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Extant research shows that individual’s relationship with brand can be structurally similar to both interpersonal love relationship and religious relationship. A stream of consumer research states that individual can love a brand like a person loves another person. Another stream of consumer research postulates that individual can perceive brand equivalent to religion, and even substitute religion with brand. Research is scarce connecting these two different paradigms of brand relationship, given that interpersonal relationship is not necessarily as devotional as religious relationship. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the psychological process through which an individual can substitute his/her religion with brand. The basic theoretical premise of this substitution behaviour is the proposition that brand meanings can be perceived as equivalent to religious meanings.

This paper has conducted an integrative review of selected extant research related to individual-brand relationships, interpersonal relationships and religiosity.

This paper develops a consumer response hierarchy model showing the inter-related psychological processes through which an individual can substitute his/her religion with brand. The model forms the basis for the discussion of theoretical contributions and managerial implications.

The value of this conceptual paper lies in developing a process model for the first time in the area of consumer-brand relationship domain explaining the stage-wise psychological processes through which individual can move from mere cognitive brand satisfaction towards perceiving brand as substitute of religion.

The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively investigate various factors associated with e-tail store brand affect.

Data were collected by conducting semi-structured depth interviews following a storytelling approach. The data were coded using the grounded theory method.

Data analysis shows that anticipated service recovery, deal attractiveness and luxury e-tail brand image predict e-tail store brand affect. These predictors play their roles under the moderating influences of specific moderators. The desirable marketing outcomes of e-tail store brand affect are e-tail branded app usage, spreading positive word of mouth and secure attachment style toward e-tailer.

The value of this study lies in developing a grounded theory based causal process model that can provide managerial insights on how to enhance e-tail brand affect.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how various retail store atmospheric cues can impact store brand loyalty (SBL) via eliciting store brand love. This paper posits that different store brand experiential cues can predict brand love only when the experience is processed based on perceiving the brand as human-like entity, i.e. brand anthropomorphization. Brand love cannot be strongly elicited without the sense of brand anthropomorphization. Moreover, brand love can impact brand loyalty intention only under the moderating condition of perceived firm’s positive relationship marketing orientation.

Survey was conducted among urban shopping mall consumers, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

The findings support that store brand experience elicited by store environmental cues can better predict store brand love when the store is perceived as human, and store brand love can better predict conative SBL when consumer perceives that the store is having a positive relationship orientation.

The value of the paper lies in empirically testing the psychological mechanism through which store atmospheric cues lead to SBL.

The majority of past studies on the physical store environment have focused on the impacts of distinct store environmental cues like music, crowding and décor on consumers' responses. However, recent research posits that consumer is more likely to experience several cues in a combination, rather than in isolation, i.e. different categories of store environmental cues are likely to impact consumer psychology holistically. Hence, our study aims to identify the relevant factors of store atmospheric cues impacting consumer's attitude in physical retail store context and validate scales to measure such factors.

This research develops and validates psychometrically reliable scales to measure two broad store stimuli factors namely: attractive and facilitating store stimuli, following the scale development method suggested by Churchill (1979).

The study shows that attractive store stimuli predict affective and sensory store brand experiences. The facilitating store stimuli moderate the effects of attractive store stimuli on affective and sensory store brand experiences. Affective and sensory store brand experiences predict store satisfaction.

This research contributes to the existing body of store ambience research by empirically understanding the psychological mechanism through which customers perceive different store cues holistically leading to the elicitation of store satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a psychometrically reliable scale to measure centrality of brand (CoB) or brand centrality construct in the domain of fashion apparel brands. The scale quantitatively validates that brand relationship can be of equivalent importance to religious relationship in an individual fashion brand lover’s life.

Based on a previous literature review, brand centrality has been conceptualized. Following that, CoB scale has been validated in a step-by-step process following the scale validation methodology suggested by Churchill (1979).

The final outcome of the study is a psychometrically reliable CoB scale. The study results validate the relationships between CoB, and other important theoretical antecedents and consequences of brand centrality.

This study contributes to the existing body of fashion branding research by showing that a consumer-fashion brand relationship can be of importance akin to a religious relationship in an individual’s life.

The purpose of this study was to explore possible types of brand proximity based on respective psychological causal antecedents, and also to uncover possible marking outcomes of brand proximity.

Data were collected from young adult respondents through semi-structured depth interviewing. The data were coded using a grounded theory method to interpret causal relationships between concepts.

Data coding resulted in a causal process model showing various psychological factors that would predict various brand proximity types, and also various attitudinal outcomes of brand proximity. Important emerging market context-specific findings are that the majority of Asian consumers feel emotionally close to developed foreign country originated brands, and that they use brands as a means to escape from various stress factors present in their daily lives.

A value of the study lies in exploring the contemporary types of psychological brand proximity and associated factors in the domain of consumer-brand relationship for the first time among Asian young adults.

The purpose of this paper is to define the brand religiosity phenomenon and develop a theoretical process model showing the interrelationships between brand religiosity and other related concepts leading to the formation of a distinct brand sub-culture or community.

A large volume of prior literature on consumer–brand relationships has been reviewed to develop the conceptual framework.

The framework developed shows several actionable antecedents and desirable marketing outcomes of brand religiosity. The framework also depicts that brand religiosity leads to the creation of social anti-structure by forming a distinct brand community that frees individuals from the regular social structure and motivates them to adopt a distinct brand sub-culture formed. Theoretical contributions and business policy-related implications of brand religiosity are discussed.

Value of the study lies in conceptualizing brand religiosity and developing an integrative process model centering the concept.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore the antecedents and consequences of hospital brand attachment and associated intervening factors amongst patients and attendants in the context of the emerging Indian market where the hospital industry has a heterogeneous structure consisting of state-owned and private hospitals.

Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted to collect data. Data were coded using the grounded theory method to explore and validate interrelationships between the constructs that emerged.

Based on the data analysis, a grounded theory framework has been developed, which recognizes hospital brand attachment as the central construct, and depicts its related antecedents, consequences and intervening or moderating factors.

The study contributes to the existing body of healthcare marketing research by having discovered actionable antecedents of hospital brand attachment that could help healthcare marketers in emerging markets to formulate branding strategies that strengthen the patient–hospital brand attachment relationships. Based on the concepts explored in this qualitative study, it has been put forth that the concept of brand love or brand attachment that is well-researched in the case of general consumer brands is also applicable in the case of hospital brands, without ignoring the specific idiosyncrasies of the hospital industry.

The purposes of this qualitative study are to investigate brand embarrassment which is a unique social consumption emotion and to identify possible antecedents, consequences and moderating factors associated with it.

The study reviewed a large volume of literature on embarrassment. The literature review was followed by a series of semi-structured, in-depth interviews of selected brand-conscious young adult informants in India. The data collected through such interviews were coded following grounded theory method.

The final outcome of the study is a comprehensive grounded theory framework. The framework depicts various antecedents and consequences of brand embarrassment and specific moderating factors shaping the influences of specific antecedents on brand embarrassment.

The value of this qualitative study lies in developing an elaborate grounded theory framework showing the inter-relationships between brand embarrassment and other related concepts.

This paper aims to analyze the impacts of distinct advertising appeals on brand attitudes and purchase intentions toward green brands across two different product categories (technology-intensive and technology non-intensive) among the young adult consumers.

On the basis of focus group discussion, recyclable shopping bags (technology non-intensive) and hybrid cars (technology intensive) were identified as two product categories for the final study. A total of eight advertisement copies were developed (three in each product class + two control group ads) and distributed across 240 young consumers. A 4 (three advertising appeals + one control group) × 2 (product classes) between group experimental design was used to test the hypotheses formulated.

The study findings show that all the three advertisement appeals significantly influence attitudes and purchase intentions toward green brands across both the product categories. However, it was also found that functional appeal generated significantly lower mean scores for brand attitude and purchase intention for recyclable shopping bags compared to hybrid cars, whereas emotional appeal generated significantly lower mean scores for brand attitude, as well as purchase intention for hybrid cars compared to bags. This implies that functional green ad appeal would be more effective for technology-intensive products and emotional green ad appeal would be more effective for technology non-intensive products. Self-expressive green ad appeal was found to be equally effective in impacting brand attitudes and purchase intentions across both product categories.

The value of this research lies in investigating how the effects of distinct green brand advertising appeals on brand attitude and purchase intention can vary across technology-intensive and technology non-intensive products.