on which the brand love is measured in explained in the table below:
Research Hypothesis
The research hypothesis for the study here in includes the following:
H1: There is an impact of brand love on the consumer buying behaviour.
H0: There is no impact of brand love on the consumer buying behaviour.
Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework is based on the factors associated to the brand love including variety seeking, brand image, social self, brand loyalty and word of mouth communications.
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Appendix
Questionnaire
Demographics
Gender
- Male
- Female
Age
- 18-23
- 24-30
- 31-36
- 37-43
- More than 43
Average Income (monthly, in US dollars)
- 2500-3500
- 3501-4500
- 4501-5500
- 5501-6500
- More than 6500
| Strongly Agree | Agree | Neutral | Disagree | Strongly Disagree | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand love (Independent variable) | |||||
| I am passionate about brand | |||||
| I love this brand | |||||
| I am very attached to this brand | |||||
| This brand is pure delight | |||||
| This brand is totally awesome | |||||
| This brand makes me feel good | |||||
| This is a wonderful brand | |||||
| This brand makes me feel very happy | |||||
| Consumer buying behaviour (dependent variable) | |||||
| I purchase a brand that reflects the type of person I see myself to be. | |||||
| I purchase a brand that facilitates me to communicate with my self-identity. | |||||
| I purchase a brand that helps me to express myself. | |||||
| I like brands that depicts symbol of social status. | |||||
| I prefer a brand that helps me to fit important social situations. | |||||
| I like to be seen associated with this specific brand. | |||||
| I like to plan my purchases rather than relying on impulse. | |||||
| There is impact of brand love on consumer buying |
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