Editorial

Consumer brand relationships:

A research landscape
Marc Fetscherin
is an Associate Professor of International Business and Marketing at Rollins College, United States. He holds a Masters from
HEC Lausanne and from the London School of Economics (LSE). His PhD is from the University of Bern. He published in
Harvard Business Review, Journal of Business Research, Management International Review, International Business Review, International
Marketing Review, European Journal of Marketing and others. He co-edited the book Consumer-Brand-Relationship: Theory and
Practice (2012) by Taylor and Francis.

Daniel Heinrich
is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Technische Universitt Braunschweig, Germany. He received his PhD in
Marketing at the University of Mannheim, Germany, and worked there as a Research Associate at the Department of
Marketing. His research investigates various aspects of consumer behavior within the domains of advertising, branding and
retailing. His work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Business Research, Advances in Consumer Research and Journal
of Advertising Research.

ABSTRACT This article sheds light on the current state of research on consumer brand
relationships (CBR) and presents two distinct taxonomies, respectively, theoretical
frameworks that help to classify CBR research. First, the brand connection matrix
that classies brand relationships into functional-based (low versus high) and emotional-based (low versus high) connections to brands. This framework leads us with a
22 matrix consisting of four quadrants, each of which are discussed. Second, the
brand feeling matrix classies consumers relationships with brands by grouping them
into the strengths of relationships (weak versus strong) and the consumers feeling
toward the brand (positive versus negative). The latter taxonomy leads to another 22
matrix where each of the four quadrants is discussed. Finally, this article discusses the
papers in this special issue and applies the two frameworks by grouping the papers into
the corresponding quadrants.

Journal of Brand Management (2014) 21, 366371. doi:10.1057/bm.2014.22

Keywords: consumer; brand; relationships; brand relationships; framework;
taxonomy; brand connection; brand emotions, brand feeling

INTRODUCTION

Correspondence:
Marc Fetscherin Rollins College,
Department of International
Business, 1000 Holt Avenue
2723, Winter Park, FL 32789,
USA
E-mail: [email protected]

Blackstons (1993) book chapter Beyond

Brand Personality: Building Brand Relationships,
later Fajer and Schoutens (1995) article
Breakdown and Dissolution of Person-Brand
Relationships and nally Fourniers (1998)
paper on Consumers and their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research

mark cornerstones of the research area on

consumer brand relationships (CBR), which
celebrated its 20th year anniversary in 2013.
This showcases that CBR research has
become an established but yet growing
research area. We applaud the previously
mentioned researchers for their contribution
to this important and exciting research area.

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Editorial

Since then, one has seen a signicant number

of conference papers, journal articles, book
chapters and books (e.g. MacInnis et al,
2009; Fournier et al, 2012) published.
This special issue in the Journal of Brand
Management is dedicated to the topic of CBR
and marks the rst ever published special issue
in an academic journal. It contains a collection of the best papers presented at the 3rd
International Consumer Brand Relationships Conference (www.consumer-brand-relationships.
org) held on 2628 September 2013 at
Rollins College, Winter Park, FL, USA. The
increasing popularity of the conference is
reected by an ever growing number of submissions from all around the globe resulting in
more than 30 presentations from at least 17
countries. The presentations of the 3rd International Consumer Brand Relationships
Conference covered a variety of topics related
to the main theme including research on
brand love and anthropomorphism, brand
authenticity, brand passion or brand relationship quality (BRQ), just to name a few. This
special issue features ve articles that were
selected after several peer-review rounds. In
the further course of this paper we present a
taxonomy that helps to classify CBR research
in terms of the functional and emotional focus
of CBR and another taxonomy that classies
CBR research in terms of strength of brand
relationships and valence of brand attitudes.

BACKGROUND AND TAXONOMY

CBR research is interdisciplinary and complex (Fetscherin et al, 2014). The editors
performed a meta-analytic literature review
and identied almost 400 journal articles
published on this topic in the last decades
(Fetscherin and Heinrich, 2014). They
found that the journals fall into the following
disciplines (from most to least important):
business (including marketing), management, applied psychology, communications
and even hospitality, leisure, sports and
tourism research. Since the original work by

Blackstone (1993), Fajer and Schouten

(1995) and Fournier (1998), different streams
of research have emerged focusing on aspects
such as the assessment of the relationship
between different brand constructs like
brand loyalty, brand trust, brand personality
and brand commitment; research about
brand love; brand communities; brand cult
and culture, research assessing consumers
self and brands; or brand relationships and
storytelling. As one can see, CBR research
is multidisciplinary, multidimensional and
multi-conceptual with a variety of concepts,
constructs and underlying theories borrowed
from different elds such as marketing, psychology, sociology, anthropology or neuroscience (Fetscherin and Heinrich, 2014).
Each of the ve papers in this special issue
discusses and covers one or a combination of
the above described research streams.

Brand connection matrix

Inspired by the Hierarchy of Effects Model
(Lavidge and Steiner, 1961), the Relationship
Investment Model (Rusbult, 1980), Kellers
(2001) Customer-Based Brand Equity Model as
well as drawing from theories of interpersonal
attraction and social exchange, one can classify
the different brand relationship concepts into
relationships based on functional connections,
emotional connections or a combination of
both. Function connections are achieved
when only functional needs are met. Solely
emotional connections result if only emotional needs of the consumers are met. This
leads us with a 22 matrix consisting of four
quadrants as illustrated in Figure 1.
Quadrant (1): High functional but low
emotionally connected consumers are functionally invested to brands. Hence, they are
satised with the brand in terms of performance (that is, functional connection) but
shop around (that is, emotionally not connected). They are not as price sensitive as
uninvested consumers (as they appreciate
the brand in a functional way) but if there is

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Functional Connection
(Thinking/Cognitive)

Emotional Connection
(Feeling/Affective)

Figure 1:

Low

High

High

(1)
functionally
invested

(2)
fully invested

Low

(3)
un-invested

(4)
emotionally
invested

Brand connection matrix.

a better deal in terms of value proposition

(price versus functionality) they might
switch. Using in this case the interpersonal
relationship metaphor, consumers see the
brand as a colleague.
Quadrant (2): Consumers with a high
functional and high emotional connections to
brands are those who are fully invested to
brands. In this relationship, consumers love
their brand and positive outcomes can occur
such as high brand loyalty, an extreme positive word of mouth, like brand evangelism or
turning a blind eye after service failures.
Consumers with such relationship investments to brands are more loyal, switch less
likely to other brands, are willing to pay a
price premium or are less price sensitive and
have higher brand forgiveness (Donavan et al,
2012). Using again the interpersonal relationship metaphor, in this case, consumers see the
brands as family and/or part of themselves.
Quadrant (3): Low functional and low
emotional connected consumers are uninvested to brands and consumers see brands as
acquaintance, if we would use an interpersonal
relationship metaphor to describe this brand
relationship. They exhibit no brand loyalty
and they are mostly price sensitive and brands
are subject to the competitive environment.
Price premiums are hardly possible. Those
brands have a high risk of brand switching
from consumers and brands need to either
fulll consumers function or emotional needs
to deepen their connection to consumers.
Quadrant (4): Consumers with a low
functional but high emotional connection

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to brands are those who are emotionally

invested to brands. They like the brands
mostly for affective reasons even if the brand
does not perform compared with what
consumers need or want or the brand performs less good than competitor brands
(for example, a legendary motorbike but
with outdated technology). In this case,
the brand does not have all the functions or
features consumers are looking for or need.
In some instances, the consumer can forgive
these functional shortcomings or the consumer is willing to have less functionality. In
this case, the emotional needs compensate
functional limitations. However, this emotionally invested relationship might last
only for a while and brands need to address
these shortcomings. Consumers see brands
as a friend but this friendship can end up as
either a committed relationship or family
(top-right quadrant), or transit to a relationship with low emotional connection if
frustrations of functional limitation occur
over time, or the relationship will even be
terminated or divorce (Sussan et al, 2012).
As the Hierarchy of Effects Model (Lavidge
and Steiner, 1961) suggests, only when the
cognitive (thinking) and affective (feeling)
connection exist, consumers buy the product (conative or behavior). One major
criticism of Lavidge and Steiners (1961)
model is the issue, that it is assumed to
be hierarchical and that consumers move
from one to the other stage. Our framework
addresses this gap as it allows a combination of
both.

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Brand feeling matrix

Our second model focuses on the emotional (affective/feeling) dimension of
CBR. Inspired by Storbacka et al (1994),
one way to classify the different concepts of
CBR is to group them into the strengths
of relationships (weak versus strong) and
the consumers feeling toward the brand
(negative versus positive). This gives us a
second 22 matrix. For illustrative purposes
we provide for each quadrant example(s)
with an appropriate brand construct. Please
note that both dimensions represent a continuum from weak to strong and from
negative (to neutral) to positive. The lines
are for illustrative purposes only.
Quadrant (1): In Quadrant one, consumers
have a weak or loose but yet positive feeling
toward a brand. Concepts such as brand satisfaction (Bloemer and Kasper, 1995) fall into
this quadrant. Also brand satisfaction precedes
brand trust and brand loyalty, it does not
necessarily need to come along with these
outcomes. Many consumers can be satised
with a product or service brand but do not
become loyal or love the brand.
Quadrant (2): Concepts discussed in
Quadrant two are those where consumers
have strong and positive emotional feelings
for brands. Concepts such as brand love
(Batra et al, 2012) or brand passion (Bauer
et al, 2007) fall into this quadrant.
Quadrant (3): In Quadrant there are concepts that deal with negative but weak feelings consumers have for brands. Few studies
assess those negative feelings. One such
study is by Lee et al (2009) about anticonsumption and brand avoidance.
Quadrant (4): Concepts discussed in
Quadrant four are those where consumers
have a strong and negative feeling toward
brands. Like the concepts discussed in
Quadrant three, very few studies assess the
negative feelings consumers have for brands.
Aron and Muizs (2002) presentation
about brand hating websites is one example,
as well as more recently Krishnamurthy and

Kucuks (2009) anti-branding paper or

Sussan et al (2012) article on brand divorce.

ARTICLES IN THE SPECIAL ISSUE

Each of the ve selected article in this special issue can be classied into quadrants of
the previously presented taxonomies of
Brand Connection and Brand Feeling Matrix.
The rst article in the special issue is Youre
so loveable: Anthropomorphism and brand love
is by Philipp Rauschnabel (Otto-FriedrichUniversity Bamberg) and Aaron Ahuvia
(University of Michigan-Dearborn). The
authors argue brand love predicts brand
loyalty better than conventional attitude
models, which rely on the brands perceived
quality. Their study examines the role of
anthropomorphism and brand love in
defensive marketing strategies. They identify
ve theoretical mechanisms through which
anthropomorphism inuences brand love:
cognitive uency, self-extension, category
level evaluation, cognitive consistency and
self-congruence. Their results show a brands
perceived level of anthropomorphism is an
important predecessor of brand love. This
paper falls into Quadrant two in Figure 1 and
Quadrant two in Figure 2, thus reecting a
high positive emotional CBR.
The second article The added value of contextual motivations on consumerbrand relationships of self-gifts is by Marina Carnevale
(Fordham University), Ozge Yucel-Aybat
(Pennsylvania State University-Harrisburg)
and Lauren Block (City University of
New York). Their work discusses consumers engagement in self-gifting purchases,
which can be dened as gifts for ones self.
The authors argue consumers do so mostly
to either reward themselves for an accomplishment or to cheer themselves up after a
failure experienced. Therefore, reward
and compensation motives underlie consumers self-gift purchases. In their paper
they examine how self-gifts inuences
CBR. Across two studies, the authors show

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Strengths of
Brand Relationship

Feeling
Towards Brand

Weak

Figure 2:

Positive

(1)
Brand Satisfaction

(2)
Brand Love
Brand Passion

Negative

(3)
Brand Avoidance

(4)
Brand Hate
Brand Divorce

Brand feeling matrix.

consumers have more positive brand evaluations when motives are present than when
motives are absent, no matter if the brand is
purchased for reward or compensation. This
effect is signicant specically for consumers
who do not feel connected to the brand. The
study results are robust across different product categories (watches versus lollipops)
and different respondents (student versus
non-student sample). Their results suggest
companies can target consumers with low
self-brand connection more effectively by
emphasizing specic motivations to purchase
indulgent self-gifts when they design their ad
campaigns and brand positioning strategies.
This paper falls into Quadrant one in Figure
1 and Quadrant two in Figure 2.
The third article by Don Schultz (Northwestern University), Martin Block (Northwestern University) and Vijay Viswanathan
(Northwestern University) entitled Brand
preference being challenged examines whether
consumers preference for manufacturer
national brands has changed over time.
Their article merged the country of origin
effect and CBR. Their ndings from a
large scale survey across multiple product
categories indicate a decreasing preference
among consumers for manufactureroriginated national brands. Most interestingly, the largest increase of consumers
preferences is identyed for no preference
as related to the country of origin effect.
Similar results were found when the
authors move deeper into three specic
categories cereals, cosmetics and OTC

370

Strong

allergy medications. The authors found consumers increasingly evaluate supposedly different brands in the category as being more
and more similar. In other words, brands are
operating in a smaller competitive space and
consumers are nding it increasingly difcult
to differentiate among and between them
suggesting that the brands and categories
studied show a risk of commoditization.
This paper falls into Quadrant one in
Figure 1 and Quadrant three in Figure 2.
The fourth article How company responses
and trusting relationships protect brand equity in
times of crises is by Sabrina Hegner (University
of Twente), Ardion Beldad (University of
Twente) and Sjarlot Kamphuis op Heghuis
(University of Twente). Their article discusses brands are susceptible to various
types of crises. Such crisis can have negative
consequences for the brands reputational
and companys performance and thus the
relationship brands can have with consumers. They conducted an experiment to
determine whether or not crisis response
strategies inuence post-crisis brand equity
and brand trust on the relationship
between crisis response and post-crisis
brand equity. Their nding shows that the
ways company react to a crisis have an
inuence on brand equity and brand relationships. Non-response leads to the
depreciation of brand equity, and brand
trust can serve as a buffer for a brand during
a crisis suggesting higher brand forgiveness.
This paper falls between Quadrants one
and three both, in Figure 1 and Figure 2.

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The nal article in this special issue

is about Construing loyalty through brand
experience: the mediating role of brand relationship quality by Eliane Cristine FranciscoMaffezzolli (Pontifcia Universidade Catlica
do Paran), Elder Semprebom (Universidade
Federal do Paran) and Paulo Henrique
Prado (Universidade Federal do Paran).
They investigate the mediating role of
the concept of brand relationship quality
(BRQ) between brand experience and
brand loyalty by a survey-based quantitative approach. Their results reveal brand
experience can foster BRQ positively.
Hence, brand managers need to invest in
CBR to transform brand experiences into
loyalty. This paper falls into the link between
Quadrants one and two in Figure 1 and
Quadrants one and two in Figure 2.

CONCLUSION
In this article, we presented two taxonomies.
The rst helps to structure current CBR
research into functional-based (low versus
high) and emotional-based (low versus high)
connections that consumers have with
brands. The second taxonomy focuses on the
emotional (feeling) part of brand relationships that can be grouped by strengths of the
relationship (weak versus strong) and the
consumers feeling toward the brand (positive versus negative). By applying these
taxonomies to the ve papers presented in
the special issue, we show their suitability
and applicability. With this special issue we
also want to inform both scholars and practitioners about recent work in CBR research
by offering a number of fresh perspectives on
the relevance and value of this research area.

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