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In the competitive realm of destination branding, understanding the factors that lead tourists to develop a deep emotional connection with a destination’s brand is essential. At the heart of this emotional bond lies destination brand love – an exceptionally profound sentiment transcending mere satisfaction or preference. This concept has recently garnered attention from both tourism academia and industry practice. However, there remains a void in exploring the factors and mechanisms that pave the way for tourists to develop deep affection for a destination’s brand. This study examines the influences of self-congruence and destination immersion on destination brand love. In addition, the linkages from the four facets of self-congruence to destination brand love via the mediating role of destination brand immersion are also scrutinized.

With data collected from 421 tourists in Vietnam, the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) approach was applied to test the research model and hypotheses.

The results reveal that (1) ideal and ideal social self-congruence impact destination brand love, (2) all four facets of self-congruence impact destination brand immersion and (3) there is an indirect effect of the four facets of self-congruence on destination brand love, mediated by destination brand immersion.

The study’s findings provide evidence that destination characteristics must be symbolic of the destination brand and consistent with its image among tourists, which is essential in understanding the complex behavior of tourists. Indeed, the results indicate that facets of self-congruence significantly influence both destination brand immersion and destination brand love. Therefore, destination marketers should develop marketing strategies that emphasize personal relevance to the tourist destination to increase their sympathy and love for the destination.

Adapting self-congruence theory and the psychology of flow theory, this study presents a model that elucidates both the direct and indirect relationships among the four facets of self-congruence: destination brand immersion and destination brand love based on the aspects of congruence between tourists and destinations. From this, it helps to explore the factors and mechanisms that pave the way for tourists to develop deep affection for a destination’s brand.

This paper aims to examine the impact of brand self-congruence on brand advocacy. In addition, the roles of brand love and attachment are examined through a serial mediation model.

A total of 324 valid and useable responses collected from an Australian consumer panel were analysed through IBM SPSS. Underpinned by social identity theory and self-expansion theory, a set of hypotheses was examined in a research model.

The findings show that consumers' brand self-congruence positively impacts brand love, attachment and advocacy intention. Moreover, brand attachment and love mediate the relationship between brand self-congruence and advocacy.

The findings of this research suggest that brand managers should cultivate emotions to build a strong consumer–brand relationship.

This research advances the current understanding of brand advocacy literature concerning brand self-congruence, love and attachment. The findings suggest that consumers' brand self-congruence, combined with brand love and attachment, will generate greater advocacy.

Consumers often start using mobile health apps but quit using them after a brief period of time. However, app providers can only ensure their long-term existence in the market if their app is used a long period, so that they can thus generate long-term revenue from advertising, subscriptions and sponsorships. Therefore, this study aims to gain a deeper understanding of the determinants of consumers’ continuous usage intention.

Based on a sample of 274 current mobile health app users, this study tests whether ideal self-congruence and/or functional congruence strengthens consumers’ continuous usage intention.

The results reveal that ideal self-congruence and functional congruence positively affect consumers’ continuous usage intention. Furthermore, an initial favorable attitude toward a mobile health app (i.e. ideal self-congruence) leads to a more favorable evaluation of the functional attributes of the app regardless of consumers’ objective evaluation of these attributes.

Providers should specifically take consumers’ ideal self-concept into consideration to increase consumers’ continuous usage intention of mobile health apps. Matching consumers’ ideal self-concept further leads consumers to a more favorable evaluation of the functional attributes of mobile health apps.

Only a few studies have examined factors influencing the continuous usage intention of mobile health apps; moreover, these studies have largely neglected the symbolic dimension of consumption behavior. Therefore, this study introduces congruence theory into the context of mobile health apps to provide a holistic view of the influence of the symbolic (i.e. ideal self-congruence) and utilitarian (i.e. functional congruence) dimensions on mobile health app consumption.

This paper proposes - through the integration of self-congruence, brand personality, sponsorship and sports spectator behaviour literatures - a conceptual framework to extend our current understanding of self-congruence in specific consumption situations. Initial empirical results support the proposed framework which shows that self-congruence based consumers' orientation towards sports and brand personality is positively associated with sponsorship outcomes.

Fresh products' homogeneity makes it difficult for grocery stores to differentiate themselves by improving product or service quality. This study analysed grocery store loyalty from the perspective of self-congruence and compared the relative importance of affective attachment and lifestyle matching, which acts as a mediating mechanism in influencing customer loyalty.

Individuals in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Beijing and Xi'an; representative cities of China's east, south, west, north and central regions, responded to questionnaires. Altogether, 282 valid responses were obtained; structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to test the hypotheses.

The findings show that lifestyle congruence has a greater mediating effect than emotional attachment in the relationship between store-self congruence and grocery store loyalty. Furthermore, social self-congruence was the dominant dimension of store-self congruence that affects grocery store loyalty.

The first important academic contribution of this study is the provision of knowledge on the issue of whether to focus on generating grocery store loyalty via the mediating effect of emotional attachment or lifestyle congruence. Furthermore, the empirical findings further clarify the boundary of brand attachment theory, demonstrating the limitation of this theory in explaining the mediating mechanism for self-congruence on loyalty in a context that sells low-involvement products in a collectivistic culture. Another academic contribution focuses on the examination of dominant dimensions of self-congruence.

This study provides a new strategy for grocery store managers to avoid the trap of homogeneous competition, namely, to clearly define consumers' social rather than personal identity. Additionally, grocery stores should focus on matching their image with target customers' lifestyles when building customer loyalty.

This study's findings also shed light on public policy. Some implications could be increasing the layout rationality of retail commercial outlets to facilitate the interaction between grocery stores and community consumers and promoting the matching of grocery stores and consumer lifestyles. Such policies may boost grocery sales, which in turn would boost farmers' incomes.

Compared to previous studies, this study analysed the customer loyalty of grocery stores from the perspective of self-congruence, analysed the mechanisms by which self-congruence influences customer loyalty via the mediating effects of emotional attachment and lifestyle congruence and compared the relative significance of these two paths. Furthermore, this study clarified the relative importance of self-congruence dimensions in influencing grocery store loyalty.

This study aims to investigate the shopping behaviour of consumers, mainly in fashion apparels, and intends to understand consumer buying patterns in Indian context. The study was designed to determine the level of consumer's sense of belonging towards apparel shopping by applying the concept of self-congruence.

The study used variance-based partial least squares structural equational modelling (PLS-SEM) on a cross-sectional study conducted on 569 consumers. The study was conducted by using questionnaire to collect the responses from the central zone of India. The results support most of the projected hypotheses.

The study focused on the shopping behaviour of consumer such as self-congruence, impulse buying, hedonic values and consumer satisfaction. The results of the study highlight the association of constructs and analysed the mediation relation of hedonic and impulse buying constructs. The results revealed a positive association among the constructs and also found a partial mediation effect in their relation with constructs.

The findings are outcomes of an empirical study conducted in the fashion apparel industry of India based on the sample set of urban consumers. The study is restricted to the direct and indirect relationship of constructs. Further, research can examine by using moderating constructs like demographic factors (gender, age, income, etc.) and other shopping behaviours (like brand loyalty, brand love, brand attachment) for more clarity in results. Moreover, the study limited is with fashion apparel, whereas there are many categories in the fashion industry like accessories, perfumes, cosmetic products, footwear and also other products industry.

The study provided valuable inputs to the literature of marketing where self-congruence affects consumer shopping behaviour such as impulse buying, hedonic values and consumer satisfaction. The study proposes a practical approach that can help the marketing professionals and product developers to have a deep understanding about consumer shopping behaviour for facilitating consumer-oriented goods in the Indian fashion industry.

This is one of the first studies in the fashion industry to test the association of self-congruence with hedonic value and consumer satisfaction. This relation is not tested in context of fashion apparel. Additionally, this study also examined the mediating effect of hedonic value and impulse buying in relation with self-congruence and consumer satisfaction in the Indian context.

Brand “Likes” on Facebook facilitate self-expression, forming part of consumers’ virtual selves. Yet, consumers’ brand “Likes” may bear little resemblance to their material realities. This paper aims to test similarities of brand image with self-image for Facebook “Likes” to determine whether self-congruence with a “Liked” brand leads to positive offline brand outcomes. It also investigates whether consumers’ perceptions about their Facebook social relations influence self-congruent brand “Likes”.

A large-scale survey was conducted of regular Facebook users who “Liked” brands. Data from 438 respondents was analysed and hypotheses tested using structural equation modeling.

Empirical results show that the perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand increases with social tie strength. Perceived social tie strength is informed by perceived attitude homophily. When the perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand is higher, brand love and word of mouth (WOM) are enhanced. Consumers also have greater brand loyalty and offer more WOM when brands are loved.

Findings demonstrate the influence of consumers’ cognitive network on “Likes” and brand outcomes. Further replication would enhance generalisability. Future research should use a wider sample and investigate other variables.

Findings support managers seeking to grow and analyse Facebook “Likes” by providing insights into brand loyalty, brand love and WOM for “Liked” brands.

The paper addresses the dearth of research exploring how consumers’ perceptions of their Facebook network influence their online brand behaviour and how perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand relates to brand outcomes.

The study aims to investigate the psychological mechanism that motivates consumers to pay more for a preferred brand that reflects their actual or ideal self-concept, by examining the shift in attention between consumer’s present, future, and past moments.

First, in a survey setting, the study identifies the relationship between temporal focus and self-congruence. Subsequently, we conduct three experiments to capture the effects of temporal focus on brand preference and willingness to pay (WTP). In these experiments, we manipulate consumers’ self-congruence and temporal focus.

The findings show that consumers with a present focus (distant future and distant past foci) tend to evaluate a brand more preferably when the brand serves to reflect their actual (ideal) selves. However, in the absence of present focus consumers’ WTP is more for a brand that reflects their ideal selves.

The study does not have an actual measure on consumers’ WTP; instead we use single-item measure.

This study sheds new light on branding strategy. The results suggest that authentic and aspirational branding strategies are relevant to publicly consumed products. Brand managers could incorporate consumers’ temporal focus into branding strategy that could significantly influence consumer preference and WTP for their brands.

This study expands our understanding of brand usage imagery congruity by showing that temporal focus is an important determinant of self-congruence. In this regard, this study empirically investigates the relationship of temporal focus, self-congruence, brand preference, and WTP. It further reveals that mere brand preference does not necessarily lead consumers to pay more for symbolic brands.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between self-congruence and attendee engagement in explaining emotional attachment in the context of cultural events.

Structural equation modelling with partial least squares analysis has been applied. Data were collected from 421 respondents through an onsite survey during the Yi Peng and Loy Krathong festive week in Thailand.

The findings revealed that self-congruence (i.e. actual self-congruence and ideal self-congruence) has a positive influence on attendee engagement. When attendees' actual self and ideal self-match with the event image, they are more likely to actively engage in the event activities.

The findings offer insights into one type of events, the cultural event, which is a common event in Thailand. This study is also one among a handful works that investigates the moderating role of perceived crowding on the relationship between attendees' actual and ideal self-congruence and engagement with the event. Although the findings do not suggest a significant moderating effect, this study provides preliminary insight into how perceived crowding shapes the perception of tourists in a cultural event context.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of ideal self-congruence in instigating two types of negative consumer behaviours – compulsive buying and external trash-talking – and the mediating role of brand attachment on these relationships.

Two studies were designed using a structural equation modelling methodology. Study 1a was based on a mail survey of 280 respondents, whereas Study 1b was based on an electronic survey of 152 respondents. Study 1b was conducted to test the external validity of the research model.

In Study 1a, ideal self-congruence affects emotional brand attachment and in turn emotional brand attachment affects compulsive buying behaviour and external trash-talking. The mediation analysis indicates that emotional brand attachment mediates the relationships. Study 1b offers support to the results of Study 1a.

From a practical point of view, this study is useful for policymakers seeking to regulate and prevent excessive consumerism. For marketers, they should understand that brand attachment leads to compulsive buying and external trash-talking, which may provide immediate benefit for the brand or the firm. However, marketers should understand that these two negative behaviours may harm the firm image and consumers’ well-being in the long run.

Apart from practical implications, firms should consider alleviating compulsive buying, as it is harmful to society. Similarly, excessive external trash-talking may lead to physical aggression. Consumers expect firms to be socially responsible. Thus, firms should start conducting activities that promote responsible shopping and reduce external trash-talking.

The study highlights a dark side of ideal self-congruence and brand attachment. The results suggest that ideal self-congruence with the help of emotional brand attachment predicts compulsive buying behaviour and external trash-talking. This may not only damage brand image but also the consumers’ well-being.