Brand loyalty : exploring self-brand connection and brand experience

Abstract

PURPOSE : This paper aims to determine one explanation for how the self-brand connection is associated with brand loyalty through the brand experience. Brand experience should verify the self-brand connection by acting as a mechanism through which a self-brand connection is associated with brand loyalty. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH : Data were obtained from 317 adults through paid Facebook Boosting of an online survey and analyzed using structural equation modeling. FINDINGS : Analyses confirm that brand experience fully mediates the association between self-brand connection and brand loyalty. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS : Ensuring a positive brand experience is critical for brand managers opting to maintain consumers’ self-brand connections and brand loyalty. Causality suffered owing to the cross-sectional design of the study. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS : Self-brand connection is viewed as consumer-driven. However, by identifying the brand experience to verify the self-brand connection and as a factor that mediates the self-brand connection–loyalty relationship of consumers, brand experience is recognized as a new factor which brand managers can control to manage self-brand connections and brand loyalty. ORIGINALITY/VALUE : This paper is the first to apply the self-verification theory to the self-brand connection–loyalty relationship by explicating brand experience as a mediator of this relationship. This paper argues self-verification is not context-specific and lived experiences with the brand, irrespective of context, establish consumer–brand relationships. This paper confirms the second-order factor structure of the brand experience scale (Brakus et al., 2009) as a mediator in this self-brand connection–loyalty model.