본 연구는 SNS 계정으로 화장품 브랜드를 구독하고 있는 10대에서 50대 남녀의 지각된 연령을 기준으로 소비자-브랜드 상호작용과 관계가 구매동기와 만족도에 미치는 영향력을 분석하기 위해 설문 조 사를 하였다. 수집된 자료의 통계처리는 SPSS 21.0로 빈도분석, 요인분석, 신뢰도분석, 회귀분석, 다중회귀 분석을 하였다. 조사대상자들의 지각된 연령을 타인이 지각한 연령과 스스로 지각한 연령의 차이에 따라 ‘지각된 저집단’, ‘지각된 중집단’, ‘지각된 고집단’으로 분류하였다. 세 집단은 소비자-브랜드 상호작용과 소비자-브랜드 관계는 구매동기와 유의미한 정의 관계가 나타났고, 소비자-브랜드 관계는 구매동기 중에 서도 ‘매력적’을 설명하는 주요 변수로 나타났다. 세 집단은 소비자-브랜드 상호작용과 소비자-브랜드 관 계는 만족도와 유의미한 정의 관계가 나타났고, 소비자-브랜드 관계는 만족도를 설명하는 주요 변수로 나 타났다. 그러므로, 본 연구의 결론은 지각된 연령집단별, 소비자-브랜드 상호작용과 소비자-브랜드 관계가 구매동기와 만족도에 정적 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 특히, 소비자-브랜드 관계는 화장품 구매동기 와 만족도에 주요한 변수가 된다는 것을 알 수 있었다. 본 연구는 SNS에서 지각된 연령이 화장품 브랜드 마케팅에 미치는 영향력을 실증적으로 분석함에 따라, 화장품 판매전략을 수립할 수 있는 실무적 시사점 및 마케팅에 활용될 수 있는 기초자료가 될 것으로 사료된다.

Consumers sometimes see brands as relationship partners and expect that they conform to certain expectations, or relational norms. However, there is no valid and universal operationalization of these norms for the specific context of consumer-brand relationships. We address this gap by developing and validating a new scale in four studies.

In the new digital age, the emergence of user-generated content enables consumers to enjoy greater freedom and control over their behavior on the internet and assume more active roles in sharing brand-related information with others. This research examines the role of brand engagement on consumer psychological ownership, purchase intention, electronic word of mouth (eWOM), and consumers’ willingness to defend the brand on social media. The findings provide evidence of consumer psychological process to demonstrate that companies can use social media to engage with consumers, so consumers are likely to spread positive WOM and be protective of the brand. It is important for marketing managers to assess the level of brand engagement on social media sites and develop tools and techniques to increase consumers’ participation such as using subliminal priming on brand image, with an aim to create a close consumer brand relationship.

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of relationship and service marketing on the brand interest and behaviors among Korean and Chinese active senior consumers and whether this effect differed between the two groups. A survey was conducted by having participants complete questionnaires administered by a research firm. For empirical analysis, frequency, EFA, CFA, SEM, the metric invariance test, and multiple-group comparison analysis were performed. The analysis results revealed that relationship marketing positively affected both brand interest and consumer behavior. Although service marketing positively affected brand interest, it did not have a significant effect on consumer behavior. In other words, brand interest positively affected consumer behavior through relationship and service marketing. Multiple-group comparison analysis demonstrated that no difference existed between Korean and Chinese active consumers in terms of how relationship marketing affected their brand interest, but a difference existed in how it affected their behavior. Service marketing had a greater influence on Chinese active senior consumers’ brand interest than on Korean active senior consumers. However no difference existed between the two groups with respect to how service marketing affected their behaviors. Finally, brand interest had a positive effect only on Korean active senior consumers’ behavior through relationship and service marketing, but not on Chinese active senior consumers. In conclusion, relationship and service marketing should be used to enhance the brand interest among Korean active senior consumers, and business activities should be planned by building relationships with Chinese active senior consumers to affect their behavior.

The aims of this study are to understand the influence of celebrity endorsement on consumers’ word-of-mouth and decision behavior, that is: (i) understand the influence of the number of followers of the celebrity and the positive/negative valence of the messages conveyed by them in the intention to buy and their intention to generate eWoM; (ii) analyzing how the behavior of a celebrity (antisocial vs. pro-social) may affect the perception of its credibility, the intention of the consumers to relate to the celebrity in the social networks and the social identification with it; (iii) understand the impact of celebrity messages on brands and products present in social networks. To achieve this goal a quantitative methodology for the development of research was adopted, selecting the application of a survey as the information collection instrument. The sample is selected by convenience sampling method, collecting 241 responses, 122 females and 119 males. Findings show: (i) concerning the intention to purchase, female seem to be more influenced by the opinions and recommendations of celebrities, while male tend to be more likely to generate e-word-of-mouth into their contact network through social media. (ii) Regarding to antisocial versus prosocial type of celebrity, celebrities with a prosocial behavior seems to have a greater influence for both genders in the way they identify with celebrity and their willingness to relate to them. (iii) Female tends to feel higher purchase intention when exposed to an endorsement, where celebrity promotes a brand or product through its Instagram account.

The evolution of the internet led to a shift in the business operations environment, giving rise to a plethora of challenges and opportunities for companies. Social networks have become attractive to companies due to their interactive nature, not only facilitating conversations with consumers, but also increasing the possibility of enhancing the online consumer brand engagement. Additionally, social networks and online brand communities increased consumers’ possibility of developing an active role in companies’ decision-making process, through the creation of user generated content, together with the opinion sharing and directly information exchange with brands and other internet users. The main objective of this research is to ascertain whether the active listening practice can contribute, in some way, to the improvement of the relationship maintained between consumers and brands. The current study suggests the adaptation of the active listening practice on the online field, as an attempt to enhance the communication strategies held by brands. Hence, this research seeks to demonstrate that this practice can improve the consumer-brand relationship through the development of two qualitative studies, as main approach, where the findings extracted in the first study will be used as inputs to the second one.

This study aims to investigate the role of luxury brand attachment on consumer brand relationship by examining the relationship with trust, commitment, satisfaction and loyalty. This also examines the interrelationships among trust, commitment, satisfaction and loyalty from luxury branding context which provides a good number of theoretical and practical implications. Introduction The global luxury market exceeded $1 trillion in the year 2015 with a 5% annual growth (Bain & Co., 2015). However, industry experts predict that the luxury industry will face challenges in upcoming year primarily due to the economic instability and turmoil in the global foreign exchange market (Robert, 2015). Therefore, the luxury brand executives should carefully target their future consumer segment to sustain the current growth (Luxury Society, 2015). Earlier studies demonstrate that consumers seek various types of emotional benefits from luxury brands such as status seeking (Nelissen & Meijers, 2011), hedonic pleasure (Tsai, 2005), feeling good (Aaker, 1999), pleasurable experience (Atwal & Williams, 2009), mental peace (Silverstein & Fiske, 2003), and impressing others (Wiedmann, Hennigs, & Siebels, 2009). Moreover, these emotional benefits create a comprehensive and memorable experience in terms of ownership and consumption of luxury brands (Choo et al., 2012). Therefore, luxury brand marketers should emphasize more on emotional attachment for building a long term and sustainable customer relationship (Orth et al., 2010). Research Gap Existing literature on consumer-brand relationship mostly considers cross-cultural issues (Chang & Chieng, 2006), reviving brand loyalty (Fournier, 1997), consumer attitude (Aggarwal, 2004), satisfaction (Sung & Choi, 2006), self-brand connection (Cheng et al., 2012), trust-based commitment (Hess & Story, 1995) and such other dimensions on brand evaluation (e.g. Swaminathan et al., 2007). Few studies have considered luxury products (Hodge et al., 2015) and the role of emotional aspects (Hwang & Kandampully, 2012) in the consumer-brand relationship. Still, there is a lack of empirical support for understanding the role of luxury brand attachment into the construct. This research will attempt to fulfil these research gaps. Conceptual Model and Hypotheses Psychological theories explain attachment as the tie between a person and an object or any other components (Bowlby, 1979; Hazan & Shaver, 1994). Brand attachment is defined as a long-term and commitment oriented tie between the consumer and the brand (Esch et al., 2006). The conceptualization of luxury brand demonstrates that the inherent traits of luxury brands are distinctiveness, high transaction value, superior quality, inimitability, and craftsmanship; and luxury brand consumption is mostly emotion laden (Nueno & Quelch, 1998). Based on the existing attachment concepts and theories, we define luxury brand attachment as the emotional bond that connects a consumer with a specific brand and develops deep feelings toward the brand. Several past studies have found that brand attachment reinforces brand trust and there is a positive relationship between brand attachment and trust (e.g. Belaid & Behi, 2011). In addition, Esch et al. (2006) argue that brand satisfaction and brand attachment are interrelated and satisfaction results long-term consumer-brand relationships (Gladstein, 1984). Moreover, strong commitment from the consumers has been identified as a critical factor of long lasting brand relationship (Li et al., 2014; Sung and Choi, 2010). Further, Thomson et al. (2005) find that brand attachment creates behavioural loyalty for which consumers are also willing to pay higher prices. Expecting similar relationship from luxury branding context, we propose that H1: The higher the luxury brand attachment, the greater the consumers trust in that brand. H2: The higher the luxury brand attachment, the greater the consumer satisfaction for that brand. H3: The higher the luxury brand attachment, the greater the consumer commitment to that brand. H4: Higher luxury brand attachment leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. Scholars explain that satisfaction is an essential element of brand loyalty and both the constructs are positively related (e.g. Agustin and Singh, 2005). Past researches find that highly satisfied consumers demonstrate repeat purchases (e.g. Bennett et al, 2005). Past studies also show that trust toward the brand results brand loyalty and strengthen the relationship (Bansal et al., 2014; Belaid & Behi, 2011). Fournier (1997) identify brand trust as the key determinant of brand loyalty. Thus, we propose that H5: Higher satisfaction to the luxury brand leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. H6: Higher trust to the luxury brand leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. Ganesan (1994) argue that a satisfied customer develop trust toward a specific brand. In support of this, Belaid & Behi (2011) state that if a brand becomes successful in fulfilling the promise with consistence performance, the consumer will have satisfaction and positive feeling about the brand. In addition, the authors find a positive relationship between brand commitment and behavioural loyalty. Expecting similar relationship from luxury branding context, we propose that H7: The higher the trust in luxury brand, the more customer satisfaction in that brand. H8: Higher commitment to the luxury brand leads to higher behavioural loyalty to that brand. Summary of the hypothesised relationships are illustrated in Figure 1. Methodology The simple random sampling will ensure proper representation of the target population and eliminate the sampling bias (Cook & Campbell, 1979; Zikmund, 2002). The sample population will be 300 young Australian consumers aged between 20-30 years. Previous studies have found that there is a growth in luxury brand purchase by individuals in younger age groups e.g. 20 – 30 (Hung et al., 2011). Therefore, this is representative of the possible drift in the ages of consumers in the market for luxury brand purchase (Han et al., 2010). A consumer panel from Qualtrics database will be used and the sample frame consists of consumers who have higher brand likeability (Martin & Stewart, 2001). Established scales will be used to measure the constructs. All items will be measured on a seven-point Likert scale with 1 representing “strongly disagree” and 7 representing “strongly agree”. Research Significance This would be the very first study to investigate the role of luxury brand attachment in consumer brand relationship. This research will provide meaningful insights for the brand managers, brand strategists and advertising managers. This research will assist luxury brand managers in allocation of resources for the action plans that will ensure a stronger tie with the consumers in a cost efficient way. For brand managers luxury brand attachment may help them with segmentation process and well as providing direction on improving attachment to the consumers to influence trust, commitment, satisfaction, and loyalty.

British heritage brand Yardley was bought by Indian multinational Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting Group in the year 2009 from UK based Lornamead group for USD 45.5million. The task of reinventing the magic of the British heritage brand in contemporary India was not easy. Brand Yardley was perceived as a “grandmother’s brand” given the history and memory of its existence since centuries. In order to connect with young Indians, the company hired Bollywood actor Katrina Kaif (with British lineage) as their brand ambassador to evoke nostalgia of British era in India and promote heritageness of brand Yardley. However, this communication strategy failed to connect with the consumers. This research paper attempts to understand the significance of heritageness, nostalgia, unique positioning and functional benefits as influencers in creating consumer-brand relationship leading to buying intention by the consumer in the personal care category, using heritage brand Yardley as the pivotal point. This research was conducted in three phases. In phase one, qualitative research approach was used with in-depth interviews and focus group discussions after which variables for the study were generated. In phase two, an elaborated questionnaire was developed. The first part of the questionnaire included demographics like gender, age, occupation and income. The second part of the questionnaire related to recognizing brand Yardley among five print advertisements featuring Katrina Kaif as a model but not revealing the brand for which Katrina Kaif had modeled for. The final survey was conducted with 16 assessing questions for four factors namely, heritage, unique positioning, functional benefits, nostalgia and buying intention. The study was pilot tested once (n=89) and revised once (n=235) for clarity and accuracy. Three questions were revised and reduced. The scale used was Likert type (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The sample unit was within a university campus in Mumbai as the young residents were the target audience for the brand. The outcome of the survey resulted in high Cronbach alpha of .87 and clear rotated factor structures. In phase three of the research, a set of competing brands of soaps with respect to Brand Yardley was generated from the focus group discussions and multidimensional scaling by direct method was carried out using two attributes (functional benefits and unique positioning). The research approach employed was both symmetric and asymmetric analysis to provide analytical outcome using multiple regression analysis, structural equation modeling and application of complexity theory for contrarian cases and could be the first to formally examine tenets of complexity theory in personal care category research contexts. The research outcome revealed that functional benefits and unique positioning of brand Yardley should be crystallized using sensory branding and storytelling format that weaves around the evolution of its heritageness to evoke nostalgia resulting in buying intention.

China has been the biggest factory in the world, most of products are marked “made in China”. With the rapid grows of consumption in China, it is also the biggest market. However, Chinese consumers with deep-rooted Confucian value system may different from Western countries (Ramasamy & Yeung, 2009). Do they still have strong consumer ethnocentrism? Or they can accept all the things they made but with the foreign brands? The power of WOM to influence customer attitude toward one brand is well known to all the marketing researchers. But the fast development of internet and social media network changed consumers’ behavior, word-of-mouth has acquired electronic WOM (e-WOM) as a new name (Goyette et al, 2010). Customer use E-WOM to evaluate product and make purchase decision. Ethnocentric consumers are against foreign brands as they believe that purchasing these brands will hurt domestic economy and brands, cause loss of jobs and increase the power of capitalist companies and dependency of poorer economies to them (Kaynak & Eksi, 2013). But customers are will to searching the better products. Such as Chinese mainland consumers hire purchase agent to shopping aboard. The purchase agent post information in the social media network as eWOM. This research wants to explore the young Chinese still have high ethnocentric tendency or not influenced by eWOM. If E-WOM can be a marketing method to reduce the ethnocentrism when foreign brands entry a new country. And also the domestic brands can use E-WOM to enhance ethnocentrism to against foreign brands. In this research, study 1 tests positive E-WOM or negative E-WOM to test if it can enhance Chinese consumers’ ethnocentrism or reduce their ethnocentrism for their own country products. This research also tests if consumer ethnocentrism can influence on brand equity and purchase intention. Based on the literature review, researchers establish concept model was shown in Table 1. This study uses SPSS and AMOS to analysis the sample. Based on the results this research gives suggestions to both academic and practice.

Marketers increasingly use electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) as a communication tool to pursue consumer purchase intention. Building on brand equity theory, this study extends the traditional argument that the enhancement of consumer repurchase intention by positive brand awareness, image, and relationship is moderated by susceptibility to e-WOM. Electronic WOM enables consumers to search for a variety of user products and experiences over the Internet. Online product reviews are one of the most popular channels through which consumers find product information; these reviews are a powerful example of e-WOM. This channel not only enhances the convenience for consumers in their search for information, it also increases consumers’ brand awareness and image, which are primitive factors in developing a consumer–brand relationship (CBR). For the aforementioned phenomenon, the objective of this research is to comprehend how consumers’ personality traits play a role in the formation of CBR and behavioral intention in response to normative influences. The authors argue that the impact of brand knowledge and the brand relationship on repurchase intention will be weakened in consumers who are highly susceptible to e-WOM. Consumers who are highly susceptible to e-WOM tend to consume and absorb information spreading over social media and are likely to turn their purchasing decision toward other brands. The result discloses the traditional argument that the enhancement of consumer repurchase intention by positive brand awareness, image, and relationship is moderated by susceptibility to e-WOM. Specifically, the argument focuses on how the impact of the brand relationship on repurchase intention is weakened in consumers with high susceptibility to e-WOM. The reason is that consumers with high susceptibility to e-WOM tend to consume and absorb information spreading across social media and are likely to divert their repurchase decision to other brands. In addition, consumers with high susceptibility to e-WOM eradicate the role of brand awareness in developing the CBR. This research idea contributes to the theory of CBR and the topic of e-WOM. Electronic WOM can function as an important tool in communicating the differences among brands in the market. However, this has to be used in congruence with the characteristics of consumers. Neglecting this factor can attenuate the effectiveness and efficiency of the CBR strategy. The research study encourages brand and communication marketers to be more attentive in adopting e-WOM as part of marketing communication.

This study explores the relationship among brand experience, consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty with virtual experience and the virtual community as the intervening variables. We intend to discuss how the new concept of ‘brand experience’ impacted by the internet environment. We integrate the following new research subjects together: brand experience, virtual experience and virtual community. As the research purpose is to understand the effects of virtual environments on brand experience on consumer satisfaction and on brand loyalty, it takes virtual experience as the intervening variable to discuss whether it positively or negatively influences the relationship between brand experience and consumer satisfaction, and takes the virtual commodity variable as the intervening variable to discuss whether it positively or negatively influences the relationship between consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty. This study takes the virtual community members of apple brand in taiwan as the research subjects and 516 questionnaires were completed and returned. The results show that the brand experience had a positive effect on the consumers’ satisfaction and brand loyalty. In addition, the virtual experience has a positive moderating effect on the relationship of brand experience and consumer satisfaction. Finally, this study also discovered that the virtual community also has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between consumers’ satisfaction and brand loyalty.

The purpose of this research was to find out types of consumers for low price cosmetics in domestic market. And on the presumption that there would be differences on impact of brand image and brand loyalty depending on types of consumers, this study started from the possibility of establishing marketing strategy from the standpoint from such difference in types of consumers. Accordingly the classified types of consumers were presented on the basis of similar research data and data published in relevant professional literature. Analysis was undertook on kinds of impact of brand image, brand satisfaction, brand sense of identity and brand attitude which were constituent elements of brand assets on brand loyalty. Analysisshowed that causative relationship between constituent elements of branch assets is different depending on types of consumers. Result of this study suggests that there is a certain need for reviewing types of consumers in order to heighten level of brand loyalty in connection with strategy for low price cosmetics brand marketing in domestic market.

The purpose of this study were to examine the effect of consumer-brand relationship of fashion luxury product on brand loyalty and the mediating effect of consumer satisfaction. The questionnaire developed through the literature search and a survey was conducted both in on-line and off-line questionnaire simultaneously. Finally 227 data from women who had a buying experience of fashion luxury products were analyzed using frequency, factor analysis, ANOVA, t-test, regression analysis by SPSS for WIN program. The results were as follows. First, the consumers' brand identification was composed of three factors; self-connection, interdependence, attachment. Second, the consumer- brand relationship significantly influenced on the brand loyalty. Third, the consumer-brand relationship significantly influenced on the consumer satisfaction. Fourth, the consumer satisfaction significantly influenced on the brand loyalty. Fifth, the consumer-brand relationship had both direct and indirect effects on brand loyalty mediated by consumer satisfaction. The results indicated that causal relationship was existed among these three variables.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of the consumer-brand relationship quality on revisit intent and recommendation intent in the family restaurant. The questionnaires were distributed to 320 students in the K University located in Masan, who were sampled by convenience-sampling method. The surveys were conducted from November,10 to 24,2005. The 287 questionnaires were responded, and 15 unusable questionnaires were excluded, then 272 were used for the final analysis(response rate: 85.0%). The result of this study showed that 3 constructs(self-connective attachment, satisfaction and intimacy) of consumer-brand relationship quality have significant effects on the revisit intent(p<.01) and 2 constructs(satisfaction and intimacy) of consumer-brand relationship quality had significant positive effects on the recommendation intent in the family restaurant(p<.01) It meant that as consumer-brand relationship quality became stronger, the customer's revisit intent and recommendation intent became greater. As a conclusion, the foodservice manager in the family restaurant should focus on the marketing strategy to strengthen the quality of consumer-brand relationship especially emphasizing on satisfaction and intimacy in order to increase the revisit intent and recommendation intent of customers.