Influence of Brand Attractiveness and Brand-Self Connections on Brand Evangelism: An Abstract

Abstract

In the digital and social marketing age, characterized by ubiquitous usage of smartphones and social media, marketers leverage the power of the brand to cultivate strong consumer-brand relationships which have the ability to transform consumers into a powerful “communication medium,” i.e., consumers become the vehicles to spread messages to other consumers, just as traditional media operates. Heightened consumer-brand relationships transcend mere product or service dimensions to include deep psychological attachments and active supportive behaviors directed toward the focal brand. Ultimately, such consumer-generated behaviors and communication are important because they affect brand choices including brand purchase decisions, brand expectations, and brand attitudes. Drawing from the literature on consumer-brand relationships, brand imagery, self-concept, and social identification theories, this study develops and tests a framework of brand evangelism through the theoretical lens of brand attractiveness and brand-self connections. The framework proposes brand attractiveness, brand-self connectedness, and brand salience as antecedents of brand evangelism. In addition, the framework contends that these antecedents explain additional variance in brand evangelism, while controlling for brand trust and brand identification, and a battery of additional control variables such as brand usage, extraversion, income, social economic status, and gender. Consistent with the theoretical framework, the results indicate that brand attractiveness and brand-self connection are important drivers of brand evangelism. To engender brand evangelism, brands must be perceived as attractive relative to other brands suggesting that firms must pay special attention to how their target market perceives their brands; this highlights the importance of brand communications, brand imagery, positioning strategies, and brand performance relative to competing brands. Interestingly, while brand attractiveness increases brand purchase intentions, it does not show a direct effect on positive referrals and oppositional referrals. However, brand attractiveness does impact all three aspects of brand evangelism indirectly through brand-self connectedness. Contrary to expectations, brand salience has no significant influence on any of the three components of brand evangelism. Based on the results, theoretical implications and future research directions are unearthed for brand scholars and practical implications are discussed for marketing practitioners.