Love and loyalty in car brands: Segmentation using finite mixture partial least squares

Abstract

This study seeks to understand the relationship among brand love, inner self, social self, and loyalty perceived by users of three car brands. The model estimation includes structural equation analysis, using the PLS approach and applying the finite mixture partial least squares (FIMIX-PLS) to segment the sample. The research findings showed that area of residence and age are the main difference that characterizes the two uncovered customer segments. Car users of the large segment live mainly in the big city Oporto and are younger than car users of the small segment. For this small group, social self doesn't contribute to enrich the brand love, they don't give very much importance to what others think of them, and so, the social aspects and the social image are not a key factor to create a passion and an attraction to the car brand. Indirectly, the social identification is not important to reinforce the intention to recommend and to buy a car with the same brand in the future. On the other hand, the cosmopolitan car users of the large segment consider that the car brand image should fit their inner self and the social group of belonging in order to improve the love to the brand and the intention to recommend and to buy a car with the same car brand in the future. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.