Brand Relationships: A Personality-Based Approach

Abstract

The authors investigated the relationship between brand personality and brand relationships. The conceptual model was based on the hypothesis that brand personality may nurture specific consumer-brand relationships and that these relationships may influence the quality of the ties that consumers develop with brands. An instrument from intimate interpersonal relationships was used to measure consumer-brand relationships. An SEM analysis conducted on a sample of 733 consumer-brand relationships, involving nine highly known brands of different product categories, gave support to the theory. The research offers two significant contributions by: 1) Emphasizing the role of consumer-brand relationship in understanding multi-brand, symbolic consumption and 2) Offering a holistic perspective in the understanding of brand personality.