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This study aims to apply parasocial relationship theory to understand the hospitality brand-consumer relationship on social media. Aiming to examine brand-initiated mechanisms that drive relationship development, the study identified two sets of brand actions as antecedents, namely, content-related (utilitarian and hedonic benefits) and interaction-related factors (perceived interactivity and openness). This study also investigated the subsequent impacts of parasocial relationships on customer engagement behaviors and brand loyalty. As baby boomers are an important but understudied consumer cohort in social media marketing, this study empirically tested the proposed model for this specific group.

A survey was conducted electronically with baby boomer consumers from the USA. The partial least squares analysis was used to test the model validity for this consumer group.

The results of this study showed that content-related factors had significant effects on the parasocial relationship, which, in turn, significantly influenced customer engagement and brand loyalty.

This study responds to the recent calls from scholars on developing and expanding a nomological network of parasocial relationships to understand consumer-brand relationships in social media. By focusing on baby boomers, this study adds unique insights on understanding online relationships and engagement, specifically for this cohort. Future studies should expand the study by examining other generations, platform differences or using longitudinal methods.

This study informs hospitality marketers in the development and implementation of a successful Facebook relationship building campaign targeting baby boomers.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study known to have developed a coherent parasocial relationship model that combined content-related benefits, interaction-related factors, online engagement and brand loyalty. It also represents one of the few to examine how hospitality brands can build a parasocial relationship with baby boomers, an important but cohort, on social media and provide actionable insights to hospitality marketers for this generation.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between brand attachment and consumers’ positive and negative behaviours. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating effects of attachment styles on these relationships.

The study is based on a survey of 432 respondents, and the data are analysed using the structural equation modelling approach.

This study empirically supports that brand attachment and attachment styles (i.e. anxiety attachment and avoidance attachment) are distinct. Brand attachment influences consumers’ not only positive behaviour (i.e. brand loyalty) but also negative behaviours, such as trash-talking, schadenfreude and anti-brand actions. The findings of the study suggest that only avoidance attachment style moderates the relationships between brand attachment and these consumer behaviours. The link between brand attachment and brand loyalty is attenuated for high-attachment-avoidance consumers. In contrast, the links between brand attachment and trash-talking, schadenfreude and anti-brand actions are strengthened.

This study assists marketing managers in understanding that a strong brand attachment may result in negative behaviours that can harm a company’s brand image. Thus, building a strong relationship with consumers will not always be beneficial. Companies should be aware of the consequences of building relationships with consumers who have a high level of attachment anxiety and/or avoidance.

This paper highlights that brand attachment not only influences brand loyalty behaviour but also three negative behaviours: trash-talking, schadenfreude and anti-brand actions. Moreover, the links between brand attachment and negative behaviours are strengthened when consumers have a high level of attachment avoidance.

As fertile soil for product promotion, online interest communities have gradually come into brands' view. However, existing research does not clarify whether brand engagement in consumer interaction is beneficial to the development of online interest communities. This study attempts to investigate the effects of brand engagement on the online interest community operation.

The authors propose a model that delineated the influence of brand engagement on consumers' citizenship behavior in the online interest community from the commitment-trust perspective. Scenario-based experiments were conducted and 536 data were collected by simple random sampling.

Results shows that a stronger perception of brand engagement has a positive influence on the relationship (trust and commitment) between the community and its users, which further influences online community citizenship behavior (feedback, advocacy and tolerance) of both posters and lurkers, especially for the posters. Although relationships are more complex, brand engagement activates the development of online interest communities to some extent.

This original study contributes to the commitment-trust theory by examining the impact of brand engagement on citizenship behavior via community commitment and trust in the online interest community context. In addition, this study compares the moderating effect of posters vs lurkers on the relationship between brand engagement and citizenship behavior in the online interest community.

For most frequently purchased packaged goods distributed in the super‐hypermarket channel, the store is where a manufacturer's brand can develop its image and its evaluation through an informal control on the purchase experience. Yet, for brands in this sector, better controlled in‐store purchase experiences can lead to enhance brand perceived value, relationship quality, and loyalty. To capture how these contacts take place, the authors develop the concept of in‐store manufacturer brand expression. This concept encompasses three dimensions, namely perceived quality of in‐store manufacturer brand presentation, in‐store manufacturer brand image expression, and perceived closeness of brand image with store image. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of these components on brand evaluations. An empirical application on brands of the food and intimate apparel categories shows the differential impacts of these components on perceived value, relationship quality (trust‐credibility, trust‐benevolence, affective commitment), and attitudinal loyalty.

The empirical application involves major brands positioned in frequently purchased packaged goods categories (ice cream, frozen meals and intimate apparel) and distributed in the super‐hypermarket channel over which they have no formal control. The conceptualization and measurement of perceived brand relationship orientation bears on a qualitative analysis of marketing experts and consumers. Refinement and validation of measures are applied to a convenience sample of 153 students and finally on a sample of 304 actual consumers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the model and hypotheses.

Perceived quality of in‐store brand presentation has a direct positive effect on brand value and trust‐credibility whereas in‐store brand image expression has direct positive impact on trust‐benevolence and affective commitment. At the same time, perceived closeness of brand manufacturer image with store image has a direct negative impact on trust‐credibility. In addition, the authors observed that these effects have significant indirect positive and negative consequences on attitudinal loyalty, throughout the causal links which exist between value, trust and affective commitment. Also, the authors' results support the relationship marketing model in the case of strong national brands positioned in the frequently purchased packaged goods sector.

The application is limited to only three product categories and to strong national brands which enjoy high levels of awareness and market share. Also, the model could be connected to behavioural loyalty metrics, in addition to attitudinal loyalty.

Conceptualization of perceived brand relationship orientation in the case of frequently purchased packaged goods categories is a new step in the understanding and management of consumer‐brand relationship and mass market channel policies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine alternative constructs that are used in parallel to describe the strength of consumer‐brand relationships. First, the two main conceptualisations of relationship quality (RQ), as developed by relationship marketing and branding literature, are analysed to highlight their common elements. Then, the recently applied in branding context concept of consumer‐brand identification (CBI) is analysed, and issues regarding its nature and link to RQ are raised.

The paper draws upon existing literature on the streams of branding and relationship marketing, to propose a conceptualisation of consumer‐brand RQ and examine the link of CBI to RQ. To investigate the research questions, an exploratory qualitative paper is undertaken involving four focus groups with consumers who have developed relationships with cosmetic brands.

Responses provide evidence for the concepts of satisfaction, trust, commitment, intimacy and love in describing consumer‐brand RQ. CBI emerges as a distinct construct of cognitive nature. Furthermore, RQ appears to be differentiated according to consumer age.

This research enables commencement of empirical examination of the link between RQ and CBI and the relative role of age into building strong relationships with brands.

The paper bridges two different research streams, relationship marketing and branding, into conceptualising consumer‐brand RQ. Furthermore, the paper is a first attempt to explore the role of CBI in relation to the construct of RQ, thus fulfilling an identified gap in the literature regarding the link of those constructs.

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.

This paper aims to offer a quantitative methodology to identify and measure the gap between the communicated brand identity and perceived brand image by channel members and the consumers. Brand marketers communicate with their target consumers to make them aware of brand identity and communicate the same way to the channel members directly. Channel members, in turn, convey the same to the end-users. Thus, a proper alignment of these three crucial nodes, namely, brand marketers, channel members and consumers, is inevitable for the efficient transfer of brand identity. However, in reality, not all are successful to synchronize communicated brand identity and image perception. So, the identification and measurement of identity-image gap is essential.

Based on the literature review, the authors propose a conceptual model for the study and generate the basic research questions. In this study, Kapferer’s brand identity prism has been taken as the focal point of study to measure brand identity. So far as the vector measure is concerned, a p-dimensional setup is present, each dimension representing each facet of Kapferer’s brand identity prism. Now, given these sets of observations, the authors introduce for each set, a multivariate distributional setup to represent the underlying population behavior.

In this study, a theoretical framework is proposed to identify and measure brand identity and image consistency. To minimize the problem associated with subjective decisions, an objective procedure has been proposed to measure the brand knowledge structure of company personnel, consumers and channel members about the considered brands. The results of this study show that brand knowledge consistency is missing among marketers, consumers and channel members for considered brands. The proposed methodology may help marketers to measure the identity-image gap in a more objective manner with pinpoint accuracy by adopting a quantitative approach.

The proposed methodology may help marketers to measure the identity-image gap in a more objective manner with pinpoint accuracy by adopting a quantitative approach. Once a gap is identified, it will be easy for marketers to adopt possible measures to bridge the gap. This helps brand marketers to understand the branding process more objectively.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, there is a lack of concrete quantitative approach, attempting to discuss the methodology to measure the gap between brand identity facets and brand image. In this backdrop, this might be the first paper offering a quantitative methodology to identify and measure the gap between the communicated brand identity and perceived brand image by channel members and the consumers.

This study aims to: first, examine the effect of interaction orientation (IO) and brand orientation (BO) on marketing capabilities and small and medium enterprises' (SMEs') performance, and second, assess the complementarity effect of IO and BO on marketing capabilities and SMEs' performance.

A model was developed and tested using a survey methodology. Data were collected from 538 SMEs located in Qatar and analysed by structural equation modelling with AMOS.

First, IO affects SMEs' performance only indirectly via marketing capabilities, whereas BO affects SMEs' performance both directly and indirectly. Second, contrary to expectations, the complementarity between IO and BO produced a destructive/suppressive effect, rather than a synergistic effect, on both marketing capabilities and SMEs' performance, reflecting the importance of a trade-off to enhance both marketing capabilities and SMEs' performance.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the complementary effect of BO and IO on marketing capabilities and performance.

The purpose of this paper is to stimulate reflection on the concept of Mediterranean brands, to map and qualify their specific genetic make up and their influence on brand equity.

From an overview of the available literature and using the brand genetics model, conceptual dimensions inherent to the Mediterranean brand are identified, so as to evaluate their contribution in the building and transfer of brand value.

This paper shows how the properties of Mediterranean elements are reconciled with branding models and more in general, with sustainable business.

The paper highlights the generating drivers of value from a Mediterranean marketing perspective. Management has to govern these strategically in order to retain lasting competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to perform a synthesis of academic research published between 2009 and 2016 regarding the changes in tourism consumer behavior brought about by the use of social media (SM); and to suggest a set of strategies for tourism businesses to seize opportunities and deal with resulting challenges.

A volume of 146 peer-reviewed journal articles were retrieved from two major databases. Content analysis of this academic research has been performed, exploring the effects of online reviews on tourism consumers and providers.

The content analysis identified three main research themes that were investigated by scholars and classified into two major categories, namely, consumer perspective and provider perspective: the antecedents (factors motivating and influencing tourists); the influence of online reviews on consumer behaviour; and the impact of these reviews on tourism businesses (providers’ perspective).

This study is based on a literature review and outcomes reported by previous studies; hence, the suggestions are indicative rather than conclusive. Some publication sources were not included.

This paper suggests a range of adequate strategies, along with operational actions, formulated for industry practitioners in the fields of management and marketing.

It provides an update of the state of published academic research into SM and an integrated set of management and marketing strategies for tourism providers in seizing the opportunities and dealing with the challenges raised in a digital context.