The Phenomenon of Brand Love: A Systematic Literature Review

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The Phenomenon of Brand Love: A Systematic Literature Review
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The Phenomenon of Brand Love: A Systematic

Literature Review
Vivek Pani Gumparthi & Sabyasachi Patra
To cite this article: Vivek Pani Gumparthi & Sabyasachi Patra (2019): The Phenomenon
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JOURNAL OF RELATIONSHIP MARKETING
https://doi.org/10.1080/15332667.2019.1664871
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The Phenomenon of Brand Love: A Systematic

Literature Review
Vivek Pani Gumparthi and Sabyasachi Patra
Indian Institute of Management Kashipur, India
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Brand love is a phenomenon that is experienced by a group Brand love; Consumer -
of satisfied consumers. The construct brand love is of great brand Relationships; brand
importance to academics and practitioners because a group satisfaction
of satisfied customers become loyal customers, thereby reduce
several costs and also enhance several marketing activities.
Since the research paper of it can be observed that there has
been a surge in the number of research publications pertinent
to brand love literature. Through this systematic literature
review, we comprehensively review seventy six articles pertin-
ent to brand love literature, published in various scientific
journals there by presenting the key emergent themes, exten-
sively used methodologies and analysis approaches, key varia-
bles observed, dominant theoretical underpinnings and a
strategic conceptual framework.
Introduction
Brand love is defined as the amount of passionate emotional attachment, a
satisfied consumer has for a particular brand name (Carroll & Ahuvia,
2006). Brand love as a topic, is of interest to both researchers and practi-
tioners. The last two decades, the research stream has seen a steady
increase in the number of publications, which demonstrates the interest in
practitioners and researchers. The concept of brand love, argues that con-
sumers have love-like feelings for brands.
Brand love as a construct describes the affective feelings of a group of
satisfied consumers. The positive feelings of consumers for brands influence
evaluations and emotional reactions (Batra, Ahuvia & Bagozzi, 2012). They
ultimately lead to enhanced economic, competitive and strategic advantages
for a company (Yang & Peterson, 2004). Literature suggests that satisfied
customers become loyal customers of a company (Anderson, Fornell, &
Lehmann, 1994). Loyal customers enhance several marketing activities,
thereby reducing communication costs (Payne & Frow, 2005), creating
CONTACT Vivek Pani Gumparthi gumparthi.fpm1704@iimkashipur.ac.in Indian Institute of Management

Kashipur, Uttarakhand 244713, India.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/wjrm.
ß 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 V. P. GUMPARTHI AND S. PATRA
stable set of customers (Oliver, Rust & Varki, 1997), increase the sales vol-
ume (Gwinner, Gremler, & Bitner, 1998), and finally add to the profitabil-
ity of the company (Zeithaml, Berry & Parasuraman, 1996). On keen
observation, it can be understood that brand love encompasses brand loy-
alty. However, there is a difference between brand love and brand loyalty.
Brand loyalty is a consequence or an outcome of brand love (Batra et al.,
2012; Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006) and has been defined as the amount of
intensity of relationship between individual’s relative attitude and repeat
purchase (Dick & Basu, 1994). On the other hand, brand love is a multi–fa-
ceted construct of consumer– brand relationships, that embraces passion,
positive emotional connection, self–brand integration and consumers’
long–term attachment with the brands (Batra et al., 2012).
Management practitioners at senior echelons have already recognized the
value of love for brands. ‘Lovemarks’, a book written by Roberts (2005), CEO
of Saatchi & Saatchi, mentioned this phenomenon at a great length, indicating
its relevance for managers. Further to this, it can also be inferred that practi-
tioners have started inducing the element of love in brands. One of the best
examples is McDonald’s with a tag line I’m Loving It!. Though practitioners
have worked on developing lovable brands, literature review suggests that there
has been very little literature until the article of Carroll and Ahuvia (2006),
which showed the actionable antecedents and crucial consequences of brand
love construct.
Since this seminal article in 2006, there has been a considerable amount
of interest in researchers and practitioners to further the stream of research
as it offers crucial managerial implications (Batra et al., 2012) (See.
Table 1). As the construct has diverse managerial implications, it is essen-
tial to revisit the current state of literature so that the literature pertinent
to this phenomenon can be furthered (Cooper, 2015).
The goal of this study is to systematically review the literature pertinent
to brand love by comprehensively identifying and synthesizing relevant
studies pertinent to the brand love construct. Specifically we would like to
Table1. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria.

Inclusion criteria Exclusion criteria
Focus on affective feelings, attachment and Books
perceptions about brands that are beyond Conference papers
utilitarian values/benefits Lecture notes
Published journal papers Opinion pieces, anecdotal articles
Contribution directly related to actionable No abstract available
marketing related outcomes Non English articles
Full text available Other love-like feelings, which are not related to
Peer-reviewed journals brand love
References available
Selection pool based on the keyword
–“Brand Love”
JOURNAL OF RELATIONSHIP MARKETING 3
address the following research questions with this systematic litera-

ture review:
What are the emergent themes of literature pertinent to brand love?

What are the key theories that have been used in the brand
love literature?
What are the methodologies that have been used most frequently?
What are the extensively used analysis techniques to address research
questions of brand love?
What are the key-variables that have been used alongside the brand
love construct?
After the introduction section, the article provides a brief background of

the literature pertinent to brand love. Second, the article elucidates the
methodology employed for this bibliometric study. Methodology section is
followed by a thematic analysis section which illustrates the arrangement of
literature of brand love as per various themes. Fourth, we present the most
extensively used methodologies, theories and analysis techniques to address
the intended specific research questions. Fifth, we present a conceptual
model based on the extensive literature review. Finally, the article presents
the conclusion section, which covers future research directions.
Background
Love can be defined as “an attitude held by a person toward a particular
other person, involving predispositions to think, feel and behave in certain
ways toward the other person” (Rubin, 1973, p. 265). On the other hand,
brand love is a construct that describes the passionate feelings and emo-
tional attachment that satisfied consumers have for brands. The subject
brand love comes from the research areas of delight and consumer-brand
relationships (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006).
Delight as a concept was conceptualized by Oliver et al. (1997), who sug-
gested delight as a consumer response. The construct could not make
steady progress, as the subsequent research on this construct was damp-
ened because, the construct was heavily focused on single transaction and
it could not capture the reasons for long-term relationships with
products(Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006).
On the other hand, consumer-brand relationships as a research area, has
been studied since the 1960s (Blackston 1993; Levy 1959; Plummer 1985),
by giving brands humanlike characteristics which go beyond functional
product attributes (De Chernatony & Dall’Olmo Riley, 1998). Subsequent
research on consumer-brand relationships has shown that consumers forge
relationships with brands which is analogous to interpersonal relationships

(Fournier, 1998; McAlexander, Schouten & Koenig, 2002; Parvatiyar &
Sheth, 2001).
One of the pioneers of consumer-brand relationships thought process
was Bowlby (1979), who observed that human beings tend to be more loyal
to what they feel connected with, attached to and have love for. Shimp and
Madden (1988) furthered this stream of research with their conceptual
work which was based on Sternberg’s (1986) triangular theory of love.
Shimp and Madden (1988) suggested that there are eight types of con-
sumer-object relationships: non-liking, liking, infatuation, functionalism,
inhibited desire, utilitarianism, succumbed desire and loyalty which are
based on three components: intimacy, passion and decision/commitment.
Though there was steady research with respect to consumer -object rela-
tionships, after Shimp and Madden (1988), there was perceptibly less
research on consumers’ love for products and consumption activities.
Ahuvia (1993, 2005a, 2005b) initiated empirical research on consumers’
love for products and found that consumers do have intense emotional
attachments to ‘objects’, which he defined broadly as anything other than
another person. In addition to this, Ahuvia (2005b) noted that consumers’
love for brands can be compared with interpersonal love as he generally
found a good fit, though there were a few differences noted. Fournier
(1998), in her research on consumer-brand relationships, acknowledged the
importance of love as one of the key facets in forging long-term consumer-
brand relationships. Further, Fournier and Mick (1999, p. 11), in their dis-
cussion on consumer satisfaction posited that “satisfaction-as-love probably
constitutes the most intense and profound satisfaction of all.”
Based on the foregoing research, Carroll and Ahuvia (2006), developed
the construct brand love to provide an intricate and quantitative perspec-
tive of satisfied consumers and also to facilitate an increased understanding
of post-consumption behavior (e.g. brand loyalty, positive word-of-mouth).
The construct developed in this study is a multi-item and unidimensional
scale. Aligning with Fournier and Mick (1999), Carroll and Ahuvia (2006)
suggested that brand love is a meaningful mode of satisfaction, and not all
the satisfied consumers would experience love for brands.
Though brand love as a stream of research made rapid strides of pro-
gress, by grabbing the attention of marketers from various walks of life,
there was still a lot of criticism about the conceptualization. Since the very
beginning, the construct of brand love was considered analogous to inter-
personal love (e.g. Ahuvia 1993; Lastovicka & Srianni 2011; Shimp &
Madden 1988) which was criticized by many studies (e.g. Albert, Merunka
and Valette-Florence 2008; Batra et al., 2012) and a few studies looked at
brand love through para-social relationship lenses (e.g. Fetscherin, 2014).
Due to this lack of consensus in conceptualization, various definitions

and perspectives of brand love construct have emerged (e.g. Albert et al.,
2008), which has not made the contours of brand love clear. It would be
interesting to note that brand love has been seen as a construct that is uni-
dimensional (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006) to a construct that has eleven dimen-
sions (Albert et al., 2008).
Methodology
Systematic literature review, as a process has its roots in medical science,
but has also been extensively used in creating actionable knowledge in
other disciplines (Cassell, Denyer and Tranfield, 2006). The major objective
of this process is to aggregate large volumes of literature and create an
actionable synthesis (McKibbon, 2006; Tranfield, Denyer & Smart, 2003).
For this purpose, systematic literature review requires clear paper selection
protocols and the application of an explicit method of article selection
(Pittaway, Robertson, Munir, Denyer & Neely, 2004; Tranfield, Denyer,
Marcos & Burr, 2004).
In order to answer the specific research questions and also to follow the
methodological rigor, we followed clear search process and also stiff inclu-
sion and exclusion criteria. For the search process, we used the popular sci-
entific research databases: Scopus, EBSCO and JSTOR. “Brand Love” was
used as a keyword for the search process after a careful evaluation of defi-
nitions of brand love literature. Though there is a lot of information about
brand love in various text books, consulting reports, postgraduate and doc-
toral dissertations, we have restricted this research to only journal papers
(Ngai, 2005).
In order to choose a paper for the literature review process, we used stiff
inclusion and exclusion criteria. In this regard, all the papers were read by
both the authors independently based on the pre-decided criteria (see
Table 1). At the end of this process, we could zero down on a total of 76
full-text papers, chosen from three databases with the above-mentioned
keyword. Consequent to this we prepared a dataset of fields like journal
name, year of publication, key theory used, methodology used, analysis
technique used, key variables used, sample size etc. This dataset helped us
in generating critical insights for giving a broader understanding of brand
love literature.
Thematic content analysis

After the selection of papers, we have arranged the literature as per emer-
gent themes. To this end, both the authors independently classified the
papers based on content similarity, an established method in social sciences

research (Lightfoot, Baines & Smart, 2013; Li~ nan & Fayolle, 2015). These
classifications were later compared, and any discrepancy in the process was
discussed and sorted out.
At the end of this process, we devised the following themes and
sub-themes:
Brand Love Conceptualization: This broad theme encompasses three

sub-themes. They are: “brand love and other constructs”, “nature of
brand love” and “brand love in consumer-brand relationships”.
Brand Love in Self-concept: This broad theme encompasses two sub-
themes. They are: “self-concept in digital space” and “Brand Love in
Inner-self, Social-self and Overall-self”
Brand Love in Digital Space: This broad theme covers the following
sub-themes. They are: “online networks” and “websites and mobile
application”
Brand Love in Services: This broad theme covers the following sub-
themes. They are: “service relationships”, “tourism and hospitality”,
“hospitals” and “universities”.
Brand Love in Luxury, Fashion and Wine: This broad theme covers
the following sub-themes. They are: “luxury”, “fashion” and “wine”.
Brand Love Derivatives: This broad theme covers the following sub-
themes. They are: “brand addiction”, “brand devotion”, “brand like-
ability”, “brand hate” and “idol attachment”.
The following section discusses the key findings of the papers classified
under each theme.
Brand love conceptualization

This broad theme focusses on the papers that have looked at the conceptu-
alization of brand love construct. These papers have generally focused on
providing conceptual clarity of brand love construct.
Brand love and other constructs

This sub-theme focuses on those papers that have looked at the interaction
of the brand love construct with other constructs. Carroll and Ahuvia
(2006), authors of one of the most influential papers of brand love litera-
ture noted that consumers’ love is greater for brands in product categories
that are perceived to be more hedonic and offer more in terms of symbolic
benefits, which lead to brand loyalty and positive word of mouth. Bergkvist
and Bech-Larsen (2010) showed that brand identification and sense of com-
munity as antecedents of brand love and brand loyalty and active engage-
ment as consequences of brand love. Brand identification was also seen as
an antecedent in addition to brand trust by Albert and Merunka (2013).
Further, the authors found that brand commitment, positive word of
mouth and propensity to pay a premium as consequences of brand love.
Loureiro, Ruediger and Demetris (2012), added to this stream of research
and suggested that brand attachment works as a positive antecedent of
brand love. In addition to this, the authors also suggested that brand love
is instrumental in reinforcing the trust and interest in continuing a rela-
tionship with brand. Rageh Ismail and Spinelli (2012), showed that brand
image and excitement brand personality positively influence brand love,
which in turn impacts positive word of mouth. Positive word of mouth
was also studied by Fetscherin, Boulanger, Gonçalves Filho, and Quiroga
Souki (2014). The authors found that brand love impacts brand loyalty and
brand loyalty leads to positive word of mouth and purchase intentions.
Karjaluoto, Munnukka, and Kiuru (2016), furthered the research on posi-
tive word of mouth and found that self-expressiveness of a brand and
brand trust have a positive impact on brand love and brand love in turn
impacted positive word of mouth both online and offline. In addition to
this, the authors also found that experience and price bolstered the rela-
tionship between brand love and positive word of mouth.
In the same line of thought, Batra et al. (2012) suggested that quality
beliefs of the brand as an antecedent of brand love and brand loyalty, posi-
tive word of mouth and resistance to negative information as consequences
of brand love. In order to provide conceptual clarity, the authors did a
ground-up approach and suggested that self-brand integration, passion-
driven behaviors, positive emotional connection, long-term relationship,
positive overall-attitude valence, attitude certainty and confidence and
anticipated separation distress as the core elements of brand love. Quality
beliefs was also suggested as an antecedent of brand love by Rauschnabel
and Ahuvia (2014) in addition to perceived anthropomorphism.
Furthering the brand love conceptualization stream of research, Roy,
Esghi and Sarkar (2013) in their conceptual paper, suggested that romanti-
cism, brand experience, consumer delight, satisfaction and self-congruity as
antecedents of brand love and positive word of mouth. The authors also
suggested brand loyalty and positive word of mouth as consequences of
brand love. Roy, Khandeparkar and Motiani (2016) in their study on the
effect of personality on brand love found that, brand love acts as a medi-
ator between sincerity and excitement and positive word of mouth. Huang
(2017) showed that sensory experience has a larger impact on brand love
when compared to intellectual experience and behavioral experience.
In addition to this, the study found that brand love is instrumental in driv-
ing behavioral loyalty while brand trust is a major driving factor of attitu-
dinal loyalty. Garg, Mukherjee, Biswas and Kataria (2016) with their
conceptual paper, furthered the research on brand experience’s impact on
brand love by showing that brand’s liking for consumers and brand experi-
ence have a positive impact on brand love, while extreversion and neuroti-
cism play a mediating role. Brand love in turn impacts affective
commitment, willingness to pay a price premium, consumer citizenship
behavior as behavioral outcomes of brand love. Garg et al. (2016) in an
empirical investigation on antecedents and consequences of brand love in
Indian geography found that brand experience, brand reputation and
respect work as antecedents of brand love and affective commitment, con-
sumer citizenship behavior, repurchase intention and attitude towards the
extension as consequences of brand love. Bıçakcıoglu, Ipek, _ and
Bayraktaroglu (2018) showed that brand experience and self-congruity have
a positive impact on brand love and brand loyalty mediates the relationship
of brand love and positive word of mouth. Bairrada, Coelho, and Coelho
(2018), found that functional constructs and symbolic constructs have a
positive impact on brand love and functional constructs have an indirect
impact on brand love and abstract constructs or symbolic constructs have a
direct impact on brand love. Sreejesh, Sarkar, Sarkar, Eshghi, and Anusree
(2018) found that other customer perception (OCP) has a positive impact
on brand love, with satisfaction playing a mediating role. Specifically, it
was found that anxious attachment style positively moderates OCP and
brand love. On the other hand, avoidance attachment style negatively mod-
erates OCP and brand love.
Leventhal, Sarkar and Sreejesh (2014), examined the roles played by
brand love and brand jealousy in shaping consumer engagement, in this
regard the developed a three – item romantic brand jealousy scale.
The authors also suggest that brand love-jealousy as a framework, acts as a
better mediator to create customer engagement (self-esteem and self-
expressiveness as antecedents) when compared to brand love.
Nature of brand love

In addition to the papers that developed antecedents and consequences of
brand love, there were papers that looked at the nature of brand love, from
various perspectives.
Rossiter (2012), looked at brand love using a C-OAR-SE approach to dis-
tinguish between brand love and brand liking. Rossiter (2012), suggested
that one in four brands is loved by the customers. Further, brand purchase
or usage rate and brand recommendations were found to be close to
double for those consumers who loved the brand when compared to those
who just liked the brand. Fetscherin (2014), using an experiment showed
that conceptualizing brand love as a para-social relationship, when com-
pared to interpersonal relationship, leads to overall and in some instances
better results. Using para-social relationship theories, Fetscherin (2014),
found that there is a stronger relationship between brand love and purchase
intention and brand love and positive word of mouth. On close observation
it was found that, there was a lot of research to understand the nature of
love that consumers have for brands. In one of such efforts by Langner,
Schmidt and Fischer (2015), it was found that interpersonal love is different
from brand love as brand love is derived from rational benefits like product
quality and the authors also found that interpersonal love is more arousing
than brand love. The concept of rationality has also been seen in Sarkar
(2014) study, which showed that brand love is a powerful consumption
emotion which is largely cognitive based. Further it was also observed that
product hedonism, surrealistic brand experience, nostalgic brand experience
and sustainable marketing have been found to be the antecedents of brand
love in an emerging market context. On the other hand, Sarkar (2014) also
found that impulse buying, and active engagement have been found to be
the consequences of brand love. Langner, Bruns, Fischer, and Rossiter
(2016), showed that brand love development is a complex, multifaceted
phenomenon unlike enhancement of brand liking. Further to this, the
authors also showed that only brand experiences are not adequate for
establishing and maintaining brand love relationships. For the development
of love for brands, the authors found that it requires critical incidents, like
positive personal experiences, that shape brand love trajectories.
Zarantonello, Formisano, and Grappi (2016), in a study conducted in three
countries- USA, Russia and Indonesia found that brand love when com-
pared to brand attitude is strongly related to growth in brand loyalty and
brand attitude is instrumental in growth in brand size.
Hemetsberger, Kittinger-Rosanelli and Friedmann (2009), showed that
the separation of brand from consumer is a long process, which can make
consumers detach themselves from the brands but the love for the brands
would remain. Maxian, Bradley, Wise and Toulouse (2013), in an experi-
mental study showed that individuals’ unique set of more loved brands eli-
cited more positive emotions when compared to less loved brands and
brand love varies at an individual level. In a conceptual paper by
Kaufmann, Loureiro and Manrioti (2016), it was suggested that consumers
experiencing brand love are more willing to engage in co-creating behavior,
especially when brand representatives actively communicate brand values.
Nguyen, Melewar and Chen (2013) in a conceptual paper used attribution
theory, cognitive dissonance theory, equity theory and distributive and
procedural justice theory showed that brand likeability leads to brand love,
satisfaction, reputation, preferences and favorable attitudes.
Brand love in consumer-brand relationships

As brand love is an outcome of a consumer-brand relationship, this stream
of research has seen considerable amount of studies that investigated rela-
tionships from different perspectives.
Leung, Bougoure and Miller (2014), brought in some interesting insights
with their research on different relationships. In this regard, they found
that utilitarian relationships are the best relationships for the managers to
strategize as these relationships will bring down the number of brands in
consideration set, increased perceptions of brand uniqueness and a con-
sumer’s propensity to pay more. Pinto Borges, Cardoso, and Rodrigues
(2016), showed that emotional relationship can be forged with a functional
brand like Aspirin, with brand engagement, confidence and attitude valence
as antecedents and word of mouth, purchase intentions and brand loyalty
being the consequences. Reimann, Nu~ nez, and Casta~no (2017), showed that
close brand relationships can help in reducing the physical pain because of
brand’s ability to provide a feeling of social connectedness. Dalman, Buche
and Min (2017), in their study on the role of brand love in differential
influence of identification on ethical judgement found that, brand identifi-
cation both decreases (direct effect) and increases (indirectly through brand
love) consumers’ ethical judgement following extremely unethical events.
A paper in this stream of research by Bagozzi, Batra and Ahuvia (2017),
developed a scale on brand love with three nested versions of 26, 13 and 6
items respectively.
Brand love in self-concept

This theme focuses on papers that have touched up on the self-
concept phenomenon.
Self-concept in digital space

This sub-theme focuses on the papers that have looked at the interaction of
self-concept and brand love in digital space.
Wallace, Buil, de Chernatony, and Hogan (2014), showed that self-
expressive brands have a positive impact on brand love and specifically the
study showed that there is a positive relationship between the self-
expressive nature of brands liked on Facebook and brand love and consum-
ers engaged with inner self-expressive brands are more likely to offer WoM
while, consumers engaged with socially self-expressive brands are more
likely to accept a wrongdoing from a brand. Hwang and Kandampully

(2012) yet another study on Facebook suggested that emotional attachment
is different from brand love. Specifically, they showed that brand love
necessitates emotional responses while emotional attachment does not
necessitate any such emotional responses.
Brand love in inner-self, social-self and overall-self

This sub-theme focuses on the papers that have mentioned interaction of
brand love with inner-self, social-self and overall-self or combination
of these.
Huber, Meyer and Schmid (2015), suggested that inner-self has a greater
impact on brand love than the social-self. Castano and Eugenia Perez
(2014), in their study on counterfeits showed that consumers who voluntar-
ily acquire both original luxury brands and their counterfeits transfer the
symbolic personality traits of the original brands to counterfeits. Further,
the authors also observed that consumers also experience a strong overlap
between their overall self-concept and the original brand’s concept than
with the counterfeit’s concept and feel higher levels of brand love for ori-
ginal brands. Khandeparkar and Motiani (2018) also studied brand love for
counterfeits and found that the equation between social-self and brand love
is strong for fake buyers while real buyers are more resilient when com-
pared to fake buyers. It was also observed that fake buyers are more
involved in positive WoM as the brand love emanates from social self.
Brand love in digital space

These papers look at the phenomenon of brand love in the internet setting.
The first sub-theme looks at the phenomenon in various social networking
sites and the second sub-theme looks at the application of brand love con-
struct in websites and mobile-applications in promoting love-like feelings
for a brand.
Online networks
Wallace et al. (2014) in their study on Facebook and fan behavior showed
that there are four types of fans based on individuals who “like” brands on
Facebook. They are: 1) Fanatics – have strong loyalty and brand love. They
help in spreading positive WoM due to their numerous friends on
Facebook. 2) Self-expressives-like to impress others. They are influenced by
messages about brands’ social desirability. 3) Utilitarians- who like brands
for incentives. They have lower levels of loyalty and love for brands. They
offer less WoM than other fans. 4) Authentics-who have strong brand
loyalty and brand love but are less active on Facebook. This group of fans
can be reached through their friends. “Liked” brands on Facebook was also
studied by Kudeshia, Sikdar and Mittal (2016), who showed that there is a
positive relationship between “liked” brands on Facebook page and brand
love, in addition to spreading positive WoM and intention to purchase.
Wallace, Buil and Cherantony (2017) in yet another study on “liked”
brands showed that perceived self-congruence with a “liked” brand
increases with social tie strength and when perceived self-congruence with
a “liked” brand is higher, brand love and positive WoM are enhanced. In a
study on online-network based communities, Vernuccio, Pagani,
Barbarossa and Pastore (2015), it was shown that there is a positive influ-
ence of social-interactive engagement on brand love which is mediated by
psychological effort such as social identity. Thakur, Hale and Summey
(2018), a study on what motivates consumers to partake in cyber shilling
showed that: perceived betrayal increased desire for revenge and reduced
brand love and desire for revenge negatively impacted brand love. Further
it was shown that both desire for revenge and brand love had an impact
on cyber shilling and willingness to be involved in cyber shilling increased
when some sort of reward was received.
Websites and mobile applications

Baena (2016) showed that developing an interactive website is just not
adequate for developing brand love. In addition to that Baena (2016) also
showed that integrating different elements of social media such as blogs,
YouTube, Facebook etc., can influence fan engagement and fan community
development and the findings also showed that interaction among members
in a fan community can also enhance brand love for a company.
Brand love in services

This theme looks at the application of brand love construct in service rela-
tionships and various service settings.
Service relationships
This sub-theme focusses on papers that have looked at consumer-brand
relationships that have emerged out of service settings with brand love
being the focus.
Tsai (2011) proposed a service brand relationship model and showed
that service brand commitment and service brand love partially mediate
the effects of satisfaction of utilitarian attributes, satisfaction of affective
attributes, brand – switching cost, uniqueness, privilege, trust, self-concept
and delight on service brand loyalty. Long-Tolbert and Gammoh (2012), in

their study on service relationships showed that gratitude, partner
quality and social support are significant antecedents of brand love in a
service context.
Padma and Wagenseil (2018) in a conceptual paper proposed service
leadership, service culture, quality management & business excellence, ser-
vice innovation, customer engagement, service brand image and service
brand encounters as antecedents of retail service excellence. It was also pro-
posed that employee loyalty, employee pride, customer delight, customer
commitment and brand love as consequences of retail service excellence.
Tourism and hospitality

This sub-theme focusses on papers that have looked at brand love as a phe-
nomenon in various tourism and hospitality contexts.
Tsai (2014) in a study on international tourist brands showed that brand
love is a powerful driver of switching resistance loyalty. Alnawas and
Altarifi (2016) in a study based on hotel industry revealed that compared
to brand identity, brand-lifestyle congruency has a greater impact on cus-
tomer hotel brand identification. Further, the study also showed that cus-
tomer hotel brand identification had an impact on brand love which in
turn impacted brand loyalty. Aro, Suomi, & Saraniemi (2018) in a study on
a hotel setup suggested three sets of antecedents to destination brand love
and a set of emotional and behavioral consequences of destination brand
love. The antecedents and consequences are: Brand experiences- long-term
relationship, frequent interaction, first visit, positive service interactions,
satisfaction, hedonism, attachment to destination, people, positive feelings;
Tourist dependent antecedents - anthropomorphism, identification to
brand, identification to typical tourists; brand dependent antecedents –
place dependence, uniqueness, self-expressiveness of the brand and activity
opportunities; Emotional consequences - interest in wellbeing of the brand,
attitudinal loyalty, resistance to negative experiences, longing and memo-
ries, anticipated separation distress and positive attitude and Behavioral
consequences - þwom, declaration of love, willingness to invest, insensitiv-
ity to prices, behavioral loyalty. Swanson (2017), in a phenomenological
study identified three types of love – Philia, Storge and Eros. Philia is a
friendship type of love, Storge is a love that happens among family mem-
bers and Eros is a passionate and romantic type of love. In a hotel context,
Manthiou, Kang, Hyun and Fu (2018), found that brand authenticity is a
critical determinant of impression in memory, lifestyle congruence and
brand love. It was also found that brand authenticity’s equation with
impression in memory, lifestyle congruence and brand love do not differ
with high and low unique perception. A study on Gen Y respondents in

hotel setups, it was found that novelty perception, hedonism and brand
reputation were antecedents of brand love and high revisit intention
and þ WoM were found as consequences of brand love for Gen Y consum-
ers (Liu, Wang, Chiu, & Chen, 2018).
Hospitals
Review of literature also suggests a study specifically on hospitals, which
has been put under this sub-theme. The study showed that other customer
perception, perceived brand ethicality, accommodation environment and
empathetic interaction are found to be the antecedents of affective hospital
brand attachment and hospital brand attachment in turn impacted safe
haven and brand trust (Sarkar, Sarkar & Rao, 2016).
Universities
This sub-theme encapsulates a paper that looked at universities and has
also a mention of brand love. A study on universities developed a univer-
sity brand personality scale which had prestige, sincerity, appeal, lively,
conscientiousness and cosmopolitan as dimensions, which positively
impacted brand love, þWoM and students’ intention to support their
alumni (Rauschnabel, Krey, Babin, & Ivens, 2016).
Brand love in luxury, fashion and wine

This theme groups all those papers which have looked at brand love phe-
nomenon in luxury products, fashion products and wine. Each of these cat-
egories has been considered as a sub-theme.
Luxury
A study by Kapferer and Valette-Florence (2016), showed that a luxury
brand can remain desirable if they switch to an “abundant rarity” and
abundant rarity facilitates feelings of privilege, alluring through experiential
facets, pricing, prestige and other relevant dimensions. In a study based on
luxury fashion using netnography approach, informants showed that there
were some unifying characteristics lustered around engagement, involve-
ment, self-concept, self-connection, brand love and hedonic values (Parrott,
Danbury & Kanthavanich, 2015).
Rodrigues, Brand~ao and Rodrigues (2018) in their study on importance
of self in brand love in consumer – luxury brand relationships, showed
that luxury brand perceptions positively mediate the effect of self-

congruency and self-brand integration on brand love.
Siew, Minor and Felix (2018) in their investigation on luxury brands
found that brand love mediates the influence of perceived strength of brand
origin on willingness to pay more. Kwon and Mattila (2015), showed that
the impact of self-connection on brand lovers’ positive WoM is stronger
for consumers with an independent self-construal compared to those with
a more independent notion of self.
Fashion
Ismail and Melewar (2015) conducted a study on fashion brands of the UK
and Switzerland and found that brand love, brand excitement and brand
image have a significant impact on WoM. Islam and Rahman (2016), in
their study on brand love in fashion context, brand love positively impacts
customer engagement and customer loyalty. In addition to that the study
also found that brand image positively impacts brand love, customer
engagement and customer loyalty.
Liapati, Assiouras and Decaudin (2015), in their study observed that
brand love and hedonic consumption tendency increase the positive affect
that the consumers feel when visiting stores which stimulate them to
impulse-buy fashion products.
Wine
Drennan et al. (2015) in the context of wine, showed that brand love works
both as a direct and as a mediating influence on brand love (which is posi-
tively influenced by brand love). Further, the study also showed that wine
experience had a greater influence on brand trust and satisfaction than
wine knowledge. Correia Loureiro and Kaufmann (2012) in their research
showed that wine satisfaction and brand image have a positive influence on
brand love, which in turn positively impacts þ WoM and brand loyalty.
Brand love derivatives

The stream of research has also seen evolution of new constructs with the
help of brand love construct, the constructs being brand hate, brand like-
ability, brand devotion, brand addiction and idol attachment. Each of these
constructs has been considered as a sub-theme and classification of papers
was done accordingly.
Brand hate
This stream of research has also seen the conceptualization of a new con-
struct called brand hate. Zarantonello, Romani, Grappi, and Bagozzi (2016),
have shown that brand hate leads to complaining, negative word of mouth,
protest, patronage reduction or cessation. It would be interesting to note
the authors in their paper suggested that in order to deal with negative
word of mouth like situations, companies can upgrade the hate feelings to
neutral feelings. After upgrading to neutral feelings, companies have a
strong chance to convert these neutral feelings into positive feelings which
are means to brand love (Batra et al. 2012).
Hegner, Fetscherin, and van Delzen (2017), also studied the construct of
brand hate and found that negative past experience, symbolic incongruity
and ideological incompatibility as antecedents of brand hate and brand
avoidance, negative WoM and brand retaliation as consequences of
brand hate.
Brand likeability
Nguyen et al. (2013) conceptualized brand likeability from consumers’
point of view, with three dimensions: personification (attractiveness, integ-
rity and extraversion), psychological (inferences, reference points and
attachment & love) and functional (good services, communication, conveni-
ence and fairness attribute).
Brand devotion
Sarkar and Sarkar (2016) studied brand devotion and showed that the phe-
nomenon of brand devotion is a step by step process and is different from
romantic love, as love can happen with multiple brands of same category.
Brand addiction
Review of literature suggests multiple studies pertinent to brand addiction.
Mrad and Cui (2017) in their study developed a 11-item brand addiction
scale and defined brand addiction as a psychological state of consumers
that describes self-brand relationship manifested in daily life and involving
positive affectivity and gratification with a particular brand, entailing con-
stant urge to use or possess the brand’s product and service. Cui, Mrad
and Hogg (2018), also studied brand addiction and characterized brand
addiction as a combination of the following: acquisitiveness, anxiety-
irritability, bonding, brand exclusivity, collecting, compulsive urges, finan-
cial management versus debt tolerance, dependence, gratification, mental
and behavioral preoccupation and word of mouth. It was also found that
brand addiction is different from compulsive buying and acquisitive desire.
Mrad (2018), furthered the brand addiction stream of research with a con-
ceptual paper and proposed that brand addiction involves dependence,
habit formation, loss of control, failure to withstand impulses and tension
before starting the behavior related to addicted brand.
Idol attachment
In addition to brand attachment, there was also a study that looked at idol
attachment (Huang, Lin, & Phau, 2015), which showed that attachment
vanity, variety seeking, and peer norms are antecedents of Idol attachment.
It was also found that human brand loyalty is a consequence of
idol attachment.
Underlying Theories:
There have been many theories that have been used to understand the
concept of brand love.
Attachment theory, an extensively used theory, was originally proposed
to understand the concept of emotions in the context of interpersonal rela-
tionships, especially in the case of parents and infants (Bowlby, 1979). The
theory posits that the degree of attachment of individuals to brands or peo-
ple, determines the level of commitment and the level of acceptance of sac-
rifices involved in the relationship (Bowlby, 1979). In other words,
attachment can be understood as an emotion which is target specific,
between a person and an object. Attachment as a process occurs by estab-
lishing and developing emotional bonding with an entity, through consist-
ent experiences thereby contributing to the degree of comfort perceived in
the relationship (Perry, 1995). Subsequent research has shown that the con-
cept of entity can be extended to any entity or possessions (Dwayne Ball &
Tasaki, 1992; Kleine & Baker, 2004), places, companies and brands (Moore
& Graefe, 1994; Williams & Vaske, 2003). Specifically, brand attachment
refers to the closeness of the self to a brand both cognitively and affectively
(Fournier, 1998).
Hence the use of this theory is relevant in brand love stream of research
because love for brands is not just emotional but also cognitively based
(Batra et al. 2012; Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006; Sarkar 2014) and so is brand
attachment which is both cognitive and affective in nature. Attachment the-
ory in this stream of research was used to understand the alignment of
love-like feelings for brands by various consumers based on personality
traits (Roy et al., 2016), to understand attitudinal loyalty (Hwang &
Kandampully, 2012), to understand emotional attachment amongst patients
towards hospitals (Sarkar et al., 2016) etc.
Social identity theory is another extensively used theory in the brand

love literature. Social identity theory is helpful in understanding the inter-
action of people in a social network (Tajfel, Turner, Austin & Worchel,
1979), as they go beyond their personal identity to develop a social identity.
Tajfel, defined social identity as an “individual’s self-concept which derives
from his knowledge of his membership of a social group together with the
value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel,
1981, p.185). In other words, this theory elucidates that a person’s positive
self-esteem is enhanced through the person’s personal identity and/or social
identity (Edwards, 2005), which at the end add up to the person’s self-
concept, which is sum total of individual’s thoughts and feelings having
refernce to the individual as an object. Social identity has three compo-
nents: cognitive (i.e. identification), affective (i.e. affective commitment)
and evaluative (Bergami & Bagozzi, 2000; Dholakia, Bagozzi & Pearo, 2004;
Ellemers, De Gilder, & Haslam, 2004).
Subsequent research showed that different group memberships and
group features impact the dimensions differently (Ellemers et al., 2004). To
add to this, it was also found that relationships with different people aug-
ment the personal life of an individual (Fournier, 1998).As the theory is
instrumental in understanding the impact on self-concept, a factor which
plays a critical role in consumer-brand relationships, it has been used in
various contexts like online communities (Vernuccio et al., 2015), in under-
standing the role of brand identification and brand love in generating high
levels of brand loyalty (Alnawas & Altarifi, 2016).
Brand love stream of research has also seen frequent usage of social
exchange theory. Social exchange theory describes the crucial exchanges
between two parties or two partners that participate to produce a quality
relationship (Cropanzano & Mitchell, 2005). The social relationship is
maintained as long as both the partners or participants acknowledge and
duly follow rules of exchange, which include reciprocity, so that the actions
of both the partners lead to favorable responses of the other (Molm, 1994).
The process of exchange is started by one of the partners and with the
other partner reciprocating, a strong relationship is formed (Cropanzano &
Mitchell, 2005). As the brand literature treats the dyad of consumers and
brands in the same way as relational partners, this theory can be used to
understand what it takes for a strong and satisfied consumer-brand rela-
tionship, which also exhibits the importance of this theory in consumer-
brand relation outcomes such as brand love.
The other two theories that have not been used much but require a spe-
cial mention in the description are: self-congruity theory and attribu-
tion theory.
Self-congruity theory can be a critical viewpoint as congruity occurs

when brands and self-concept of consumers are in sync or compatible
(Klipfel, Barclay, & Bockorny, 2014). As mentioned above self-concept is
defined as “totality of the individual’s thoughts and feelings having refer-
ence to himself as an object” (Rosenberg, 1979, p. 7). Subsequent research
has shown that self-congruity has four components: actual self-image, ideal
self-image, social self-image and ideal social self-image (Johar & Sirgy,
1989, 1991). The four components refer to various instances of how con-
sumers would like to see themselves on various occasions (Johar & Sirgy,
1989). Keeping this in view, future research can explore how consumers’
love for brands change and how it impacts the managerial implications
such as loyalty, word of mouth, willingness to pay price premium, resist-
ance to negative information etc.
The table (Table 2) shows the list of other theories that have been
used in the research stream of brand love albeit less frequently.
Table 2. Underlying Theories in Brand Love Literature.

Theories Papers
Self-construal Theory Loureiro et al. (2012)
Attachment Theory Hwang and Kandampully (2012), Roy et al. (2016),
Sarkar et al. (2016), Huang et al. (2015), Sreejesh
et al. (2018)
Commitment-trust Theory Tsai (2011)
Relationship Investment Theory Tsai (2011)
Triangular Theory of Love Long-Tolbert and Gammoh (2012)
Social Identity Theory Vernuccio et al. (2015), Alnawas and Altarifi (2016),
Bairrada et al. (2018), Liu et al. (2018)
Para-social Relationship Theory Fetscherin (2014)
Interpersonal Relationship Theory Fetscherin (2014)
Attribution Theory Nguyen et al. (2013)
Cognitive Dissonance Theory Nguyen et al. (2013)
Equity Theory Nguyen et al. (2013), Hegner et al. (2017)
Distributive Procedural and Justice Theory Nguyen et al. (2013)
Feelings as Information Theory Langner et al. (2016)
Disidentification Theory Hegner et al. (2017)
Theory of Self-presentation Castan~o and Eugenia Perez (2014)
Signalling Theory Leung et al. (2014)
Triangular Theory of Love Alnawas and Altarifi (2016).
Self-identity Theory Alnawas and Altarifi (2016).
Commodified Emotions Theory Sarkar et al. (2016)
Theory of Reasoned Action Huang et al. (2015)
Self-determination Theory Huang et al. (2015)
Optimal Situation Level Theory Huang et al. (2015)
Motivational Theories Thakur, Hale, and Summey (2018)
Social Exchange Theory Garg et al. (2016), Melewar et al. (2015)
Script Theory Manthiou et al. (2018)
Theory of Uniqueness Manthiou et al. (2018)
Dual Processing Theory Siew et al. (2018)
Categorization Theory Bairrada et al. (2018)
Choice Theory Bairrada et al. (2018)
Self-congruity Theory Rodrigues et al. (2018)
Consumer-culture Theory Rodrigues et al. (2018)
Review of literature on brand love suggests that attachment theory, social identity theory and social exchange
theory have been the most extensively used theories in the brand love research stream.
Methodologies & approaches used

Methodologies
Survey methods
From the review of literature, it can be understood that survey method-
ology has been the most extensively used methodology in brand love
research stream. The major advantage of survey methodology is that it is
instrumental in obtaining large samples, with very less investment and are
comparatively easy to generalize the results of any given study. Though sur-
veys only provide estimates of the true population and not exact measure-
ments (Salant, Dillman, & Don, 1994), they still help in facilitating an
understanding of the information about attitudes or perceptions at large.
Though there are several advantages one of the primary disadvantages is
surveys are not perfect devices to collect data, as surveys require respond-
ents to recollect past behavior which may not always be accurate
(Schwarz, 1999).
Survey methods have been used in brand love literature in variety of
contexts like in understanding antecedents and consequences of brand love
(Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006), to understand the effects of brand love and
brand image on consumer engagement (Islam & Rahman, 2016), to under-
stand the mediating effects of experience and price on brand love and posi-
tive word of mouth (Karjaluoto et al., 2016), in examining the role of wine
brand love on brand loyalty (Drennan et al. 2015) to name a few.
Interestingly, it was also observed that most of the survey research stud-
ies have used students as respondents (e.g. Fetscherin, 2014; Islam &
Rahman, 2016; Nguyen et al., 2013; Rauschnabel et al., 2016; Zarantanello
et al, 2016), followed by random sampling approach (e.g. Hegner et al.,
2017; Roy et al., 2016).
Experimental methods
Literature review suggests that experiment method is the next most exten-
sively used methodology of the brand love research stream. Experimental
studies are those that are conducted in artificial laboratory settings to
understand the interplay of variables in settings that replicate natural set-
tings. Experimental studies are basically used to utilize the additional
opportunity of evidence from artificial setups or lab setups when there is a
failure in learning from observing events as they unfold in natural settings
or circumstances (Holland, Holyoak, Nisbett & Thagard, 1986). The major
advantage of experiment methodology is that lab studies have high internal
validity (Winer, 1999). Experiment methodology has been used in brand
love stream of research in various contexts. For example, experiment meth-
odology has been used to understand the nature of relationships consumers
have with loved brands (Fetscherin, 2014), to understand the impact of

positive service delivery or negative service delivery and its impact on
brand love (Long-Tolbert & Gammoh, 2012), to understand the eliciting of
emotions for loved brands (Maxian et al., 2013), the effects of advertising
on consumer-brand relationships, with a brand love perspective (Jun, Tat,
& Siqing, 2009) etc.
Mixed -method
Mixed methodology was also used frequently in the brand love stream of
research. The very popular mixed methodology study of brand love
research stream in terms of citations was authored by Batra et al. (2012)
which explores the concept of brand love by identifying the antecedents
and consequences of brand love, as a construct. The study used grounded
theory and survey methods to solve the research questions. Further to this,
mixed-method was also used to understand the roles of brand love and
brand jealousy in shaping customer engagement (Leventhal, Sarkar, et al.,
2014), to understand international tourists’ love, satisfaction and persistent
sickness (Tsai, 2014), to decipher university brand personality scale
(Rauschnabel & Ahuvia, 2014) to name a few studies that have used
mixed method.
Majority of the studies in brand love stream of research have been quan-
titative in nature, with survey and experiment methods being the dominant
research methods. There have been very less qualitative studies in the
stream of brand love. The qualitative research studies of brand love gener-
ally used in-depth interviews followed by various approaches (e.g. Nguyen
et al., 2013; Langner et al., 2016). The advantage of qualitative research is
the revelation of critical in-depth actionable insights it generates.
Apart from the above-mentioned empirical studies, it has also
been observed that brand love stream of research has also seen
conceptual papers (e.g. Kaufmann et al., 2016; Nguyen et al., 2013; Roy
et al., 2013).
Analysis approaches
From the literature review, we have already seen that most of the research
has been quantitative in nature. Owing to this slant for quantitative
research, most of the analysis approaches have been quantitative in nature.
Specifically, it has been observed that most of the research has considered
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), in survey methodologies. Over the
years, it has been observed that there has been an increase in the number
of publications that have used structural equation modeling, partly because
of the number of statistical software packages that are available like
LISREL, AMOS, EQS, SEPATH etc. (Chin, 1998). SEM has always been
viewed as a coupling of econometric and psychometric perspectives, that
demonstrates relationship between latent variables that have been measured
using one or multiple observable variables, which has led to social scientists
calling this approach as “a second generation of multivariate analysis”
(Fornell 1987, 408). As most of the survey method studies in the literature
of brand love have tried to understand the interplay of various latent varia-
bles with brand love, it is quite logical and relevant to use this approach. It
has also been observed in the literature of brand love, that SEM has been
preceded by first -generation techniques like confirmatory factor analysis
approaches or factor analysis approaches or both (e.g. Hwang &
Kandampully, 2012; Leventhal, Sarkar, et al., 2014; Rageh Ismail & Spinelli,
2012; Tsai, 2011).
Apart from structural equation modeling, we have also observed
extensive usage of multiple linear regression analyses (e.g. Baena, 2016;
Casta~no & Eugenia Perez, 2014; Rauschnabel & Ahuvia, 2014). In add-
ition to these approaches, we have also seen extensive usage of ANOVA
as an analysis approach. The extensive usage of ANOVA is not surpris-
ing because of the frequent usage of experiment methodology (e.g. Jun
et al., 2009; Long-Tolbert & Gammoh, 2012). Apart from experiment
studies, ANOVA was also used in straightforward survey methods (e.g.
Wallace et al., 2014).
When it came to qualitative research studies most of the studies were a
result of in-depth and semi-structured interviews (e.g. Hemetsberger et al.,
2009; Nguyen et al., 2013). Of the qualitative research methodologies, phe-
nomenology was the most extensively used analysis approach.
Phenomenology is an extensively used interpretivist approach (Parahoo,
1997). The basic premise of phenomenology approach is that, the most
basic human truths are observed through inner subjectivity (Thorne, 1991)
and the person or human is an integral element of the environment (Burns
& Grove, 1999). To understand what impacts brand love and what are the
consequences of the brand love at the very basic level, phenomenology is a
very relevant approach and the extensive use of this approach in qualitative
research studies of brand love is logical. After phenomenology it was
grounded theory approach that was extensively used in the extant literature.
Grounded theory was proposed by Glaser and Strauss (1967), who studied
the social organization of dying in hospitals. Grounded theory approach is
a general methodology with a systematic process to gather and analyze
data. The analytic process consists of coding data – developing, checking,
and integrating theoretical categories and finally interpreting the output
into analytic narratives.
• Hedonic and Symbolic • Brand Loyalty

Benefits Brand Love • Positive WoM
• Consumer Satisfaction • Resistance to
• High Quality Perceptions Negative Information
• Brand Image • Propensity to Pay a
• Brand Experience Price Premium
• Customer
Engagement
Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of Brand Love Based on the Literature Review.
Key variables observed

From Appendix Table 1, it can be understood that brand loyalty, positive
WoM, high quality perceptions about brand, brand experiences, brand
image, self-concept and anthropomorphism have been the most extensively
used variables. Further it can be understood that all the key variables have
a fine mix of variables that describe consumer perceptions and also the var-
iables that describe the benefits that companies garner with brand love.
The below conceptual framework sheds light on how the interplay of
various variables affects the brand love phenomenon.
Conceptual framework
From the review of literature, we propose a conceptual model (Figure 1),
in which we show the actionable antecedents and consequences that are of
crucial managerial importance.
Antecedents
The conceptual framework (Figure 1), covers only those antecedents over
which managers have control. To this end, we identified variables inde-
pendently keeping in view their importance to businesses.
Hedonic and symbolic benefits

It is established that consumers purchase products or services which either
give them hedonic benefits or utilitarian benefits (Babin, Darden & Griffin,
1994; Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000). Hedonic or symbolic benefits are pro-
vided by sensory organs when they experience esthetics, sensual pleasure,
fantasy and fun (Hirschman & Holbrook, 1982). Brands that provide
hedonic benefits are regarded as affect rich (Suh, 2009) and the benefits
vary from person to person as the experiences are subjective in nature
(Babin et al., 1994). Hedonic benefits offered by brands are evaluated based
on intuition than those brands that offer utilitarian benefits (Suh, 2009).
Huber et al. (2015), in their research mentioned that hedonic value –
offerings fulfill the needs of self – expression and self – esteem, leading to
positive emotional arousal, affection and positive associations of the brand.
Additionally, a hedonic product creating fun, play or other affective states
provides a strong emotional base and will serve as a trigger for a strong
consumer-brand relationship (Fournier, 1998; Smith & Colgate, 2007).
Consequent to this relationship, it has been observed that the emotion
might turn into love for a specific brand (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006; Hwang
& Kandampully, 2012). With this, it can be understood that a product if it
delivers hedonic values to the consumers, it can trigger love-like feelings.
High quality perceptions

In addition to hedonic and symbolic values, it is well-established in the lit-
erature that people tend to see both the people they love (Bartels & Zeki,
2004) and the objects they love (Batra et al., 2012; Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006;
Correia Loureiro and Kaufmann (2012)) as being exceptionally good or
excellent. Hence, review of literature has shown that perceived quality has
been related to brand love (e.g. Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006; Batra et al., 2012).
Perceived quality in this context is the functional attributes of the product,
quality evaluations pertinent to design and manufacture of the product.
Consumer satisfaction
Consumer satisfaction can be understood as a summary affective response
of varying intensity that is directed towards focal aspects of product acqui-
sition and product consumption (Giese & Cote, 2000). Satisfaction is not
entirely a cognitive phenomenon, it is also an affective judgement (Roy
et al., 2013). Hence a cumulative post-consumption satisfaction leads to
emotional attachment with a brand over a period of time (Thomson,
MacInnis & Park, 2005). The emotional relationship over a period of time
can lead to love for a specified period of time (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006;
Hwang & Kandampully, 2012).
Brand image
Many brand scholars have argued that brand image is a powerful differenti-
ating device (e.g. Aaker, 1996). Brand image can be understood as a set of
perceptions about a brand resulting from the brand associations held by
consumers (Herzog, 1963). Aaker (1991) defined brand associations as a
category of brand’s assets and liabilities that encompass anything linked in
memory to a brand. Brand image is developed by the following factors:
product attributes, the firm, the marketing mix, perceptions of brand,
experience, personal values and contextual factors, which are formed

through direct experience of the brand or through brand communications
(Dobni & Zinkhan, 1990). In sum, brand image consists of symbolic, func-
tional, emotional and rationale beliefs about brand (Low & Lamb, 2000).
In addition to that literature suggests that consumers tend to forge stron-
ger relationships with brands that match their self-concept (Aaker, 1997;
Malhotra, 1988). In this line, a positive brand image can trigger the passion
to love these brands among consumers (Rageh Ismail & Spinelli, 2012). In
addition to this, literature also suggests that consumers may attach person-
ality traits to the brands they consume (Aaker, 1997; Fournier, 1998),
which can lead to brand love. Hence, it can be understood that a positive
brand image can lead to brand love.
Brand experience
Brand experience can be understood as an internal and subjective responses
to a brand and it consists of sensory, affective, behavioral and intellectual
dimensions which are activated by brand related stimuli, which in turn can
lead to strong emotional bonding between the consumers and brands
(Brakus, Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009). Almedia and Nique (2005) showed
that an excited level in consumption experience begins with mere satisfac-
tion. Past research has shown that mere satisfaction can lead to brand love
(Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006). Hence to forge love-like consumer brand rela-
tionships, it is imperative to have a satisfying brand experience.
Brand trust
Brand trust is an important marketing construct and is instrumental in
forging successful consumer-brand relationships (Garbarino & Johnson,
1999). Research suggests that trust in consumer-brand relationships context
refers to honesty, reliability and altruism that consumers attribute to brands
(Hess, 1995). The cognitive dimension of consumer perceptions show the
level of expectations that the brand will meet expectations and respect its
obligations (Chaudhuri & Holbrook, 2001). On the other hand, the affect-
ive dimension of consumer perceptions reflect the perceptions of honesty
and altruism (Delgado-Ballester, Munuera-Aleman, & Yague-Guillen, 2003).
In addition to this, research has shown that trust frequently describes love-
like feelings between partners (Fehr, 2006) and it has also been empirically
shown that trust is associated with love and intimacy (Larzelere & Huston,
1980). Hence it can be inferred that brands should communicate trust-
worthiness to imbue brand love.
Excitement Brand personality

At the theoretical level, brand image and brand personality have been used
interchangeably (Upshaw, 1995). Brand personality can be understood as
human traits that are ascribed to brands (Aaker, 1997). Therefore, on the
same lines of brand image, good brand associations about a brand held in
consumers’ minds can lead to brand love. It has also been empirically seen
that, excitement brand personality has led to brand love (Ismail &
Melewar, 2015; Rageh Ismail & Spinelli, 2012).
Consequences
Brand loyalty
Research has shown that consumers show loyalty to various products,
stores and brands (Uncles, Dowling, & Hammond, 2003). Brand loyalty is
at the core of many brand constructs and is an indicator of sustainability
of brands because loyalty makes it difficult for consumers to switch brands,
even when competitors offer more benefits (Oliver, 1999). Review of litera-
ture has shown that brand love positively affects brand loyalty (both attitu-
dinal brand loyalty and behavioral loyalty) in various contexts (e.g. Carroll
& Ahuvia, 2006; Batra et al., 2012).
Positive word of mouth

Research has shown that affective loyalty is instrumental in influencing
behaviors such as positive word of mouth or repeat purchases even at a
price premium (Aaker, 1991). This is because research has shown that con-
sumers are important spokespersons of brands that they love (Dick & Basu,
1994; Fullerton, 2005; Harrison-Walker, 2001). In addition to that, it has
also been observed that consumers who feel love for brands are more likely
to talk in good light about them (Batra et al., 2012) and the positive influ-
ence of brand love has been shown in various empirica studies (Albert &
Merunka, 2013; Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006). In addition to that Roy,
Khandeprakar and Motiani (2016) in their research showed that consumers
who are in love with fake brands also engage in positive WoM as the brand
love that these consumers possess emanates from social self.
Resistance to negative information

Batra et al. (2012) in their research study showed that consumers who are
in love with brands become loyal and have been observed to speak of
brands that they love in good light. In addition to that, the strength of loy-
alty would make the consumers question if they hear something bad about
the brands that they love (Batra et al. 2012).
Future research directions

Based on the review of literature on various dimensions, we list down the
possible future research directions on a few dimensions.
Theories
Though there have been many theories that have been used in the brand
love stream of research, we found that the brand love literature could use
self-congruity theory, associative network theory and theory of brand
anthropomorphization.
Associative network theory posits brand knowledge as a node which consists
of several associations of brands (Keller, 1993). Keeping in view that, associa-
tions of various brands express the relatedness between brands; future research
can look at how a spillover of love-like feelings to other brands in the portfolio
can happen.
Anthropomorphization theory posits that people have a tendency of
attributing mind, emotions, intentions and behavioral features to non-
human objects like brands (Aggarwal and McGill, 2007). The humanizing
of brands involves attributing human traits to brands and thus creating a
mediating device for consumer-brand relationships (Aaker 1997; Belk,
1988; Escalas & Bettman 2005; Johar, Sengupta & Aaker 2005). Future
research can look at how various human personality traits attributed to
brands affect (by using various brand personality scales) the phenomenon
of brand love, which can strengthen the ongoing debate that brand love is
analogous to interpersonal love.
One of the less frequently used theories in brand love research stream is
attribution theory. Attribution theory was used by Nguyen et al. (2013) to
understand brand likeability effect, future research can look at various
other options. Attribution theory (Jones & Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1973)
explores the process or steps by which individuals, infer causes behind a
behavior or an event through observation and experience of the behavior.
Attributions can be understood as perceptions behind the causality of an
event’s occurrence (Weiner, 1985). Keeping this in view, future research
can look at the trigger points that can initiate the process of brand love,
which can shed light on some critical actionable insights.
Contexts
In addition to the above theories, future research can look at the applica-
tion of brand love in business-to-business (B2B) context, as brand love if
applicable to highly functional brands (Pinto Borges et al., 2016) can also
be applied to B2B contexts.
Para-social relationship theory was used by Fetscherin (2014) instead of

interpersonal analogies. Keeping this in view, future research can look at
the applicability of para-social relationship theories in various industries
and geographies.
Variables
From the review of literature, it has been understood that brand hate can
be upgraded to neutral state, from where managers can try to imbue posi-
tive affective feelings to bring about brand love (Zarantonello, Formisano,
et al., 2016). Future research can look at the possibility of brand love going
to neutral state and brand hate.
From the review of literature, it has been observed that consumers can
have love for multiple products of same category (Sarkar & Sarkar, 2016).
Future research can look at the generalizability of this phenomenon across
all the product categories. If consumers can have love for multiple brands
of same category, future research should explain the remedy for
this phenomenon.
Most of the research studies have been quantitative in nature, keeping
this in view, future research should invite studies that are more qualitative
in nature.
Conclusion
This study addresses the lack of a systematic review of brand love construct
literature by using a systematic literature review process, which requires
clearly defined procedures. Keeping in view the diversity and interdiscipli-
narity of this field, a systematic literature review method After a thorough
review of literature, it can be concluded that brand love as a construct has
made rapid strides of progress, since the article of Carroll and Ahuvia
(2006). After a thorough analysis of the research studies, it can be under-
stood that love-like feelings for a brand can help companies in many ways.
Primarily, brand love can be looked at as an effective marketing tool, across
products and services, that facilitates repeat purchases and positive word of
mouth, which can ultimately lead to increase in sales and profits for busi-
ness entities. Literature still doesn’t suggest if interpersonal love is the best
analogy for brand love, as application of para-social relationships to brand
love has shown at par or even better results (Fetscherin, 2014). It can be
understood that most of the research studies have used quantitative meth-
odology, primarily survey based researches, with structural equation model-
ing being the most extensively used analysis approach. It was also noticed
that most of the studies have not had theoretical underpinning in solving
research questions. In addition to that, only a handful of theories have

been used extensively, which has created a slant in terms of viewing the
phenomenon of brand love. Review of literature also suggests that for most
of the studies that are empirical in nature, the extensive use of students as
respondents was observed.
In addition to this, in the last 12 years, brand love stream of research
has developed from more business-oriented to discipline based research,
which shows that the stream of research has evolved from descriptive
measurement of a managerial phenomenon to a psychology-based con-
ceptual research. Keeping this in view, we would safely make an
assumption that future research would be more psychology oriented.
This systematic literature review is an attempt to provide an interdiscip-
linary platform of brand love research for both academics and
practitioners.
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Appendix Table 1: Key variables observed
Key Variables Papers

Hedonic Product Carroll and Ahuvia (2006), Huber et al. (2015), Karjaluoto et al.,
2016, Sarkar (2014), Liapati et al. (2015), Liu et al. (2018)
Self-expressive brand Carroll and Ahuvia (2006), Leventhal, Wallace, Buil, and de
Chernatony (2014), Loureiro et al. (2012), Karjaluoto et al., 2016,
Kaufmann et al. (2016), Aro et al. (2018)
Brand Loyalty Carroll and Ahuvia (2006), Batra et al. (2012), Bergkvist and Bech-
Larsen (2010), Loureiro et al. (2012), Hwang and Kandampully
(2012), Tsai (2011), Roy et al. (2013), Fetscherin (2014), Kudeshia
et al. (2016), Drennan et al. (2015), Kaufmann et al., 2016, Correia
Loureiro and Kaufmann (2012), Wallace, Buil and Chernatony
(2017), Parrott et al. (2015), Alnawas and Altarifi (2016),
lu et al. (2018), Huang et al. (2015), Bairrada et al.
Bıçakcıog
(2018), Pinto Borges et al. (2016)
Positive Word of Mouth Carroll and Ahuvia (2006), Batra et al. (2012), Albert and Merunka
(2013), Rageh Ismail and Spinelli (2012), Roy et al. (2013),
Rauschnabel et al. (2016), Fetscherin (2014), Kudeshia et al.
(2016), Karjaluoto et al., 2016, Correia Loureiro and Kaufmann
(2012), Wallace et al. (2017), Kwon and Mattila (2015), Roy et al.
(2016), Ismail and Melewar (2015), Bıçakcıog lu et al. (2018),
Khandeparkar and Motiani (2018), Pinto Borges et al. (2016), Liu
et al. (2018)
High Quality Perceptions Batra et al. (2012), Rauschnabel and Ahuvia (2014), Bairrada
et al. (2018)
Self-brand Integration Batra et al. (2012), Rauschnabel and Ahuvia (2014), Tsai (2014)
Passion Driven Behaviors Batra et al. (2012)
Positive Emotional connection Batra et al. (2012)
Long-term Relationship Batra et al. (2012)
Anticipated Separation Distress Batra et al. (2012)
Attitude Valence Batra et al. (2012)
Attitude Strength Batra et al. (2012)
Resistance to Negative Information Batra et al. (2012)
Brand Identification Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen (2010), Albert and Merunka (2013),
Alnawas and Altarifi (2016), Dalman et al. (2017)
Sense of Community Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen (2010)
Active Engagement Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen (2010), Sarkar and Sreejesh (2014),
Sarkar (2014)
(continued)
Continued.
Brand Trust Albert and Merunka (2013), Loureiro et al. (2012), Tsai (2011),
Karjaluoto et al., 2016, Drennan et al (2015), Kaufmann et al.,
2016, Sarkar et al. (2016)
Brand Commitment Albert and Merunka (2013), Loureiro et al. (2012), Tsai (2011)
Propensity to pay a price Premium Albert and Merunka (2013), Garg et al. (2016), Siew et al. (2018),
Bairrada et al. (2018)
Brand Advocacy Leventhal et al. (2014)
Brand Attachment Loureiro et al. (2012), Kaufmann et al., 2016, Reimann et al. (2017)
Self-concept/ Self-congruence Hwang and Kandampully (2012), Rauschnabel and Ahuvia (2014),
Tsai (2011), Roy et al. (2013), Wallace et al. (2017), Castano and
Perez (2014), Bıçakcıoglu et al. (2018)
Emotional Attachment Hwang and Kandampully (2012), Kwon and Mattila (2015)
Excitement Rageh Ismail and Spinelli (2012), Ismail and Melewar (2015)
Brand Image Rageh Ismail and Spinelli (2012), Islam and Rahman (2016), Correia
Loureiro and Kaufmann (2012), Ismail and Melewar (2015)
Anthropomorphism Rauschnabel and Ahuvia (2014), Aro et al. (2018), Reimann
et al. (2017)
Satisfaction of utilitarian Attributes Tsai (2011);
Satisfaction of Affective Attributes Tsai (2011);
Brand Switching Costs Tsai (2011);
Uniqueness Tsai (2011), Aro et al. (2018), Bairrada et al. (2018)
Delight Tsai (2011), Roy et al. (2013), Padma and Wagenseil (2018)
Self-esteem Sarkar and Sreejesh (2014)
Consumer Self-expressiveness Sarkar and Sreejesh (2014), Khandeparkar and Motiani (2018)
Purchase Intention Sarkar and Sreejesh (2014), Fetscherin (2014), Pinto Borges
et al. (2016)
Brand Jealousy Sarkar and Sreejesh (2014)
Brand Liking Rossiter (2012), Nguyen et al. (2013)
Brand Experience Roy et al. (2013), Karjaluoto et al., (2016), Drennan et al (2015),
Bıçakcıo
glu et al. (2018), Aro et al. (2018), Garg, Mukherjee,
Biswas and Kataria (2015)
Materialism Roy et al. (2013)
Functional Satisfaction Tsai (2014)
Service Satisfaction Tsai (2014)
Price Fairness Satisfaction Tsai (2014)
Passionate Love Tsai (2014)
Switching Resistance Loyalty Tsai (2014)
Customer Engagement Islam and Rahman (2016)
Customer Loyalty Islam and Rahman (2016)
University Brand Personality Scale Rauschnabel et al. (2016)
Students’ Intention to Support their Alumni Rauschnabel et al. (2016)
Facebook Fan Page Liking Kudeshia et al. (2016)
Brand Hate Zarantonello, Romani, et al. (2016), Hegner et al. (2017)
Negative WoM Zarantonello, Romani, et al. (2016), Hegner et al. (2017)
Complaining Protest Zarantonello, Romani, et al. (2016)
Patronage Reduction/Cessation Zarantonello, Romani, et al. (2016)
Utilitarian Value Huber et al. (2015)
Inner Self Huber et al. (2015)
Social Self Huber et al. (2015)
eWoM Karjaluoto et al., (2016)
Brand Satisfaction Drennan et al (2015), Nguyen et al. (2013), Correia Loureiro and
Kaufmann (2012)
Commitment to Community Kaufmann et al., 2016
Brand Reputation Nguyen et al. (2013), Liu et al. (2018)
Brand Preferences Nguyen et al. (2013)
Favorable attitudes Nguyen et al. (2013)
Brand Intimacy Jun et al. (2009), Bairrada et al. (2018)
Brand Passion Jun et al. (2009)
Brand Commitment Jun et al. (2009), Parrott et al. (2015)
Attitude Homophily Wallace et al. (2017)
Status Homophily Wallace et al. (2017)
(continued)
Continued.
Brand Advocacy Parrott et al. (2015)
Involvement Parrott et al. (2015)
Self-brand Connection Kwon and Mattila (2015)
Symbolic Incongruity Hegner et al. (2017)
Ideological Incompatability Hegner et al. (2017)
Brand Avoidance Hegner et al. (2017)
Brand Retaliation Hegner et al. (2017)
Impulse Buying Sarkar (2014)
Nostalgic Brand Experience Sarkar (2014)
Sincerity Personality Dimension Roy et al. (2016)
Excitement Personality Dimension Roy et al. (2016)
Affective Consumer Brand Relationship Leung et al. (2014)
Utilitarian Consumer Brand Relationship Leung et al. (2014)
Brand Equity Leung et al. (2014)
Brand Identity Alnawas and Altarifi (2016)
Brand Lifestyle Similarity Alnawas and Altarifi (2016)
Foreign Collaboration Sarkar et al. (2016)
Perceived Brand Ethicality Sarkar et al. (2016)
Other Customer Perception Sarkar et al. (2016), Sreejesh et al. (2018)
Safe Haven Sarkar et al. (2016)
Idol Attachment Huang et al. (2015)
Physical Vanity Traits Huang et al. (2015)
Variety Seeking Huang et al. (2015)
Peer Norms Huang et al. (2015)
Fashion Impulse tendency Liapati et al. (2015)
Browsing Liapati et al. (2015)
Shopping Enjoyment Liapati et al. (2015)
Positive Affect Liapati et al. (2015)
Urge to Purchase Liapati et al. (2015)
Available Budget Liapati et al. (2015)
Ethical Judgement Dalman et al. (2017)
Sin of Omission Dalman et al. (2017)
Brand Defense Dalman et al. (2017)
Perceived Betrayal Thakur et al. (2018)
Desire for Revenge Thakur et al. (2018)
Reward Thakur et al. (2018)
Respect Garg et al. (2016)
Brand’s Liking for Consumers Garg et al. (2016)
Extroversion Brand Personality Garg et al. (2016)
Neuroticism Garg et al. (2016)
Affective Commitment Garg et al. (2016), Garg et al. (2015)
Consumer Citizenship Behavior Garg et al. (2016), Garg et al. (2015)
Brand Authenticity Manthiou et al. (2018)
Impression in Memory Manthiou et al. (2018)
Lifestyle Congruence Manthiou et al. (2018)
Perceived Strength of Brand Origin Siew et al. (2018)
Brand Credibility Bairrada et al. (2018)
Brand Innovativeness Bairrada et al. (2018)
Repurchase Intention Garg et al. (2015)
Brand Resilience Khandeparkar and Motiani (2018)
Brand Engagement Pinto Borges et al. (2016)
Overall Attitude Valence Pinto Borges et al. (2016)
Novelty Perception Liu et al. (2018)
Brand Addiction Cui et al. (2018)
Service Leadership Padma and Wagenseil (2018)
Service Culture Padma and Wagenseil (2018)
Service Brand Image Padma and Wagenseil (2018)
Favorable Service Encounters Padma and Wagenseil (2018)
Retail Service Encounters Padma and Wagenseil (2018)
Employee Pride Padma and Wagenseil (2018)
Employee Loyalty Padma and Wagenseil (2018)
Customer Commitment Padma and Wagenseil (2018)
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The Phenomenon of Brand Love: A Systematic Literature Review

Article in Journal of Relationship Marketing · September 2019

Vivek Pani Gumparthi Sabyasachi Patra

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ISSN: 1533-2667 (Print) 1533-2675 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wjrm20

The Phenomenon of Brand Love: A Systematic

Vivek Pani Gumparthi & Sabyasachi Patra

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The Phenomenon of Brand Love: A Systematic

CONTACT Vivek Pani Gumparthi gumparthi.fpm1704@iimkashipur.ac.in Indian Institute of Management

Table1. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria.

address the following research questions with this systematic litera-

What are the emergent themes of literature pertinent to brand love?

After the introduction section, the article provides a brief background of

relationships with brands which is analogous to interpersonal relationships

Due to this lack of consensus in conceptualization, various definitions

Thematic content analysis

papers based on content similarity, an established method in social sciences

Brand Love Conceptualization: This broad theme encompasses three

Brand love conceptualization

Brand love and other constructs

Nature of brand love

Brand love in consumer-brand relationships

Brand love in self-concept

Self-concept in digital space

likely to accept a wrongdoing from a brand. Hwang and Kandampully

Brand love in inner-self, social-self and overall-self

Brand love in digital space

Websites and mobile applications

Brand love in services

and delight on service brand loyalty. Long-Tolbert and Gammoh (2012), in

Tourism and hospitality

with high and low unique perception. A study on Gen Y respondents in

Brand love in luxury, fashion and wine

that luxury brand perceptions positively mediate the effect of self-

Brand love derivatives

Social identity theory is another extensively used theory in the brand

Self-congruity theory can be a critical viewpoint as congruity occurs

Table 2. Underlying Theories in Brand Love Literature.

Methodologies & approaches used

have with loved brands (Fetscherin, 2014), to understand the impact of

• Hedonic and Symbolic • Brand Loyalty

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of Brand Love Based on the Literature Review.

Key variables observed

Hedonic and symbolic benefits

High quality perceptions

experience, personal values and contextual factors, which are formed

Excitement Brand personality

Positive word of mouth

Resistance to negative information

Future research directions

Para-social relationship theory was used by Fetscherin (2014) instead of

research questions. In addition to that, only a handful of theories have

Chin, W. W. (1998). Commentary: Issues and opinion on structural equation modelling.

Appendix Table 1: Key variables observed

Key Variables Papers