TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose This paper aims to determine one explanation for how the self-brand connection is associated with brand loyalty through the brand experience. Brand experience should verify the self-brand connection by acting as a mechanism through which a self-brand connection is associated with brand loyalty.Design/methodology/approach Data were obtained from 317 adults through paid Facebook Boosting of an online survey and analyzed using structural equation modeling.Findings Analyses confirm that brand experience fully mediates the association between self-brand connection and brand loyalty.Research limitations/implications Ensuring a positive brand experience is critical for brand managers opting to maintain consumers’ self-brand connections and brand loyalty. Causality suffered owing to the cross-sectional design of the study.Practical implications Self-brand connection is viewed as consumer-driven. However, by identifying the brand experience to verify the self-brand connection and as a factor that mediates the self-brand connection–loyalty relationship of consumers, brand experience is recognized as a new factor which brand managers can control to manage self-brand connections and brand loyalty.Originality/value This paper is the first to apply the self-verification theory to the self-brand connection–loyalty relationship by explicating brand experience as a mediator of this relationship. This paper argues self-verification is not context-specific and lived experiences with the brand, irrespective of context, establish consumer–brand relationships. This paper confirms the second-order factor structure of the brand experience scale (Brakus et al., 2009) as a mediator in this self-brand connection–loyalty model.
VL  - 27
IS  - 2
SN  - 1061-0421
DO  - 10.1108/JPBM-07-2016-1281
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-07-2016-1281
AU  - van der Westhuizen Liezl-Marié
PY  - 2018
Y1  - 2018/01/01
TI  - Brand loyalty: exploring self-brand connection and brand experience
T2  - Journal of Product & Brand Management
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 172
EP  - 184
Y2  - 2024/04/25
ER  -