• Asia Marketing Journal
• /
• v.15 no.4
• /
• pp.161-186
• /
• 2014

There are many cases of rebranding and its numbers are growing. However, rebranding is still under research in the academic field, and there is no guideline on the effective way to change brand name. The objective of this paper is to integrate two inconsistent predictions from categorization theory and schema incongruity theory: a negative linear relationship (categorization theory) versus an inverted-U-shape relationship (schema incongruity theory) between brand name incongruity and consumer evaluation into one framework. Specifically, this study examines how the effect of incongruity between an existing brand name and a new brand name (hereafter called "brand name incongruity") on the new brand name attitude differs depending on a consumer's individual characteristics (need for cognition). The experiment demonstrates that consumers with a high need for cognition show a better attitude towards a new brand name when the brand name was rebranded moderately incongruent compared to congruent or extremely incongruent. Thus, the experiment demonstrates that there is an inversed U-shape relationship between brand name incongruity and new brand name evaluation for consumers with a high need for cognition. On the contrary, consumers with a low need for cognition show a better attitude towards a new brand name when the brand name is rebranded congruently compared to incongruent conditions (moderate incongruity and extreme incongruity). This result indicates that there is a negative linear relationship between brand name incongruity and new brand name evaluation. Key theoretical and managerial implications of the present study are as follows. This study integrates two alternative views of research on incongruity evaluation into one framework by demonstrating that need for cognition moderates the relationship between brand name incongruity and consumer evaluation. This present study provides a conceptual basis for understanding consumer evaluation towards a new brand name. Next, though rebranding is a very important decision making of brand management, there is no guideline on how to change a brand name. The findings of this research can suggest which degree of change is optimal when rebranding in order to utilize and strengthen existing brand equity. More specifically, when our target customer has high need for cognition, moderately incongruent rebranding can be optimal, whereas for those with low need for cognition, rebranding in accordance with existing brand name will be optimal.

• Korean journal of communication and information
• /
• v.44
• /
• pp.7-43
• /
• 2008

This study aims to identify a new direction in the consumer-brand relationship by quantitatively approaching from the psychological aspect consumers' brand love, which is the most powerful strategic element in forming an emotional consumer-brand relationship. What significance does brand love have in a consumer-brand relationship? Brand love is the most fundamental in the emotional consumer-brand relationship. Through brand ownership, consumers add meaning to their lives, and love brands by expressing themselves. Love is a scale that understands consumer-brand relationship from the most interpersonal aspect and can be considered as the most essential element in an empathetic relationship. Consumers' brand love not only determines brand image and reliability but through brand loyalty, it also influences market competitiveness. In addition, as a medium that can overcome brand crisis, it serves as a turning point of the relationship and can enhance the strength of consumers' brand love. Under such generational and theoretical background, this study took a psychological approach on love in emotional consumer-brand relationship. Focusing on the most representative theory and classification of love, Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love, types of brand love were examined. 552 questionnaires were distributed through a survey with mobile phone service and product brands, and a factor analysis was conducted. Types of brand love revealed through the results of this study were very similar to Sternberg's types of love, and it was found that the types of brand love varied based on product category. It can be suggested that the concept of brand love is an important strategic idea in brand communication.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.25-36
• /
• 2023

Purpose: Brand community in higher education institutions comes up as an important topic to be discussed because the relationships among consumers can support the institutional brand and ultimately give meaning and vitality to the market-oriented strategy. This study aims to investigate how the literature on brand community in higher education have been distributed in research trends, theoretical frameworks, and methods. Research design, data and methodology: A total of 24 articles were organized from four reputable international databases. Content analysis were performed followed by synthesis toward potential directions and suggestions. Results: The researches in this area have increasingly focused on online interaction. Social identity theory and relationship theory were the two most prevalent theories used. Since the internet provides any social relationship with a specific relationship to form the brand community, its contextualization in higher education resulted in new concept implementation. Conclusions: The relationship within online participati on has impacted the market-oriented strategy of higher education in searching for ways toward a long-term and enduring bond among students, alumni, institutions and brands. As there is a plenteous prospect of data availability combined with big data analysis technology, the online participation will pique the interest of scholars to conduct further research on it.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.21 no.3
• /
• pp.37-46
• /
• 2023

Purpose: The article focuses on studying the impact of brand anthropomorphism, and brand love, on brand advocacy, and at the same time the moderate role of brand self-connection in the process of customers' perception of the brand, especially the brand distribution. The survey subjects are customers with millennial consumers in Ho Chi Minh City, who have the behavior of buying brands in the smart mobile device industry many times with a specific brand in terms of brand distribution. Results: The findings show that Brand anthropomorphism and brand love are crucial factors to impact brand advocacy and the role of self-brand connection also is a confirmed positive effect on the relationship between brand anthropomorphism and brand love. Research design, data, and methodology: The article uses quantitative research to test the model and research hypotheses. The way to collect quantitative data is to use questionnaires with 1531 samples in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Conclusion: The research results can help businesses build a long-term brand strategy and expect to get new rewards and value from customers. They can also add to the theory about the relationship between brands and customers.

• Management & Information Systems Review
• /
• v.29 no.1
• /
• pp.97-115
• /
• 2010

The concept that human and brand can related to each other is referred to as 'brand relationship' or 'consumer-brand relationship. By arguing that the concept of brand relationship is a readily understandable analogue, it appears that relationship thinking in the context of consumers and brands sometimes is taken for granted without thoroughly discussing its applicability. In this perspective, this paper tests the limitations with the relationship metaphor and interpersonal relationship theory by comparing the differences among product categories. And research findings as follow like these. First, even if many companies seek to anthropomorphize their brands, consumers may still don't consider them as human. Second, the possibility of personification is much higher in product categories like lead higher interaction between consumers and brands and give higher enjoyment than those of lower. And finally, consumer's personification of products are not essential factors that lead higher brand relationship.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.9 no.6
• /
• pp.81-93
• /
• 2022

This research aims to construct a model that combines brand love, brand loyalty, brand image, customer satisfaction, and service quality into a single model, with brand loyalty coming foremost, and test its predictive power in building brand love. Moreover, mediating effect of customer satisfaction and brand image on service quality and brand loyalty affecting brand love was checked. The study adopted an alliance context using an existing SERVQUAL model, a bi-dimensional aspect of brand loyalty and parasocial love relationship theory, to identify brand love as a construct or outcome in the consumer-brand relationship. Using a quantitative approach, survey questionnaires were distributed by unrestricted random sampling among 507 Saudia Airlines customers. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling with SmartPLS 3.0. The results revealed significant relationships between four variables except for the brand image. It was found that brand image had no mediating effect on the relationship between service quality and customer loyalty. The outcome of this study highlights the importance of airline alliances for service quality, which leads to positive customer satisfaction, brand image, and customer loyalty. A unique contribution of the study is that it revealed that brand loyalty is also an antecedent of brand love.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
• /
• v.12 no.2
• /
• pp.13-28
• /
• 2022

Purpose: Natural products are becoming gradually popular because of their health - related benefits and consumers' environmental awareness. However, research in this field remains limited, the present study attempts to address this research gap by measuring the influencing levels of the antecedents on natural product brand love. Research design, data and methodology: The study employs S-O-R (Stimulus - Organism - Response) framework together with Innovation Resistance Theory and Dual-Factor Theory to propose the research model, in which health and environmental stimuli influence both of facilitators and inhibitors of internal states or organism, and then shape purchase intention and brand love as consumers' responses. The mixed research method is designed with the application of structural equation model (SEM) to analyze 530 consumers collected by convenience sampling. Results: The results revealed that two chosen stimuli, including health awareness and environmental concern were positively related to both facilitators (natural content and regional products) and inhibitors (image barrier and usage barrier) and these four factors were significantly associated to purchase intention and brand love. Furthermore, purchase intention played the mediating role on the relationship between the four organisms and brand love. Conclusions: The originality of this paper is extend S-O-R theory into natural product context with mediating effects in an emerging economy. The findings make theoretical contribution on consumer behavior and managerial implication.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.1-14
• /
• 2016

According to the previous studies about relationship marketing, customers who have relationship with preferable brand or company take spontaneous word of mouth(WOM) and make more purchases than those who don't. Recently, as e-commerce has been combined with social media, many companies that are looking for solution which can promote customer relationship quality using social media. This study aims to investigate the role of customer's perceived value on brand relationship quality in social media. Although perceived value has been defined from many perspectives, we only consider "perceived social value" and "perceived emotional value" in this paper. According to social capital theory, self-esteem is an important variable when we explain the relationships. Thus this paper considers "self-esteem" as a moderating variable between relationship quality and relationship retention. To serve the research purpose, we collect 226 valid questionnaires from social media users. And we analyze data set and test research hypotheses by using SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 20. We expect that the result contain a lot of implication for both researchers and practitioners. Major findings from analyzing 226 valid questionnaires are as follows. First, when customer recognizes social value about brand or company, relationship quality with the brand or company has been improved. Second, when customer recognizes emotional value about brand or company, relationship retain intention with the brand or company has been improved. Third, self-esteem doesn't have moderating effect between relationship quality and relationship retention in social media.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.21 no.5
• /
• pp.53-61
• /
• 2023

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to consolidate research trends about the distribution of 'other customer perspective' on 'brand love' and 'brand anthropomorphism', as well as to identify prospective research topics and provide managers with suggestions. Design, data, and technique of research: The purpose of this article is to examine the distribution relationship between brand love and brand anthropomorphism using a systematic review and bibliographic mapping analysis (VOS viewer) using 23 documents from 2014 to 2023. Results: This will be a step in the correct path if brand managers can have a great interaction with their clients by using common anthropomorphism. Yet, a second challenge will be how to anthropomorphize the brand. Moreover, there is nothing simpler than discovering oneself in a brand when there are several pictures, life ethics, sentiments, and experiences that coincide. From a different perspective, the brand sometimes looks to be the ideal model for consumers to identify with, and even fall in love with since it makes them feel close to their significant other. Conclusion: The findings may help companies create a long-term brand strategy and anticipate additional consumer rewards and value. They may also enhance brand-customer theory.

• Journal of Distribution Science
• /
• v.14 no.7
• /
• pp.83-90
• /
• 2016

Purpose - This study focuses on new type distribution channel that named as Omnichannel. Omnichannel is developed from Multichannel which is used in many distribution channels to buy or selling goods. Omnichannel basically needs an Information and Communications Technologies(ICT) to use, so researcher conduct a Technology Acceptance Model(TAM) to research model. Customer-brand relationship was used as dependent variable to focus on the role of Omnichannel. Research design, data, and methodology - The subject of this study is customer who purchase goods or service through omnichannel. Based on the literature from the preceding research analysis of TAM and customer-brand relationship, this study was constructed by the reference to previous studies, final research model design for figure out casual relationship among perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, omnichannel use and customer-brand relationship. From 2016 February 3 to March 17, questionnaire survey targeted customers who use online and offline channels. 273 questionnaire survey had conducted, then, 252 survey data were available for empirical analysis. Researcher provide descriptive statistics for checking generality. Cronbach's alpha value was used to check the reliability of data. Exploratory factor analysis was used for purification of values and eigenvalue checking. After EFA, Confirmatory factor analysis was used to prepare structural equation modeling with executing structural equation modeling for confirming hypothesis which developed by researcher. Results - The main results of this empirical study are as follows. First, omnichannel's perceived ease of use has positive significant effect on perceived usefulness(estimate: 0.579). Moreover, omnichannel's perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness has positive significant effect on omnichannel use(estimate: 0.325,0.648). Second, using omnichannel has positive significant effect on brand-customer relationship(estimate: 0.521). Every hypothesis adopted as researcher designed. This study found out the intermediate relationship between perceived ease of use and omnichannel use by investigating hypothesis. Conclusions - Base on the empirical result, this study confirmed that TAM theory perceived has relation with omnichannel. First, factors of TAM has positive effect on omnichannel use, so it highlights the important role of customer based interface and usefulness. Especially, perceived usefulness has high indirect influence on ease of use and use of omnichannel. It seems that when customers try to decide use or not use omnichannel, customers focus on percept benefits from omnichannel. Thus, a provider should applicate attractive price table, accurate product or service information and high switching cost strategy to emphasize the usefulness of omnichannel. Second, using omnichannel enhances the relationship between customers and brand, because there are more time and frequency to serve customers. It is important because good relationship between customers can increase the future's financial performance through word of mouse, positive brand image and loyalty to brand or company. Finally, despite of empirical result and implications, this study has limitations. First, there are only a few previous studies about omnicahnnel, so literature reviews are restricted. While set up the factors which can affect the use of omnichannel, next study should be considered with broader theories or models(ex: contingency theory). Second, omnichannel has developed from multichannel, so comparative analysis is needed between these methods because there is a possibility about different forte character of each distribution system on customer's consuming patterns.