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Lessons learned about consumers' relationships with their brands

Article · October 2012

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 Chapter 1

LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT CONSUMERS’

RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR BRANDS
Susan Fournier

It has been ten years since the publication of “Consumers and their Brands: Develop-
ing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research” (Fournier 1998). Over the course of
the decade, we have learned a great deal about the nature and functions of consumers’
relationships with brands, and the processes whereby they develop at the hands of con-
sumers and marketers. In a broader sense, brand relationship research, grounded as it is
in the notion of consumers as active meaning makers, helped pave way for the paradigm
of co-creation embraced in brand marketing today (Allen, Fournier, and Miller 2008).
Recent research, such as that in this volume, continues to build upon basic relationship
fundamentals. Still, not surprisingly, many unresolved issues and conundrums remain.
My own thinking about consumer-brand relationality has also evolved a great deal,
particularly as important realities unanticipated or underdeveloped in the original theory
are brought to the fore. In the sections that follow, I identify lessons I have learned about
the relationships consumers form with their brands. These lessons are organized within
the broader theoretical framework that guided my original thesis. Where applicable, I
have leveraged research that my colleagues and I currently have in progress to inform
my points.

Tenet 1: Purposeful Relationships

Tenet 1: Relationships are purposive, involving at their core the provision of mean-
ings to the persons who engage them.

A core insight from my thesis research emphasizes the purposeful nature of consumer-
brand relationships: brand relationships are meaning-laden resources engaged to help
people live their lives. According to this tenet, the relationships formed between brand
and consumer can be understood only by looking to the broader context of the consumer’s
life to see exactly what the brand/company relationships serviced. Still, in conducting our
research, we have been guilty of reifying brand relationships. We forget that relationships
are merely facilitators, not ends in and of themselves. A strong relationship develops not
by driving brand involvement, but by supporting people in living their lives.
Academics and managers alike fall into the trap of assuming that brand relationships
are all about identity expression: that the driving need behind people’s brand relation-
5
6 Fournier

ships has to do with trying on the identities that the brand enables, or otherwise gaining
status through the brand. This logic leads to a natural circumscription of the relationship
phenomenon, wherein the perspective is meaningful only in high visibility/high involve-
ment categories where identity risks apply. Brand relationships can serve higher-order
identity goals, addressing deeply rooted dialectic identity themes and enabling centrally
held life projects and tasks. But they can also address functions lower on the need hierar-
chy by delivering against very pragmatic current concerns. Karen, our struggling single
mother from the original thesis and article, bought Tide, All, and Cheer because one of
these reliable mass brands was guaranteed to be on sale when she needed it. Karen’s
brand portfolio was filled with habitual purchases of otherwise “invisible brands” (Chang
Coupland 2005). These relationships allowed Karen to extend her resources and develop
the skills and solutions she needed to make it through her day. Karen’s basic commercial
exchanges can still be understood as brand relationships. Less emotional, surely, and less
salient, perhaps; but brand relationships they remain.
Many brand relationships are also functional in that they focus on extracting greater
exchange value from the company and the brand. So-called loyal customers often engage
relationships not through zealous brand evangelism, but rather through a pragmatic desire
for the better deals and special treatments that come with elite relationship status. Here
again strong brand relationships emerge as a by-product of meeting functional needs, not
a drive to express identity through the brand.
The status of the brand relationship as a means versus an end is nowhere clearer than it
is within the context of brand relationships forged at the community level. As seven years
of brand community research has taught us, people are often more interested in the social
links that come from brand relationships than they are in the brands that allow those links
to form (Cova and Cova 2002; see also Chapter 9). People often develop brand relation-
ships to gain new social connections or to level out their connections in some significant
way. Brand relationships can also provide venues wherein emotional support, advice,
companionship, and camaraderie are provided. As research into so-called Third Place
brands (Rosenbaum et al. 2007) has pointed out, these strong brand relationships are a
consequence, not a cause; they result from the social connections engendered through the
brand relationship. As researchers, we are guilty not just of prioritizing identity needs over
those that are more functional, we have also disproportionately focused on idiosyncratic
relationships versus collective relationships supporting the brand.
Robust brand relationships are built not on the backs of brands, but on a nuanced
understanding of people and their needs, both practical and emotional. The reality is that
people have many relational needs in their lives, and effective relationships cast a wide
net of support. Table 1.1 provides a sample of the different purposes that brand relation-
ships can serve; in Chapter 5, Ashworth, Dacin, and Thomson provide another perspective
on the functions served by people’s relationships with their brands. Brand relationship
efforts that comprehensively recognize and fulfill the needs of real people—individually
and collectively—are those that deliver results.
Solving the “reification problem” also requires qualifying the conditions wherein brand
relationships will viably form. When we push the theory too far and imply that all consum-
 LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT CONSUMERS’ RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR BRANDS 7

Table 1.1

A Sampling of Relational Needs and Provisions

Reach beyond my network Raise the quality of my interactions

Establish roots Pursue luxuries guilt-free
Preserve moments of privacy Sustain my passions
Capture the present Explore different parts of my identity
Get help to get stuff done Express devotion
Cultivate interests and skills Deepen bonds through shared ownership
Stay adventurous Aspire to be my own keeper
Manage expectations of me Help position myself in the larger picture
Support my unique DNA Level out my connections
Help resolve nagging tensions about who I am Distance me from an unwanted self
Enable important role transitions Provide comfort through routines and rituals
Help me contribute to the “greater good” Get special treatment from the company
Build legitimacy and overcome fear of stigma Get more out of my brand investments
Relax within a safe haven Get technical support and advice
Get emotional support and encouragement Clarify my values

ers form relationships to the same degree and in all circumstances, we unnecessarily lose
supporters. Several researchers have turned to attachment theory and its secure, anxious/
ambivalent, and avoidant relationship styles for person moderators of relationship activity
(see Chapter 19). In our own research, we have developed an attachment construct specific
to commercial relationships that holds promise in predicting brand relationship propen-
sities (Paulssen and Fournier 2008). Consumer manifestations of different relationship
styles (independent, discerning, and acquisitive, Matthews 1986), orientations (power
versus intimacy, McAdams 1984), and drives (McAdams 1988) should also inform the
boundary conditions affecting people’s relationships with brands.
To control runaway applications, we also need a way to identify the relationship poten-
tial of a given brand. Category involvement serves this purpose for some, but the concept
is not consumer-sensitive. Much has also been written about the facility offered through
brand anthropomorphization. This factor has proven itself a red herring, or a moot point in
the simplest case. We do not need to qualify the “human” quality of the brand character as
a means of identifying the brand’s relationship potential: all brands—anthropomorphized
or not—“act” through the device of marketing mix decisions, which allow relationship
inferences to form (Aaker, Fournier, and Brasel 2004; Aggarwal 2004). More useful
are screening criteria that build not from product categories and brand characteristics,
but from the contexts of people’s lives. One such approach builds upon the insight that
consumers play active roles as meaning makers in their brand relationships, mutating
and adapting the marketers’ brand meanings to fit their life projects, concerns, and tasks.
The key is to understand how meanings attain significance in the context of the person’s
lifeworld. In current research (Fournier, Solomon, and Englis 2008), we have come to
understand this question as a search for “Meanings that Matter,” the answer to which
lies in the construct of brand meaning resonance. Figure 1.1 provides a multifaceted
model for thinking about the resonance construct and its role as a relationship strength
mediator. Resonance forces a shift in our thinking from firm- and competition-centric
8 Fournier

Figure 1.1  Resonance: How Meanings Matter

Personal
Interdependency Self-connection Employee Internal-external
co-creation
co-creation alignment

Emotional Employee Business

Intimacy
vibrancy intimacy model fit

Personal Organizational
A B resonance resonance
Gender
Differentiation
Shareholder
Relevance value
Trends Esteem
X Y Knowledge Stock returns

Life- Velocity
styles Loyalty Beta/Risk
Values Inelasticity
Cultural
resonance BRAND STRENGTH BRAND VALUE
BRAND MEANING

Currency value
Cultural
bedrock

Category
Community Role resonance
resonance

Cultural Meaning
Multivocality
co-creation opposition

criteria such as the salience, uniqueness, favorability, and dominance of brand meanings
to the reverberation and significance of those meanings in the personal and sociocultural
world. Resonance focuses not on what brands mean, but rather how they come to mean
something to the consumers who use them. It highlights the developmental mechanisms
driving the initiation and maintenance of consumers’ relationships with brands.
Holt (2004) and others (Chapter 9; Schroeder and Salzer-Mörling 2005; Thompson,
Rindfleisch, and Arsel 2006, to name but a few) have contributed greatly to our understand-
ing of the cultural processes that enable brand resonance. This research serves a critical
perspective-gaining function by shifting attention from consumers’ relationships with
brands to brands’ relationships with cultures. Predictable psychosocial factors can also
trigger relational activity by precipitating a search for resonant brand meanings (Fournier
1998; see also Chapter 9). Events such as coming of age, the transition to parenthood,
or a change in marital status serve as self-defining moments wherein identity planes
experience tectonic shifts. Companies that anticipate these shifts with meaningful brand
bridges add much-needed semantic continuity to consumers’ lives; this is rewarded with
strong relationship activity. Research can greatly inform these fertile periods wherein the
individual’s hunger for meanings is exacerbated and explicate the processes involved in
the personal birth of relationships with the brand.
Pushed one step further, the notion of resonance and the meaning-based tenet on which
it is built have implications for how we think about the strength and quality of a given
 LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT CONSUMERS’ RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR BRANDS 9

brand relationship. Again, our metrics suffer from firm-centricity, focusing on evaluation
of the person’s satisfaction with or depth of commitment to the brand relationship that
is formed. But relationships that resonate have a different focal goal: they are engaged
to make people’s lives easier, better, or happier. The construct of subjective well-being
within the domain of positive psychology (Diener, Kesebir, and Lucas 2008) has much
to offer in this regard.

Tenet 2: Relationship Diversity

Tenet 2: Relationships are multiplex phenomena: they range across several dimen-
sions and take many forms.

The second tenet calls attention to the reality of relationship diversity. As a field, we have
always been interested in strong versus weak relationships, with extensive learning generated
under the brand loyalty rubric. But relationships can also be meaningfully distinguished as
hierarchical versus egalitarian or forced versus voluntary, for example, precipitating many
different relationship types and forms (e.g., master-slaves and childhood friendships). Savvy
relationship research recognizes that consumer-brand relationships are quite complex,
necessitating differential treatment according to their operative terms.
The multiplex phenomenon lends itself well to the development of marketing metrics,
both to measure the strength levels of different brand relationships and to qualify various
relationship types and forms. Brand attachment (Thomson, MacInnis, and Park 2005)
provided one approach to relationship strength measurement; the brand-relationship
quality (BRQ) construct (Fournier 1998) served a similar goal. Leveraging ideas from
interpersonal relations, BRQ included five relationship facets beyond the commitment and
affect (love/passion) levels that typically qualify brand relations: intimacy, partner quality
perceptions, behavioral interdependence, attachment, and self-connection. Over the past
several years, I have conducted extensive research to develop a reliable and valid scale
for measuring BRQ. Table 1.2 provides items for the BRQ scale derived from a survey
among 2,250 respondents using a 3 (packaged goods, services, durables) × 2 (product
categories) × 3 (brands) research design (Fournier 2000). Results provide preliminary
support for the convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of BRQ, and its distinc-
tion from similar concepts of loyalty, satisfaction, and brand attitude. The structure of
BRQ is hierarchical, with seven correlated first-order facets and a latent BRQ factor.
Although BRQ was intended to inform questions of relationship complexity by quali-
fying the strength of any given brand relationship, hindsight reveals it to suffer from a
general bias that restricts its application and scope. As a field, we remain myopically
fixated on the one type of relationship thought most capable of delivering firm value: the
highly committed and affectively laden “marital” relationship ideal. This bias crept into
the BRQ measure, where facets such as passion, commitment, intimacy, and overlapping
selves dominated. Experience has taught me that metrics must be sensitive to the type
of relationship under consideration: you cannot measure relationship strength or vitality
independent of the relationship form.
10 Fournier

Table 1.2

The Brand Relationship Quality (BRQ) Scale

R2 Std Loading SMC Alpha

Interdependence 0.89
Need brand and rely on its benefits 0.79 00.89a 0.79
Brand is an integral part of my daily life 0.70 0.84a 0.71
Dependent on brand 0.69 0.83a 0.69
Love/Commitment 0.95
Brand and I are perfect for each other 0.78 0.88a 0.77
Really love the brand 0.76 0.87a 0.76
Thought of not being able to use brand disturbs me 0.72 0.85a 0.72
Very loyal to brand 0.71 0.85a 0.72
Willing to make sacrifices to keep using 0.70 0.83a 0.69
Unique feelings for brand 0.68 0.83a 0.69
No longer keep eye out for alternatives 0.64 0.80a 0.64
Partner Quality 0.91
Brand takes care of me 0.72 0.85a 0.72
Brand listens to me 0.71 0.84a 0.71
Brand makes up for mistakes 0.66 0.82a 0.67
Count on brand to do what’s best for me 0.65 0.81a 0.66
Brand is responsive to my concerns 0.64 0.80a 0.64
Self-Connection 0.93
Brand is part of me 0.75 0.86a 0.74
Makes statement about what’s important to me 0.74 0.86a 0.74
Connects with part of me that makes me tick 0.73 0.85a 0.72
Fits with life goals or problems 0.68 0.83a 0.69
By using brand I’m part of a shared community 0.68 0.82a 0.67
Develop relationships with others who use brand 0.65 0.80a 0.64
Nostalgic attachment 0.83
Have sentimental feelings for brand 0.70 0.83a 0.69
Brand reminds me of phase of my life 0.59 0.77a 0.59
Thoughts of brand contain personal memories 0.56 0.74a 0.55
Intimacy (Consumer-Brand) 0.81
Know brand history/background 0.64 0.80 0.64
Know what brand stands for 0.61 0.78 0.61
Know more about brand than average consumer 0.54 0.73 0.53
Intimacy (Brand-Consumer) 0.86
Company understands my needs 0.71 0.84a 0.71
Knows me so well, could design product for me 0.67 0.82a 0.68
Company knows a lot about me as a person 0.62 0.79a 0.62

Source: Fournier (2000).

a
Significant at p = .001.

In ten years, however, we have progressed very little in our understanding of the
complexity of brand-relationship space. Consumer research that demarcates exchange
relationships from communal relationships provides one important step in the right direc-
tion (Aggarwal 2004). Still, this research taps just the tip of the iceberg of relationship
variability, especially when one considers our tendency to relegate exchanges to “nonrela-
tional status” in the end. Preliminary attention has been given to other forms of commercial
relationships, for example: friendships (Price and Arnould 1999), secret relationships
(Goodwin 1992), and abuse (Hill 1994; Hill and Kozup 2007). But relationship-inspired
LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT CONSUMERS’ RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR BRANDS 11

theory concerning these and other potentially valuable or common consumer relationship
forms is deficient. The status of consumer-brand relationship mapping looks much like
that observed for business-to-business relationships more than twenty years ago. “Much
remains to be done in distinguishing commercial, work, and romantic relationships.
Also, the model is presented abstractly. It lacks conceptual detail and obvious ways to
operationalize key variables” (Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987, p. 20).
A first step toward a more conscious incorporation of the multiplex criterion involves
a comprehensive identification of the relationship dimensions that allow us to map
consumer-brand relationship space. Although relationship strength may reign supreme for
practical reasons, this is but one of many important dimensions along which relationships
vary. I have now inducted 52 facets distinguishing people’s brand relationships (see Table
1.3), and have initiated survey research using mapping techniques to identify the structure
of people’s relationship perceptions. In a recent pilot, 225 MBA students rated perceived
normative relationships with 35 strong national and regional brands on the 52 relationship
facets using seven-point semantic differential scales. Each subject rated twelve facets; four
scales were in common and the remaining items were divided into four parallel survey
sets. Another 150 MBA students rated eleven prototypical human relations along these
same dimensions, again with facets allocated among respondents in three survey sets
to reduce fatigue. Multidimensional scaling using INDSCALE identified seven dimen-
sions accounting for 78 percent of the variance in brand relationship ratings: cooperative
and harmonious versus competitive and hostile; emotional and identity-vested versus
functionally oriented; strong and deep versus weak and superficial; equal and balanced
versus one-sided and hierarchical; long term and enduring versus short term; interactive/
interdependent versus independent; and flexible/voluntary versus constrained/imposed.
The first four of these dimensions emerged cleanly in the rating of human relations as
well, accounting for 58 percent of the variance. The map in Figure 1.2 depicts the brands
and human relations plotted on dimensions of strength and type of reward.
A more tractable avenue for descriptive and validation research considers the higher-
order relationship models organizing people’s perceptions. Fiske’s (1991) relational
models theory, which proposes communal sharing, authority ranking, equality match-
ing, and market pricing as discrete relational categories offers a useful framework with
strong empirical support. A similar empirical exercise considers the above brand-mapping
data using factor-analytic methods. Three general forms of consumer-brand relational-
ity manifest: partnerships (harmonious, interactive, and emotive engagements), benign
acquaintanceships (harmonious though functional and shallow affiliations), and negative,
disjointed relations. To date, negative brand relations have been considered only through
postmodern social critique that often lacks managerial application (for exception, see
Hill 1994; Hill and Kozup 2007; and Thompson et al. 2006). Managerially sensitive re-
lationship applications tend to focus on positive and strong brand relationships or those
that can readily be strengthened. Our mapping reinforces the central role that negative
brand relationships play in the commercial marketplace. A fully-enabled perspective
on consumer-brand relationship behavior must lose its false optimism and incorporate
dysfunctional relationship forms.
12 Fournier

Table 1.3

A Compendium of Relationship Dimensions

• Emotionally close/Emotionally distant

• Intimate/Not Intimate
• Deep/Superficial
• Based on mutual liking/Not based on liking
• High sharing of information/Limited
• Long term/Short term
• Regular/Irregular
• Stable/Fleeting
• One-sided/Mutual
• Active/Inactive
• Intense interaction/Superficial interaction
• Interdependent/Independent
• Democratic/Autocratic
• Important to both individuals involved/More important for one than the other
• Equal in power/Unequal in power
• Reciprocating/Nonreciprocating
• Harmonious/Clashing
• High on costs and responsibilities/Low costs and responsibilities
• Warm/Cold
• Trustworthy/Not trustworthy
• Sincere/Insincere
• Supportive/Not supportive
• Committed/Not committed
• Driven by attraction to other/Repulsion-driven
• Utilitarian and task-oriented/Emotional
• Frequent/Infequent
• Helps express who I am/Does not help express who I am
• Intense feelings/Superficial feelings
• Emotional/Not Emotional
• Hierarchical/Not hierarchical
• Formal/Informal
• Fair/Unfair
• Secret/Out in the open
• Hidden/Known to others
• Friendly/Hostile
• Compatible goals and desires/Incompatible
• Productive/Destructive
• Relaxed/Tense
• Flexible/Rigid
• Difficult/Easy to break off
• Interesting/Dull
• Reliable/Unreliable
• Positive feelings/Negative feelings
• Easy/Difficult to resolve conflicts
• Altruistic/Selfish
• Solicited/Unsolicited
• Imposed/Voluntary
• Cooperative/Competitive
• Much at risk/Little at risk
• Choice-driven/Chance-driven
• Easy to enter/Difficult to start
• Temporary/Permanent
LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT CONSUMERS’ RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR BRANDS 13

Figure 1.2  Brand Relationship Map

Socio-emotional
rewards
* Marriage partner
• Boston Red Sox
• Harley Davidson
* Best friends
• Apple
• Coca-Cola
•Trader Joe’s • Dunkin’ Donuts
• Nike
• Boston University
• Sam Adams * Rivals
* Parent-Child
* Compartm entalized • NY Yankees
• Disney
friendships • Boston College

• McDonald’s
• Jell-O * Childhood buddies • Ben & Jerry’s
•Starbucks
• Cheerios * Fling
Superficial/ • M&M’s Intense/
weak • Friendly’s strong
• Wall Street Journal
•Shaws * Teammates
• VISA
• Zipcar
* Casual acquaintances
• CNN • AMEX •Amazon

• Colgate • Bertucci’s * Business Partners

• Verizon
•Blackberry
• Comcast Cable
• Exxon/Mobil
• Marlboro
• Microsoft
* Master and slave
• The “T”

Utilitarian and
functional rewards

The next logical step in brand relationship space mapping involves the development
of thick descriptions of pivotal relationship forms. Building on the insight that emotion
profiles usefully distinguish human relations (Guerrero and Andersen 2000; Kayser,
Schwinger, and Cohen 1984), Chris Allen, Felicia Miller and I have engaged projective
techniques, depth interviewing using Zaltman’s Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET),
and surveys to identify the characteristic affective profiles for seven prominent brand
relationship types. Results support unique emotion constellations for the different brand
relationships: people in exchange relationships are pleased and satisfied; true partners
experience happiness, appreciation, and fulfillment; adversaries feel anger, irritation, and
skepticism in relationships with their brands. Some relationships are uniquely defined by
their emotion profiles, as with people’s flings and secret affairs with brands.
A third stream of research-in-progress (Fournier, Avery, and Wojnicki 2004) leverages
contract theory for insights into relationship phenomenology. The constructs of contracts
and relationships are inherently intertwined, as revealed in the etymology of the word
“contract,” which comes from the Latin contrahere meaning “to draw together, to enter
into a relationship” (Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of Law 1996). Relationships are
intrinsically contractual: they are created when two parties come together with the inten-
tion of forming a collective understanding of what each party will provide and receive
over time (MacNeil 1980). Although contract theory has been applied extensively in
14 Fournier

business-to-business marketing contexts, the sociopsychological status of contracts also

makes them especially pertinent to the consumer behavior context. Relationship contracts
are psychological phenomena (MacNeil 1985) that exist only “in the eye and head of the
beholder” (Rousseau and McLean Parks 1992, p. 19). Lusch and Brown (1996) empirically
demonstrate how business-to-business relationships are not governed by their explicitly
communicated contract terms, but rather the behaviors of the parties in the relationship
that constitute the implicit contract terms.
The contracting lens provides many constructs that are useful for illuminating consum-
er-brand relationship phenomenology. The relationship contract is largely comprised of
rules and norms that guide perceptions, attributions, inferences, judgments, and actions
within that particular relationship (MacNeil 1985; Rousseau and McLean Parks 1992).
Relationship rules are statements that prescribe, proscribe, or permit particular types of
behaviors; they provide standards of conduct that guide partners’ behaviors and inform
interpretations of the same (Metts 1994). Relationship rules shared within a social group
are referred to as norms. The operation of relational norms in the consumer setting has
been empirically supported (Aggarwal 2004; Aggarwal and Law 2005; Aggarwal and
Zhang 2006): consumers import norms from human relationships into the brand relation-
ships that they form.
Specific relational rules and special classes of norms have been articulated for specific
relationship categories. Best known are the norms governing the reciprocation of benefits
in the opposing classes of exchange versus communal relationships (Clark and Mills
1979). Opportunism—“self-interest seeking with guile”—is the global norm governing
commercial exchange relations (Williamson 1975); relational norms supersede oppor-
tunism to enhance interdependent relationships (MacNeil 1980). Heide and John (1992)
identify three classes of relational norms in the context of manufacturer-supplier relations:
flexibility, information exchange, and solidarity. Research in psychology supports unique
rule sets for particular types of communal relationships, for example: rules of friendship,
marriage, kinship, workplace, and marketplace relations (Argyle and Henderson 1984;
Davis and Todd 1982; Kayser, Schwinger, and Cohen 1984; O’Connell 1984). Operative
relationship templates also dictate a prioritized higher-level norm specific to that type of
relationship. For example, an equality norm governs friendships, a need norm governs
love relationships, and a contribution norm governs relationships within the workplace
(Deutsch 1975; Schwinger 1980). Research-in-progress (Fournier, Avery and Wojnicki
2004) informs an expanded conceptualization of the norms governing consumer-brand
relationship contracts. This typology includes not only an extended enumeration of the
reward and reciprocity rules familiar to the exchange/communal dichotomy, but also rules
sensitive to the relationship marketing context, such as interaction maintenance rules and
relational rules governing the expression of intimacy, commitment, and trust.
Content particular to a given relationship contract extends beyond operative rules
and norms. Relationship contracts specify the fundamental “gives” and “gets” of the
relationship: promises to do something (or to refrain from doing something) in return for
a payment-in-kind (Rousseau and McLean Parks 1992). They include operative relation-
ship development goals and primary resource exchanges (Fitzsimons and Bargh 2003;
LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT CONSUMERS’ RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR BRANDS 15

Kayser, Schwinger, and Cohen 1984), benchmarks for assessing satisfaction (Baucom
et al. 1996), prototypical beliefs about relational successes and failures (Baucom et al.
1989), expected risks and rewards (Sabatelli and Pearce 1986), transgression tolerance
zones (Rusbult et al. 1991), trust forms and bases (Rousseau et al. 1998), and appropriate
assuagement devices in the face of broken rules (Metts 1994). Relationship templates
can be usefully thought of as scripts or schemata (Andersen 1993; Baldwin 1992) that
offer workable relationship theories-in-use. Research-in-progress informs the multiplex
criterion by amplifying the relationship schemata that consumers use (Fournier, Avery,
and Wojnicki 2004). The so-called partner template, for example, prioritizes the mutual
helping norm. Partners give without getting, exhibit flexibility in company dealings,
and accommodate problems with a “let’s work together” approach. “Best customers,”
another prominent template in our research, are governed by norms of privilege. Best
customers expect special treatment and “insider status” that sets them apart; they engage
in biased equity accounting that allows cashing in without cashing out. Some consum-
ers view themselves as masters in a master-slave engagement, expecting distanced but
unquestioning service above all else. Companies in these relationships are expected to
anticipate needs, to be seen but not heard, to stick to the rules, and speak (with great
formality) only when spoken to. The company slave in this relationship is never intimate,
and the boss is always right.
I have applied this thinking in my consulting dealings with Harley-Davidson, Inc.,
who found value in research identifying Best Friendship as the dominant relationship
template for their brand. Harley-Davidson had long operated on the assumption that they
were in the business of engaging committed partnerships. Though mapping exercises
show that friendships and marriages can occupy the same “upper-right-hand quadrant”
ideal space, the contractual differences between these relationships matter significantly.
A marriage is a socially supported contract to stay together despite circumstances, both
foreseen and unforeseen. Core strength drivers of marital bonds are commitment, love,
and passion. Best Friendship, in contrast, is a totally voluntary interdependence between
parties intended to facilitate socioemotional goals. The dimensions most characteristic of
friendship are reciprocity and intimacy (and the vulnerability that intimacy entails). Bud-
dies are friends too, but their drivers involve interdependence, not intimacy levels. The
do’s and don’ts of these different relationships contrast sharply, and sometimes conflict
in fundamental ways (see Table 1.4).

Tenet 3: Dynamic Relationships

Tenet 3: Relationships are process phenomena: they evolve and change over a
series of interactions and in response to contextual change.

The third tenet emphasizes the dynamic and interdependent nature of consumer-brand
relationships. At a simplified and pragmatic level, relationships unfold through a series
of temporal stages including initiation, growth, maintenance, and decline. They manifest
characteristic development trajectories such as the biological life cycle, passing fad, cyclical
16 Fournier

Table 1.4

Playing by the Rules: Marriage versus Friendships

Marriage partners Best friends Buddies

Do • Formalize the union • Encourage other friendships • Compartmentalize per activities
• Negotiate the contract • Self disclose • Show only part of the self
• Verbalize need for change • Listen • Sustain interaction
• Strive to meet all needs • Ask and reciprocate • Make entry/exit easy
• Add surprises/spark • Be reliable, predictable
• Erect barriers to exit

Don’t • Breach fidelity pledge • Leak secrets • Establish intimacy, deep or broad
• Forget intimate details • Discuss implicit contract • Encourage emotional involvement
• Try to change the other • Make demands or add responsibility
• Impose external pressures • Drop by uninvited
• Erect barriers to exit • Use things without permission

resurgence, and approach avoidance. Fluctuations in person, brand, and environmental factors
trigger relationship evolution, with entropy and stress factors precipitating decline. Relation-
ships are dynamic, temporal phenomena: they require active management over time.
Despite the fundamental process quality of brand relationships, developmental models
that go beyond these broad generalizations have been lacking. Although we have spent
decades designing programs to instill customer loyalty, mechanisms beyond commitment
through which the consumer advances and maintains brand relationships are just now
becoming known. Theories of attitude accessibility (see Chapter 16), attitude change
(Chapter 15), self-construction (Chapter 4), and habit (Chapter 3) provide promising
avenues for process research.
Another useful approach to process specification is to identify the primary currency
driving a given brand relationship, and expose the milestones and mechanisms that rep-
resent progress along this path. Research conducted for Harley-Davidson, for example,
illuminated the journey of “Becoming a Rider” through a progressive accumulation of
status-granting cultural capital of various kinds—knowledge, skills, experiences, and
social connections, as well as dispositions concerning what is authentic within the group
(see Figure 1.3). Models developed for members of the Harley Owner’s Group focused
on the accumulation of power and influence in the system, and pivotal experiences
providing status credentials in this regard. The point of this example is that relationship
development is not always best understood as a process of increasingly deepening rela-
tionship bonds; rather, relationships “develop” along foundations critical to the type of
engagement at hand.
The relationship contracts perspective also provides a valuable lens on the develop-
mental mechanisms shaping brand relationships. Relationship interruptions that render the
contract salient, most notably transgressions, critically affect the relationship trajectory and
course. But everything the brand “does” affects the relationship—from the personality-
suggestive colors and fonts of the company Web site to the tonality of communications
LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT CONSUMERS’ RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR BRANDS 17

Figure 1.3 Cultural Capital Model for the Development of Relationships with the Harley-
Davidson Brand

Talking the talk Refining tastes

Acculturation
First HOG meeting

Walking the walk Facing crisis Assimilation/

incorporation
Knowing who knows
Creating the
Studying shrine Touching greatness
H-D cultural history Cultivating skills
Blurring social lines

Extending the family

First Harley Myths, stories, legends
Broadening connections

Status Status
2 3 Bridging groups

Status
Habits and Status
1
habitats 4
Bike maintenance
Status
5
First group ride
First time on a Harley Second Harley in the home
First long ride

Imprinting and Getting the

First rally “inside scoop”
infatuation HOG leadership
Hanging at the dealership experiences
First HOG role
Redefining family
Safe-riding
Accumulating badges vacations
lessons

from the brand (Aaker et al. 2004). Findings collectively suggest that consumers make
inferences from meaning-laden brand behavioral “signals,” so as to interpret and rein-
terpret the type of relationship contract in play.
Research-in-progress affirms the relevance and value of understanding relationship
development as a contract signaling process wherein rules and terms evolve (Fournier,
Avery, and Wojnicki 2004). Figure 1.4 presents a working model for the various con-
tract-relevant mechanisms involved in this process. Two subprocesses are particularly
interesting for their ability to inform long-standing problems in consumer research.
Supracontracting involves extra-role behaviors beyond contract requirements that are
engaged voluntarily and purposively on the part of the consumer (or brand) in order to
signal a desire to transition the relationship to a new, deeper level. In our data we observed
supracontracting in the form of word-of-mouth advocacy, active customer recruitment,
brand citizenship behaviors, and employee gifting. Loyalty, as we have come to understand
it, can be understood as mutually reinforcing supracontracting on the part of consumers
and brands. A second process, contract misalignment, highlights the risks exposed in the
inherently interdependent relationship setting. Psychological contracts, though individu-
ally interpreted, are assumed to be shared by both parties, who act as if their individual
contract is aligned with the psychological contract of the relationship other; the concept
of the normative contract has been developed to capture this idea (Rousseau 1989). Our
18 Fournier

Figure 1.4  Relationship Contracting Process Mechanisms

Commitment

Disengagement
Expansion

Exploration

Contract Contract drift

Templating Supra-
illumination Opportunistic contracting
uber-Norms contracting
tests Contract misalignment

research exposes the frequent presence and consequence of misaligned consumer-firm

contracts, particularly in circumstances where the person has been led to believe s/he is
a best customer of the firm. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies that
are more concerned with the cost versus revenue of a given customer than with deliver-
ing on the contracts that have implicitly been put in place exacerbate this disconnect. As
the marketing practice of firing customers gains in popularity, it becomes critical that
we feel comfortable in our understanding of the relationships that are manifest. Only by
stepping backward to fundamental questions of content and process—as informed through
the meanings and behaviors that consumers and brands bring to bear in negotiating their
relationships—can our relationship theories and practices be informed.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Our move toward a science of consumer-brand relationships presents many challenges.

Many doubt that something so idiosyncratic can be brought to the level of generalizability
that science requires. But even though relationships may best be revealed by studying
individual or collective relationship instantiations, this does not mean that actionable rela-
tionship systems cannot result. Individuals and communities manifest relational principles
that with dedication can be shown to be generalizable; we just need to apply ourselves
to these goals. To have an impact, consumer-brand relationship theory must progress
beyond thick description to the provisions of models that not only advance science, but
prove to be actionable for firms (see, for example, Chapter 20). These frameworks are
LESSONS LEARNED ABOUT CONSUMERS’ RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR BRANDS 19

essential in order to combat the criticism that consumer-brand relationship research is

merely an exercise in metaphor.
Other critics charge that the utility of relationship theory for understanding con-
sumer-brand behavior has diminished and that its application is appropriate only for
an egocentric and less socially conscious phase of branding, which no longer exists.
This is not a question about applicability, but about analytic perspective. People have
relationships with antibrands (Chapter 9) and corporations (see Chapter 10); cultures
engage relationships with brands in the marketplace (Holt 2004). Brand relationships
can be repellent and negative. Relationships can be purposive at their core. Contempo-
rary brand relationships may be less tied to an image construction view of marketing,
but relationships they remain.
As we enter the second phase of brand-relationship research, opportunities for cross-
disciplinary and cross-paradigmatic investigation present themselves. Though initially
built upon psychological theories, the idiographic notion of brand relationships has ma-
tured into a vibrant psycho-socio-cultural construal. Brand relationships are determined
by individual factors within a sociocultural context. They manifest within a holistic and
reciprocating system wherein the relationship the brand has with the culture affects the
relationship the consumer has with the brand, and vice versa. The phenomenon of the
brand relationship clearly extends beyond the one-to-one construal that initially fueled
the development of the idea in marketing, and includes the one-to-many instantiation of
community brand relationships, and the many-to-many relationships that characterize
consumer societies as a whole. There is no argument that the sociocultural is a significant
part of the consumer-brand relationship equation (see, for example, Chapter 6, 7, and 11).
Relationship research that transcends so-called behavioral and consumer culture theory
paradigms can integrate the psychosocial aspects of brand relationships in a way that is
especially valid and true.
Integration across another common divider can also spark progress in future research.
Relationships and the contracts that implicitly and explicitly bind them have a long and
rich research tradition in the business-to-business context (cf., Heide 1994; Williamson
1975, 1996) and yet, for one reason or another, we have been reluctant to leverage these
published works. Of direct relevance, for example, is Heide and John’s (1992) research
on the norms of marketing relationships; Heide and Wathne’s (2006) probe of the phe-
nomenology of friend and businesspeople relationship roles; and work by Narayandas
and Rangan (2004) concerning extracontractual behaviors that fortify and advance re-
lationship bonds.
A third form of integration is also implicated in second-wave brand relationship re-
search: integration across theoretical and substantive planes. While there is no escaping
the fact that the notion of brand relationships is fundamentally practical, this nexus has
not driven consumer-brand relationship research. Critical in moving research forward is
the matter of finding the “so what” in consumer-brand relationships and demonstrating
how and why they matter to the firms who engage them. The time has passed for the
theoretically-driven among us to shy away from pragmatic relationship applications in a
so-called tainted and exploitative marketing world. To have an impact, consumer-brand
20 Fournier

relationship research must consciously expand its reach into and implications for the
substantive marketing domain.
Similarly, those who study brand relationships within the applied perspective of CRM
have not leveraged consumer-based relationship theories. To state the case in the extreme,
“people” are missing from the CRM relationship equation. Current CRM theory and
application, with its focus on segmenting and differentially serving customers based
on potential revenues and costs-to-serve, receives its inspiration from the discipline of
economics. The error of CRM research lies not in its attention to issues concerning the
firm’s bottom line, but in an apparent single-minded fixation on economics that ignores
and sometimes confounds consideration of the lived experiences of the consumers with
whom commercial relationships are engaged. In embracing consumer relationships as
business tools that enhance firm profitability, CRM researchers have lost sight of a critical
insight pertaining to commercial relationships: relationships provide meanings that help
consumers live their lives. Rather than treating consumers as partners in a mutually ben-
eficial, co-creative process of learning and engagement—as relationship marketing theory
originally intended (Peppers and Rogers 1993)—the economically centric firm treats
consumers as “assets” managed through “good old-fashioned, unsentimental cost/benefit
analysis” (Landry 2005, p. 28) for the good of the firm. This lack of customer-centricity
is implicated in reports of failed and lagging in-market results for CRM implementa-
tions (Boulding et al. 2005; Nelson 2004). To be true to the intended bridging function
of marketing, CRM relationship research and strategies must prioritize the people over
the firms that benefit from relationship activity (Fournier, Dobscha, and Mick 1998). The
lived experiences of consumers’ brand and company relations must be more judiciously
taken into account, in all their shapes and forms.
As we push to develop substantive consumer-brand relationship theory, we must
maintain a focus on and sensitivity to the marketing context in which this theory will be
applied. If brand relationship theory is to have an impact, it cannot simply borrow concepts
and insights from established interpersonal relationship theories and demonstrate their
application to branding. The metaphoric argument for understanding consumer-brand
engagements in relationship terms has been made and repeatedly reinforced. To quote
Martha Stewart, this is “a good thing.” But second-stage contributions require that we
do more than prove the manifestation of known relationship principles with a different
scale or scope. Substantive contributions such as those contained in this volume advance
new theories concerning how people relate to brands.

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