To identify the antecedents of repurchasing intention toward fast fashion brands, this study was conducted to examine brand authenticity and brand identification as both direct and indirect antecedents of repurchasing intention through fast fashion brand love. Through convenience sampling, 266 university students in Seoul metropolitan area completed a questionnaire survey. Data were analyzed using SPSS for exploratory factor analysis, and AMOS was used for confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis. Factor analysis revealed the following: for brand authenticity, four dimensions(‘originality,’ ‘reliability,’ ‘continuity,’ and ‘naturalness’) were revealed; for both consumer brand identification and repurchase intention one dimension was revealed; and for brand love two dimensions were revealed(‘passion’ and ‘affection’). Path analysis confirmed that ‘reliability’ and ‘naturalness’in relation to brand authenticity indirectly influenced repurchase intention through ‘passion’(as a factor of brand love) and directly influenced repurchase intention. Further, ‘continuity’ in relation to brand authenticity indirectly influenced repurchase intention through ‘affection’(as a factor of brand love) and directly influenced repurchase intention. Consumer brand identification influenced repurchase intention indirectly through two factors of brand love. These results suggest that fast fashion brand marketers should implement effective strategies that consider consumers’perceptions of brand authenticity, consumer brand identification, and brand love.

The Portuguese tourism sector has grown steadily in recent years and will continue to generate a series of opportunities and challenges for which answers will be needed to ensure a structured growth path for the sector. Research on CSR in tourism is still sparse (Dwyer and Sheldon, 2007). In an attempt to address this issue, this study analyses whether the CSR consumer perceptions and consumer engagement are significant variables supporting the success of a long-term relationship in the tourism sector as a brand love. Knowing the role of the perceived community, environmental and consumer’s aspects of CRS image, the levels of personal involvement in tourism play an important role in the relationship between the social concerns of tourists, their responsible behaviour and the relationship that they establish with the place. A quantitative methodology was employed for this research. It was used a survey to measure relationships between constructs on a theoretical model. The questionnaires were administered to tourists (nationals and internationals) in the main tourist’s points in the Porto city during the month of October 2017. A sample of tourists produced 958 useable questionnaires. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using maximum likelihood estimation and bootstrapping method was conducted to test the validity of the model and the formulated hypotheses. The results obtained in the estimation of the proposed conceptual model show that in respect to the corporate social responsibility image all the variables considered to explain that image are statistically significant. The tourists CSR image of the city of Porto leads to an increase of brand love and the consumer engagement with the city of Porto leads to an increase of brand love too. This is the first time that this evaluation has been carried out for the Porto city and it proves to be necessary information for the various stakeholders who work in the sector, including local organizations, companies and industry leaders, among others.

Relationship between consumers and brands has become an important issue both for managers and marketing scholars (Fournier 1998, Fournier et al 2012,Alba and Lutz 2013, Loureiro 2015). This becomes even more important when brands misbehave. This paper studies the situation in which consumers are disappointed with the brand and feel hate toward it. Building on the Triangular Theory of Hate (Stenberg 2003), a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of 349 posts written on a facebook public group, is performed. The goal of the analysis is twofold: i) understanding which are the more recurrent types of hate for consumers and its causes; ii) testing, in light of the expressing writing theory, whether writing and sharing their brand hate online is a way for consumers to vent away their feelings and hence to restore their wellbeing. Results show that consumers mainly experience burning hate that is composed by anger, disgust and devaluation and wish the brand death. Also, given the specific relationship consumers have with the brand, the catharsis effect does not take place for them.

In recent years brands have come under the spotlight for delivering unique and authentic brand experiences. Consumers find themselves looking for brands that add experiential value to their daily life, from a sensory, behavioral, intellectual and relational perspective (Brakus et al., 2009). Moreover, there is a growing demand for brands that are able to deliver their brand promise authentically (Morhart et al., 2015; Schallehn et al., 2014). On this background, our research was conducted in order to examine the role of brand experience and brand authenticity in generating brand love. In addressing this issue, the present study attempts to perform a test on research hypotheses by empirically validating the proposed conceptual model in a cross-country context (Japan and Portugal) for the brands Apple and Samsung. Additionally, it analyses the moderating effect of self-authenticity in relation to brand experience and brand authenticity. Data collection was done using a structured questionnaire to final consumers, who are owners of Apple and Samsung devices. A total of 574 valid questionnaires were collected regarding Apple brand (Japan = 300; Portugal = 274). Following the testing of the structural equation model, results demonstrate the correlation between brand authenticity and brand experience and show that the greater the self-authenticity, the higher is the effect of brand authenticity on brand love. It is worth noting however that the direct and moderating effects are different for Apple and Samsung in Japan and Portugal. This accounts for the cultural differences in how consumers perceive the experiential and authentic brand value propositions and how they relate emotionally to brands. Our study also provides important managerial implications by helping brand managers to understand how to drive passionate and intense feelings towards brands and to target consumers who are looking for compelling, meaningful and authentic brand experiences.

With competition among hotel brands intensifying more than ever before, there has been a burgeoning interest in the hospitality industry on the topic of brand love. However, progress of brand love research in hotel context has been limited and investigation on antecedents of brand love has mainly focused on affective and relational aspects, while neglecting cognitive aspects of brand love. Therefore, the objective of this research was to illuminate the importance of brand love's cognitive aspect by identifying cognitive brand loyalty as a necessary component of brand love in hotel context. In addition, present research suggests that by inducing cognitive engagement among customers, hotel brands can attain cognitive brand loyalty from customers, which in turn derives brand love. To achieve the research objective, a questionnaire with items measuring brand love, cognitive brand loyalty and two aspects of cognitive engagement, cognitive attention and cognitive absorption, was distributed to 300 individuals through Amazon Mechanical Turk. Brand love was measured with scale adapted from Carroll and Ahuvia (2006), cognitive brand loyalty was measured using items introduced by Back and Parks (2003), and cognitive engagement elements were measured using items developed by So, King and Sparks (2014). In analyzing the data, structural equation modeling method was used. The findings of the study indicate that the effect of cognitive brand loyalty on brand love is significant and that the relationship between cognitive attention and cognitive brand loyalty is also positive and significant. However, the relationship between cognitive absorption and cognitive brand loyalty was positive only at a marginally significant level. As a result, the indirect effect of cognitive attention on brand love was positive and significant yet, the indirect effect of cognitive absorption on brand love was insignificant. This study enriches the brand love literature’s spectrum by illuminating the importance of brand love’s cognitive aspect. However, it is important to note that the focus is not necessarily on the cognitive processing or the standards, but on the cognitive engagement experience. In addition, because customers generally process information most heavily during the booking process, present research brings out managerial implications for hotel brands to direct more customers to their own brand website rather than the online-travel-agency( OTA) website. For instance, the results of present research illustrate that price discount or additional amenity are not enough to develop brand love. Rather, hotels should provide loyalty members who book directly through brand sites with more enjoyable, creative, and relevant to self-room shopping experience.

In recent times of global turbulence, democracies in many countries have been tested for their resilience and there is a need to focus on determinants of political brand preference. For political parties, from political marketing strategy point of view, analyzing factors impacting voters’ party preference is becoming important for better understanding of voters to influence and predict voting behavior. Research studies propagate that consumers can experience a feeling of love for their brand (Albert et al., 2008; Batra et al., 2012). Carroll and Ahuvia, (2006) view that consumer feels love for the brand when a brand reaches both high real and desired level of integration with the consumer’s sense of self. Brand love is the degree of strong emotional attachment a satisfied consumer has for a particular brand. Brand love includes passion and declarations of love for the brand. Though brand love has been studied in the context of consumer market, we still know little about whether voters feeling of brand love for the political party they prefer. In this backdrop, in this study, we have examined impact of political brand love on voters’ preference of the political party. As brand love is a relational construct, objective is to investigate the type of causal relationship exists among brand love and the related constructs. In this study, we have taken India, largest democracy of the world, as our focal point of study. In this paper we propose to study the mediation effects of inner self (IS) and social self (SS) while estimating the relationship between brand love (BL) and brand preference (BP) and brand trust (BT) and BP. Additionally we also look at the relationship between BL and BT. The results as a whole shows that both brand trust and brand love have significant positive impact on brand preference. Higher brand trust leads to higher brand preference both directly and when both direct and indirect effects are considered as a whole. On the other hand there is no statistically significant indirect effect of brand trust on brand preference through inner self or social self. In case of brand love on the other hand all the effects are statistically significant. Higher brand love increases brand preference directly and also indirectly through inner self and social self. This implies that higher brand inner self and social self enhances the impact of brand love on brand preference.

While product design is intrinsically linked to brand building and to the definition of luxury, consumers’ sensitivity to luxury products and to design is usually addressed separately. Yet, for optimal marketing-oriented decisions, they need to be brought together. Furthermore, while design is intrinsically linked to luxury, little research focused on its influence on the symbolic and the economic value of brands. This research specifically delves into the mechanisms behind how brand-level attitudes can be influenced by product-level sensitivity to product design. Building on the value theory, it investigates to what extent the product design enhances luxury brands value. Based on a data set collected on 125 individuals, a partial least square analysis was used. It contributes and extends literature on branding, design and luxury in three distinct ways. Firstly, this research distinguishes two antecedents of the product design that are the social and the individual drivers. Secondly, it reveals the mediating role of the product design between social and individual drivers, on one hand, and luxury brands symbolic value (through brand love and brand equity), on the other hand. Thirdly, it confirms the creation of economic value through the positive influence on willingness to pay a premium price. In terms of managerial implications, this study reveals the importance for luxury brands to develop sensory branding through product design. It especially points out the added-value of design for luxury brands’ equity, its role in fostering brand love and in increasing luxury brands turnover.

Investigation concerning the presence of customer-brand relationships in online communities is recent and scarce and might offer potential (Moraes et al., 2014; Huber et al., 2015; Vernuccio et al., 2015). The purpose of this investigation is to understand and analyse how brand love can influence brand loyalty among millennials generation, considering engagement constructs and social networks. It bridges an academia gap in the context of the consumer brand relationship literature. This research aims to answer the following questions: (1) Is brand love effective in building true brand loyalty? (2) Does interactive engagement with brands and brand love contribute to build brand loyalty? and (3) Does interactive engagement on social networks reflect millennials love of brands? To collect data we conducted two online surveys, covering two different brand categories: Fashion and Electronics/Technology. We have in total 1278 inquiries. The analyses of data and hypotheses test were made by using the Structural Equation Model (SEM) and a multi-group factor analysis. The proposed structural equation model was validated and all hypothesis were accepted. So, consumers’ Brand Related Social Media Content was proved to have a direct impact on Social Interactive Brands and Brand Loyalty. Social Interactive Brands were proved to have a direct impact on Emotional Attachment and Self Expressive Brands which also proved direct impact on Brand Love. Brand Love for instance was proved has been directly connected with Brand Loyalty and Word of Mouth and Brand Loyalty also, directly impacts Word of Mouth. The model behave well in the previous research so we wanted to test it with a smaller sample and different brand categories the results would maintain. The results of the multi-group factor analysis showed that we have configural and metric invariance in both different studies, covering Fashion and Technological brands. As though for management purposes it might be of no disagreement to state that marketing alone is no longer enough to influence purchase motivation and intention for consumers. This investigation advance and valid a new theoretical framework in the consumer brand love approach

The personal luxury goods market in the Middle-East is the 10th largest in the world, right before Hong-Kong and Russia, which are both well-established markets for luxury products (D’Arpizio, Levato, Zito & Montgolfier, 2015). However, luxury consumer behavior consumption in the Middle-East and its influencing factors have largely been left unexplored. This paper builds on previous research among German luxury consumers and investigates the formation of brand love and its impact on willingness-to-pay among Arab luxury consumers. Compared with the German study, it is found that Arab luxury consumers show weaker brand love tendencies. In addition, materialistic characteristics and tendencies for conspicuous consumption among Arab consumers strongly influence brand love in the context of luxury fashion and accessories, which confirms previous findings. Results further document that for Arab luxury consumers neither conspicuous consumption tendencies nor brand love can be interpreted as a predictor for an increase in willingness to pay. Hence, for those consumers, long-lasting emotional consumer-brand relationships are not responsible for generating additional profits and do not explain why the willingness to pay for luxury goods was significantly higher among Arab consumers. Finally, results indicate that though some elements of luxury consumption are shared among German and Arab luxury consumers (e.g. fashion involvement, the evaluation of particular brands, gender and brand love tendencies) there are significant differences in terms of e.g. brand preferences, general willingness to pay for luxury fashion and accessories and willingness to pay for conspicuous luxury goods. This research provides insights into the formation of brand love among Arab luxury consumers and how it informs luxury consumption. Moreover, it sheds light on similarities and differences across the two samples and increases the understanding of luxury consumption in a broader geographic context.

Social media marketing offers a vast array of opportunities for fashion brands to engage with their core customers and the broader digital audience. However, they still struggle with the question of which specific strategies can be successfully applied to enhance the effectiveness social media marketing (Rampton, 2014). This study investigates how a luxury brand’ social media brand page satisfaction and brand love are positively related to desired marketing outcomes (i.e., word-of-mouth and loyalty intentions toward the luxury brand). On the basis of Customer Value Theory (Sweeny & Soutar, 2001) and Brand Love Theory (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006), this study developed and tested a dual impact model encompassing both brand page value (i.e., information, financial, brand interaction, social interaction, and entertainment value) and brand value (i.e., inner self-and social self-expressive value). Usable responses from 290 U.S. consumers following at least one luxury brand on social media were used for data analysis. The results of structural equation modeling showed that information, brand interaction, and entertainment values were positively related to brand page satisfaction while financial and social interaction values were not. In addition, inner self-and social self-expressive brand values were positively related to brand love. In addition, brand page satisfaction was positively related to WOM intentions but was not related to loyalty intentions whereas brand love was positively related to both WOM and loyalty intentions. Furthermore, mediation analysis showed that brand page satisfaction fully mediated the influences of information, brand interaction, and entertainment values on WOM intentions. In addition, brand love fully mediated the influences of social self-expressive value on WOM and loyalty intentions. Our study suggests that social media brand pages providing unique value propositions can reap benefits in terms of enhanced brand page satisfaction, highlighting the crucial role of “content excellence” in social media marketing (Holt, 2016). Our findings also show that brand followers tend to love a particular luxury brand when the brand helps express their self and when the symbolic meaning of the brand is integrated into their own self-identity. Thus, one of the roles of social media marketing is in elucidating brand followers how to express their inner states guided by the desire to signal their self-identity not to others but to themselves (Berger & Heath, 2017).

This research was conducted in order to examine the influence of corporate reputation in terms of as an employer towards both brand reputation and customer purchase decisions represented by brand perception, purchase frequency and category of items purchased. In this study, customers’ perception of the brand was also explored to identify the core blocks that form customers’ perception of the brand. The results indicate that corporate reputation did not have a strong influence on brand reputation, as customers viewed them as separate entities. Customers tended to form their brand perception based on the product features as opposed to the corporate reputation. In terms of purchase decision, the results showed that they were made and driven based on the customers’ brand perception with category of items purchased reflecting aspects of the brand perception. The study demonstrates that customers’ awareness of the corporate reputation does not affect purchase behavior, while brand perception is hardly impacted by the awareness of corporate reputation based on a survey focusing on a renowned domestic fashion-clothing retailer conducted among Japanese shoppers. Reputation is formed from a synthesis of the perception, opinions and attitudes of an organization’s stakeholders including employees, customers and community (Post and Griffin, 1997). It basically is a perceptual representation of a company’s past actions and future prospects that describe the firm’s appeal to all of its key constituents (Fombrun, 1966). Corporate reputations and brands are important assets in enabling organizations to exploit opportunities and mitigate threats (Argenti and Druckenmiller, 2004). A favourable reputation correlates with superior overall returns (Robert and Dowling, 1997; Vergin and Qoronfleh, 1998) as it encourages investments from shareholders, attracts good staff and retains customers (Markham, 1972). While corporate reputation is a stakeholder’s perception and evaluation of the organization over an extended period of time, corporate brands involve the organization’s efforts and initiatives in the form of corporate expression. Literature states that corporate brand comprises of two aspects: first corporate expression, which covers all mechanisms employed by the organization to express its identity and second, stakeholder images that are formed from interaction and experience with the brand (Abratt and Kleyn, 2011). Consumers judge brands based on trust that is developed from the way consumers view brand reputation, brand competence and brand constituent (Lau and Lee, 1999). The intricate relationship between reputation and brands leads to the heart of the study whether both are positively correlated, where the more positive the reputation, the stronger the brand is. In the fashion industry, labels play an important role hence among other aspects this study covers an interesting point where it looks at a fashion brand that has a fairly bad reputation and examines the extent of which the reputation is able to influence the brand perception as well as the customers’ purchase decisions.

This study’s purpose was to empirically research the effect of brand image and brand love on brand commitment, and positive word of mouth. We analyzed research data from 267 customers at electronics stores in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The convenient sampling method was used to collect the research sample. The measurement applied a 5-point Likert scale classifying from 1= completely disagree and 5= completely agree. Based on previous studies, the research model was recommended. The Partial Least Squares method was done to examine the measurement model and the structural model. We had estimated the reliability of the scales through Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability. Besides, we had assessed discriminant validity through the Fornell-Larcker standard. The outcome of the study illustrated that brand image had a significantly positive influence on brand love. Besides, the results of the research declared that brand image was positively related to brand commitment. The results also revealed that brand image was positively linked to positive word of mouth. Likewise, the findings of the study disclosed that brand love had a positive impact on brand commitment and positive word of mouth. Additionally, the results of the research confirmed that brand commitment was positively linked to word of mouth.