Presentation given at the 1st International Consumer Brand Relationships Conference, www.consumer-brand-relationships.org Copyright by Daniel Heinrich Carmen-Maria Albrecht Hans Bauer

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Love Actually?
Investigating Consumers’ Brand Love
Daniel Heinrich
Carmen-Maria Albrecht
Hans H. Bauer
23 April 2010
1st International Colloquium on the Consumer-Brand Relationship

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LOVE
LOVE
LOVE
LOVE
LOVE
LOVE

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Relevance from a managerial point of view (1/2)
Consumers Brands Marketers
 Consumers nowadays live in an
almost demystified world of
consumption
 More and more people trying
to fill their lives with meaning
by consumption
 Thus the role of consumption
has changed over the last
decades: hedonic consumption,
self-expressivness, symbolism,
consumtion as status and
prestige (e.g. Lasslop 2002)
 Brands can provide such values
(hedonic value, prestige value,
symbolic values, etc.)
(e.g. Hirschman 1982;
Holbrok/Hirschman 1982;
Belk/Wallendorf/Sherry 1989)
 Brands can become also an
important part of Individuals‘
lives. (e.g. Fournier 1998;
Belk 1988)
 Emotions gain more and more
relevance in today’s brand
management and advertising
 Increasingly trend toward emotional
advertising slogans , like McDonald‘s
„I‘m loving it“ or „Mini – is it love?“
 Marketers try to anchor brands not
only in the mind of customers but
also in their hearts
 This so called „share of heart“ gets
more and more important in
marketing practice

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Relevance from a managerial point of view (2/2)
Marketers have already developed a model to meet the requirements…
BRANDS
Low Love | High Respect
Low
Love
High
Love
PRODUCTS
Low Love | Low Respect
LOVEMARKS
High Love | High Respect
FADS
High Love | Low Respect
High
Respect
Low
Respect (Saatchi & Saatchi/Roberts 2004, 2006)

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Relevance from a academic point of view (1/2)
… but also academic research is focusing on brand love and it’s consequences on consumers‘ behavior
“For marketers who want consumers to be attracted to, and loyal to their
products, love of products and brands is a topic of clear relevance.”
(Ahuvia/Batra/Bagozzi 2008)
“We believe that brand loyalty is merely a symptom or the result of a
deeper underlying relationship between the consumer and brand and that
relationship is love.”
(Kamat/Parulekar 2007)
“In its strong behavioral, emotional and psychological foundations,
satisfaction – as love – probably constitutes the most intense and profound
satisfaction of all.”
(Fournier/Mick 1999)

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Brand love even becomes relevant in the concept of relationship marketing…
SHARE OF
WALLET
REPUTATION
ANCHORED
SHARE OF
HEARTH
(WHAT)
PERSON
ANCHORED
(HOW)
Past
Reality
Future
Reality
Jagdish N. Sheth (2007)
Relevance from a academic point of view (2/2)

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Triangular Theory of Love
(Sternberg 1986, 1988, 1997)
Intimacy
Passion
Decission/
Commitment
LOVE
Love Attitude Styles
(Lee 1977)
Ludus
Eros Storge
Agape
PragmaMania
Seite 10
Social psychology is providing applicable theoretical frameworks, e.g.:

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Triangular Theory of Love
(Sternberg 1986, 1988, 1997)
Intimacy
Passion
Decission/
Commitment
LOVE
Sternberg’s theory as basis for exploring consumer-object relations?
Consumer-Object Relations
(Shimp /Madden 1988)
Liking
Yearning
Decission/
Commitment
COR
“A necessary next step is developing psychometric
scales to measure each of the components
comprising consumer-object relations .”
(Shimp/Madden 1988)

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Step 1: Development of psychometric scales
Qualitative in-deph-interviews to shed light on how love toward brands can be characterized
Scales were developed by drawing on items used in interpersonal or psychological context
Items were captured by 7-point Likert scales
Pre-test for external and internal consistency
Evaluation of reliability and validity criteria
Fornell-Larcker test to ensure discriminant validity
5 weeks field study time (45.5% female, 54.5 % male); average age 38.8 (SD=12.8)
Main-study : self-administrated online questionnaire

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Step 1: Results
Factors Items Factor
Loading
Item-to-total
Correlation
Indicator
Reliability
Factor
Reliability
Alpha
Brand
Commitment
I am very focused on this brand. 0,899 0,771 0,71
0,89 0,888
[…] would be my first choice. 0,921 0,815 0,75
I will not buy other brands if […] is
available at the store.
0,898 0,768 0,73
Brand
Intimacy
Most of the time I feel very close to
this brand.
0,944 0,871 0,86
0,90 0,936
There is a close connection
between me and this brand.
0,968 0,923 0,94
There is a certain intimacy
between me and this brand.
0,913 0,813 0,73
Brand
Passion
I am passionate about this brand. 0,923 0,831 0,73
0,90 0,897[…] is a captivating brand. 0,934 0,810 0,79
I am enthusiastic about this brand.
0,884 0,903 0,75
Brand Love can be captured as a second-order construct, reflected by 3 facets…

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Step 2: Investigating consequences of Brand Love
The second study tests our measurement scales for nomolgical validity and explores consumers’ behavior
 Partners in close relationships are more willing to accommodate and to forgive mistakes made by their partner
(Rustbulk et al. 1991; Wieselquist et al. 1999).
 Emotional bonds strengthen relationships even if dissatisfactions appears (Hazan/Shaver 1994).
 Consumers’ willingness to forgive mistakes made by a company or brand is affected positive by
consumer-brand relationship (Aaker/Fournier/Brasel 2004).
H1: Brand love has a positive effect on consumers’ willingness to forgive
 Brand equity literature highlights that consumers’ willingness to pay a higher price depends on perceived value
(Aaker 1996; Keller 2003; Vazquez/Belen del Rio/Iglesias 2002; Yoo, Donthu/Lee 2000).
 Consumers’ willingness to pay a price premium is affected positive by their emotional attachment to a brand
(Thomson/MacInnis/Park 2005).
H2: Brand love has a positive effect on consumers’ willingness to pay a price premium

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Step 2: Results
Structural equation modeling shows the impact of consumers’ brand love on behavioral constructs…
consumers‘
brand love
consumers‘
willingness to
forgive
willingness to
pay a price
premium
brand
passion
brand
intimacy
brand
commitment
H1 +.64
H2 +.43
χ2/df=2.42 NFI=.97 TLI=.98 CFI=.98 RMSEA=.073 SRMR=.064

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Step 3: Identifying Brand Love Styles
Finally we explored the data to identify different kinds of love relationships…
Love Style
Component
Intimacy Passion
Decision/
Commitment
Nonlove - - -
Liking + - -
Infatuated Love - + -
Empty Love - - +
Romantic Love + + -
Companionate Love + - +
Fatuous Love - + +
Consummate Love + + +
Intimacy
Passion
Commit-
ment
LOVE

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Brand Love Style #
Component
Brand
Intimacy
Brand Passion
Brand
Commitment
Nonlove 58 - - -
Liking 2  - -
Infatuated Love 55 -  -
Empty Love 20 - - 
Romantic Love 18   -
Companionate Love 3  - 
Fatuous Love 50 -  
Consummate Love 125   
∑ 331
Step 3: Results

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Conclusion
Development of a measurement scale reflecting consumers’ love for brands
Consumers’ love for brands is reflected by brand passion, brand intimacy & brand commitment
Brand love has a strong influence on consumers’ willingness to pay a price premium
Brand love has a strong influence on consumers’ willingness to forgive
“Research is needed to expand the conceptual
model, identifying antecedents and outcomes of
brand love.”
(Carroll/Ahuvia 2006)
“Despite its growing popularity, consumer research on love is still in
its infancy and much of the work centers around the basic question
of what love is when applied to products and brands.”
(Ahuvia/Batra/Bagozzi 2008)
Analogously to interpersonal love, different love styles can be identified

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Daniel Heinrich
daniel.heinrich@bwl.uni-mannheim.de
University of Mannheim
Germany

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Additional slide

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NOTE.—In each row, the same group activation is displayed from three different
perspectives (from left to right: sagittal, coronal, and axial) on an individual
participant’s normalized SPGR structural image. The displayed anatomy does not
represent the anatomical variation of all 19 participants. The region of interest in
which the contrast was tested is marked in white and the significant voxels (p <
.005 uncorrected at the individual voxel level) within that region are marked with
color, according to the t-scores.
“Overall results of the present fMRI investigation support the contention that consumers do not
process descriptive judgements of products in the same manner as those applied to humans.”
(Yoon et. al 2006, p. 36)