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The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of brand love by studying its intensity and the nature of extreme forms of it, rather than its presence or absence. The love of a sports team is a type of brand love and is a valuable context to study of brand love intensity because the intensity of love can become more extreme than for products; it has two distinctive features that are theoretically, management and policy relevant; and it is an under-researched context in marketing that is socially and economically significant.

The authors empirically develop and test a multidimensional hierarchical higher-order measure of the intensity of team love and a model of its drivers and outcomes using a sample of supporter club members of a professional sports team who vary in their intensity of love for the team.

The results support our measurement model and its distinctive features, especially the importance of the perceived two-way bond fans have with their team. While overall intensity of team love is not related to social influence or on-field performance, as hypothesized, they are related to sub-dimensions of team love, reflecting its multidimensionality. As hypothesized, the intensity of team love and social influence are related to the intention to renew club membership even with increased costs and poor performance and social influence is directly related to word of mouth and game attendance.

The research is limited to the club members of one sports team in a particular sport in one country and one cultural context. Future research opportunities include: extending it to other sports and brand contexts, refining the methodology and addressing other issues highlighted by the research.

The results indicate the limits of management control of team love intensity because it develops over time independently through social processes. However, firms can help facilitate these processes. The social dimensions indicate the need to develop socially, as well as individually-focussed relationship management strategies. Most devoted fans are valuable customers, but some hardcore elements can be dysfunctional and sabotage the brand.

Sport is personally, social and economically significant in most cultures and love of a sports team love can be an important glue that binds people and communities. However, the existence of extreme hardcore fans and heated rivalries can also be divisive and pose challenges for social policy. Hence, the need to better understand the factors driving more extreme forms of team love to better inform the development of social policy.

The authors focus on the intensity of brand love rather than its presence and absence as in prior research. The authors develop and test a new hierarchical measure of sports team love intensity and a model of its drivers and outcomes. The sports context is under-researched in marketing but reveals the important role played by dimensions that are obscured in studies of product brand love – its social nature and the perceived reciprocal relation with devoted fans. The results contribute to developing extended theories of brand love, open up new research opportunities and have management and policy implications.

This paper aims to investigate the mediating effect of brand love on purchase intention and word-of-mouth through mystery, sensuality and intimacy as brand image dimensions in the context of neo-luxury brands. It also explores the moderating effect of duration and intensity of consumer-brand relationships on brand image dimensions.

The data collection was done via an online survey of a representative group of Millennials. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis.

The paper suggests that brand love mediates the relationship between brand image, purchase intention and word-of-mouth for both Apple and Michael Kors brands. This study also identifies differences in the effects of intimacy, sensuality and mystery on brand love. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the moderation effect of intensity and duration of consumer-brand relationships varies among the two neo-luxury brands.

Further research should aim at investigating other categories of products and services in the field of neo-luxury, as this study focus on fashion and mobile brands. Other antecedents and outcomes of brand love should also be evaluated, as well as other moderating variables.

This paper contributes to the fast-growing consumer-brand relationships literature by exploring the role of brand love in the context of the emergent neo-luxury paradigm. It also intends to provide a better understanding of how to build and nurture an effective brand image through a multidisciplinary approach that combines mystery, sensuality and intimacy.

The purpose of this study is to examine the role of contemporary consumer-brand relationships in predicting brand sacredness, brand fidelity and propensity to spread word of mouth (WOM) in the context of “halal” cosmetic brands.

The proposed research framework has been empirically tested by collecting responses from 403 Muslim respondents of diverse demographics. Structural equation modelling has been used for exploring the underlying relationships between emotions associated with halal brands.

All the proposed hypotheses were positively significant, thus confirming that brand love is significantly affected by brand trust, brand image, self-congruence and brand experience. Further, brand love acts as a significant determinant in shaping brand sacredness, brand fidelity and WOM.

The study has made a significant contribution by exploring the intensity of brand love and its effect on relationship-maintenance triad in halal cosmetic brands in India.

Marketers must understand the emotional side of brands to create synergy in their marketing efforts. Moreover, in the case of religious or faith-based brands, attainment of the highest order of brand love can play a revolutionary role for long-term growth.

In the context of halal cosmetic brands in India, this study has offered a new perspective by extending the literature on consumer-brand relationships. The use of brand fidelity and brand sacredness has enhanced the effectiveness of emotions with which consumers have been looking at brands for ages.

The present study aims to deepen the understanding of the relationship between nostalgic brand positioning, nostalgic brand relationship dimensions and brand love.

This study is based on the data collected from 401 citizens of Tehran aged over 18 years old. Respondents admitted that they have felt love for at least one Iranian brand in their lives. The data collected from a questionnaire and the hypothesized relationships were analyzed using the partial least squares approach using Smart PLS.

The results showed that nostalgic brand positioning positively and significantly impacts nostalgic brand relationship dimensions. Also, there was a positive and significant relationship between nostalgic brand relationship dimensions and brand love. Nostalgic brand positioning has a significant effect on brand love through the mediating role of the nostalgic brand relationship.

The major contribution of this research is that, based on the construal level theory and literature review, the authors developed a conceptual model in which nostalgic brand relationship dimensions, i.e. emotional attachment, brand local iconness, and brand authenticity, explain how nostalgic brand positioning results in brand love.

Extant research evidence demonstrates that customer satisfaction in a service encounter is influenced by other customer perception (OCP). However, scholarly research on the impact of OCP on brand love and the moderating influence of customers’ attachment styles in the context of hospitality industry is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to fill this gap in the literature.

The data were collected from customers of five and three-star hotels in India. Regression-based process analysis (Hayes, 2013) was used to test the proposed set of hypotheses.

The data analysis shows that OCP predicts brand love through the mediation of satisfaction. Individual’s anxious attachment style positively moderates “other customer perception-satisfaction” relationship, and avoidant attachment style negatively moderates the same relationship. Thus the effect of OCP is positively moderated by anxious attachment style, and negatively moderated by avoidant attachment style.

The value of this study lies in quantitatively investigating the roles played by OCP and individual attachment styles in shaping brand love in hospitality industry. In contrast to findings from previous research, the findings from this study suggest that anxious attachment style positively influences brand satisfaction and formation of brand love.

This paper aims to explore the relationship between brand love and materialism.

This research uses two survey studies that the love of money. In combination, these two studies include over 1,000 participants.

Materialism does not just make consumers more likely to love brands, it also alters the way they relate to brands. Specifically, brand love is associated with loving brands that one currently owns rather than wishing for brands that one cannot afford and vice-versa for materialism. Brand love is also more strongly related to the centrality and success dimensions of materialism than to its happiness dimension. Materialism is not just associated with loving brands; it is also strongly associated with loving money. Finally, there has been an active debate over whether brand love is applicable to a wide variety of brands or just a select few. This research finds that an extremely wide variety of brands are loved by consumers.

The findings are limited by the cross-sectional nature of the survey approach, the use of a student sample and a MTurk sample and by a set of solely US participants.

This research explores the distinction between a brand love-based marketing strategy and a materialism-based strategy. A brand love-based strategy leverages positive emotional connections that consumers have with past purchases of a brand, whereas a materialism-based strategy seeks to make a brand an aspirational high-end purchase. Based on the research results, the authors make the case for a brand love-based strategy. In addition, this research partly challenges, yet also partly supports, the common view among marketing practitioners that brand love is only applicable to a few brands. On the one hand, this research finds that consumers love an extremely wide variety of brands. On the other hand, only a few brands have been successful in building brand love across a large group of consumers. Thus, brand love appears to be a more widely applicable strategy than sometimes thought yet also a very challenging strategy to get right.

This research supports prior findings which suggest that the negative outcomes of materialism (e.g. unhappiness) are mostly associated with its happiness dimension (i.e. “I would be happier if I had more money”). In contrast, the findings also suggest that brand love is more weakly associated with its happiness dimension than its centrality and success dimensions. Thus, brand love may be a positive (or at least not a negative) expression of materialism.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first empirical examination of the relationship between brand love and materialism and finds that although these two constructs are correlated, they are empirically distinct. This research is also the first to test the relationship between materialism and love for status brands and finds that materialistic individuals display greater love for these types of brands. This research also introduces the construct of “brand love tendency” which is defined as a consumer’s overall tendency to love brands. Finally, this research is also the first to relate the love of money to both materialism and brand love.

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 purpose of this research study is to empirically investigate a hypothesized theoretical framework that captures the impact of brand personality congruence, brand love and brand attachment on brand loyalty in the luxury branding sector.

Empirical data were gathered from 416 millennial shoppers with incomes from US$100,000 and above (High-Earners-Not–Rich-Yet). Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses of the framework developed for the study. Dubai is chosen as the context of the study based on the fact that the luxury brands sector is one of the leading industries in the country, and has a sizeable population of HENRY's.

The findings of this study revealed that brand personality congruence is a critical determinant of brand love and brand loyalty, suggesting congruence between the consumer's personality and the brand is essential to the luxury branding sector. The study also establishes a relationship between brand attachment and brand loyalty.

This study offers new empirical support for the proposition that consumers' emotional aspects like brand personality congruence and brand love are critical for enhancing brand loyalty toward luxury. The findings from this study can provide brand managers with a guide to managing their branding strategies and understand the strategic role of these variables on communication strategies for a new emerging segment of the HENRY's customer segment.

This study contributes to luxury branding and a new segment of millennials by examining the relationship between brand personality congruence, brand love, brand attachment and its effect on brand loyalty in the luxury branding context.

This paper aims to critically review the most cited literature published from 2000 to 2020 in 24 top-ranked marketing journals on the three most studied branding concepts of the 21st century – brand equity, brand loyalty and brand image – to explore how in these papers they have been defined, measured and examined, and propose how they should move forward in an era where brands are expected to be “socially and socio-politically conscious.”

For each concept a systematic literature review is conducted. In doing so, the definitions, antecedents, outcomes and measures for each concept were accessed and synthesized.

The systematic literature reviews provide a “state-of-the-art” snapshot of each concept and collectively demonstrate there is no consensus on the independence and interdependence of these dynamic multidimensional concepts. Based on the recommended process in the measurement literature, an evolved definition of each concept is proposed. In addition to the corresponding research directions presented in the moving forward sections of each systematic literature review, common research avenues emerged.

This paper acknowledges these three branding concepts as dynamic (i.e. evolving over time), systemically reviews and synthesizes the extant literature, and provides a path forward to defining, measuring and exploring brand equity, brand loyalty and brand image in the present era where brands are expected to be socially and socio-politically conscious with responsibilities to the planet, people and profit.