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The purpose of this study is to examine the behavioral and emotional outcomes of nostalgic brand meanings derived from brand use that occurs in the early stages of a romantic relationship.

This research uses survey data (n = 656) and relies on structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses.

Relationship brand nostalgia has implications for how the relationship partners use the brand together as part of celebrating special occasions, how connected the brand is to their relational identity and how upset they would be if the brand was discontinued. Additionally, interpersonal relationship characteristics (relationship satisfaction and relationship power) influence these outcomes of relationship brand nostalgia.

The findings from this research show that it is important to account for real (experienced) brand nostalgia when considering behavioral and emotional implications of nostalgia in consumer–brand relationships. Specifically, brand use as part of early romantic relationship milestones influences the creation of nostalgic brand meanings, which in turn influence shared brand use, relational brand connections and brand separation distress.

Brand managers can increase relational brand connections and brand separation distress by encouraging shared brand use as part of romantic relationships milestones.

This research addresses gaps in extant research by examining the outcomes of relationship brand nostalgia, which is defined as brand nostalgia anchored in shared brand use that occurred as part of early relationship milestones.

The purpose of this paper is to deal with the role of the human metaphor (anthropomorphism) and consumers’ liking for the humanized version of the brand as antecedents of three key components of brand love: self-brand integration, positive emotional connection and feelings of anticipated separation distress.

A sample of 399 consumers provided information about a brand from a stated list of 16 brands of clothing.

Both anthropomorphism and consumers’ liking for the humanized brand have positive effects on specific components of brand love. The results confirm that brand anthropomorphism is only desirable when the humanized version of the brand is attractive for consumers.

A potential shortcoming is the qualitative technique employed to observe anthropomorphic thought. Collecting ratings of anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic traits could be viewed as a method more easily applied in market research surveys.

Managers have to control how consumers imagine the brand as a human entity because it affects brand love. For example, by tracking consumers’ opinions and traits of those people associated with the brand and brand user stereotypes can condition consumers’ imagination of the humanized brand.

Compared to the limited number of studies about the relationship between anthropomorphism and brand love, this study focuses on the effects of anthropomorphism as a process, and not as a personal trait, on brand love. It also relies on consumers’ imagination instead of brand personification strategies to stimulate anthropomorphism.

The purpose of this article to explore the nature of brand love, the antecedents and consequences of brand love and the obstacles to brand love in the context of Asian market. Brand love is an emerging concept in the domain of consumer psychology. It has been regarded as the motivating force behind contemporary hedonic consumption. Yet little qualitative exploration has been done to understand brand love especially in the context of emerging Asian market.

This article is grounded in consumers’ everyday experiences of loving particular brands. Semi-structured depth interviews have been conducted.

Based on the findings of the depth interviews, a conceptual framework has been developed showing the antecedents and consequences of brand love. This study also throws light on the specific psychological phenomenon of the emerging market consumers. The findings form the basis for a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of brand love in the context of emerging economy.

Value of this article lies in developing a grounded theory of brand love in the context of emerging Asian market.

Concepts equip the mind with thought, provide our theories with ideas, and assign variables for testing our hypotheses. Much of contemporary research deals with narrowly circumscribed concepts, termed simple concepts herein, which are the grist for much empirical inquiry in the field. In contrast to simple concepts, which exhibit a kind of unity, complex concepts are structures of simple concepts, and in certain instances unveil meaning going beyond simple concepts or their aggregation. When expressed in hylomorphic structures, complex concepts achieve unique ontological status and serve particular explanatory capabilities. We develop the philosophical foundation for hylomorphic structures and show how they are rooted in dispositions, dispositional causality, and various mind–body trade-offs. Examples are provided for this emerging perspective on “Big concepts” or “Big Ideas.”

This study aims to add to the understanding of the interactive nature of brand love by using a multilayer perspective that incorporates individual, group and societal contexts.

The qualitative empirical study uses abductive reasoning. Its theories and conclusions are grounded in naturally occurring data from an online brand community. The approach revealed new interactive processes of brand love.

This study extends our understanding of the interactive nature of brand love by adopting a layered perspective incorporating micro- (individual), meso- (in-group), macro- (in-group vs out-group) and mega-layer (societal) social dynamics that complements the predominant focus on individual psychological processes. It challenges the linear, monodirectional trajectory approach to brand love, suggesting that brand love is in constant flux as individuals move across the layers in their identification with the brand.

This study provides data from one destination brand in Finland. Future studies could consider other types of brands and contexts in other countries and cultures.

This study shows brand managers that brand lovers can be divided into subgroups with distinct drivers of their love to which brand managers should attend.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to describe the interactive nature of brand love through interactions between and within four layers of brand love. Furthermore, this study enhances our understanding of the contradictory aspects of brand love.

The purposes of this paper are to outline the theoretical context for the study of brand love in the context of places and to report preliminary findings from an extensive study on place brand love.

Three places were chosen for the research: Orlando, Florida; Minneapolis, Minnesota; and Las Vegas, Nevada. A study sample of 20 consumers engaged in a variety of methodological techniques including semi-structured consumer interviews, volunteer-employed photography and consumer collage creation.

Thirteen primary themes through which participants articulated their love in respect of the places under study were identified. These can be grouped into four categories: antecedents, relational themes (involving relationships between others, oneself and the place), experiential themes (relating to the experience of being at the place) and outcomes.

‘Brand love’ is an aspect of branding that has not been explored in the context of places, and preliminary results indicate that this may be a useful concept for both academics and practitioners to investigate further.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the different relationship that brand love, compared with brand attitude, has with actual brand performance in a cross-national and cross-category context.

An empirical study was conducted in the USA, Russia and Indonesia to develop and validate a short but comprehensive measure of brand love. A brand attitude measure derived from the company’s tracking studies and behavioural measures derived from panel data were used to examine the different relationship of brand love and brand attitude with brand performance.

The findings show that consumers in the USA, Russia and Indonesia share a similar concept of brand love. They also show that brand love, compared with brand attitude, is more strongly related to growth in behavioural loyalty, whereas brand attitude, compared with brand love, is more strongly related to the brand size in the present.

The paper combines psychological and behavioural data from different sources. Future research may collect both types of data from the same sample of consumers. Besides, the paper uses brand love and brand attitude data related to loyal consumers and users, respectively. Future research may consider both types of consumers simultaneously.

The paper clarifies why brand love measures should be integrated in a company’s brand measurement system, and their specific contribution compared with brand attitude.

This paper is the first that examines brand love in a cross-national and cross-category context and that shows the relationship of brand love vs brand attitude with actual brand performance using company/industry-derived data.

Though brand love is recognized as being an important marketing topic both for theory and practice, a gap still exists with regard to its operationalization. To bridge this gap, this paper proposes a single-item measure (SIM) that uses a visual rating scale (i.e., a rating scale combining verbal with nonverbal contents).

Three studies covering over 700 respondents and examining three international brands over three product categories were conducted to test the new measure.

Findings provide consistent evidence for the reliability and validity of the proposed measure. They also demonstrate that brand love, as gauged by the new SIM, is good in predicting positive word of mouth, willingness to pay a higher price, and willingness to forgive brand mishaps.

The paper focuses on brand love mainly from a measurement perspective.

This paper provides a practical and parsimonious tool to measure brand love.

Extant SIMs of brand love are less than ordinal, content invalid, of unknown reliability, and of untested concurrent validity. This paper provides academics and practitioners alike with a SIM of brand love that is ordinal, content valid, and tested in terms of reliability and concurrent validity.