Purpose -The paper aims to present a comprehensive framework for understanding consumer trust in a corporate brand, incorporating both the antecedents and consequences of trust. The paper also seeks to account explicitly for the differences in antecedents and consequences of trust found among customers and among non-customers. Design/methodology/approach -Data were obtained from 308 face-to-face interviews conducted in Germany. Structural equation modelling was used in order to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings -The results indicate that competence and credibility have a high explanatory power as antecedents of trust. Trust has a considerable impact on supplier selection for existing and new products, as well as on the word-of-mouth (WOM) behaviour of consumers. There are strong differences between customers and non-customers in terms of the antecedents and consequences of trust in a corporate brand. Research limitations/implications -In order to generalise the findings, the model needs to be tested with other samples and research objects. Marketing research into trust should focus on competence and credibility as important antecedents of trust. The findings propose that trust has positive effects on purchase intention and WOM behaviour. Marketing research should pay more attention to the role of trust in gaining new customers. Practical implications -Because of the positive influence on marketing success, managers should focus on trust-building activities that centre on competence and credibility primarily with current customers. However, trust also seems to be a good device to gain customers from competitors. Originality/value -The contributions of the paper are, firstly, a more complete framework of trust that analyses both antecedents and consequences of trust simultaneously. Secondly, the study allows a direct comparison of the difference in antecedents and consequences of trust between customers on the one hand and non-customers on the other.

Despite the well-documented importance of consumer-brand relationships, international branding research has not yet investigated whether a brand's perceived globalness and localness influence consumers' identification with the brand. Drawing on brand relationship theory and global/local branding literature, the present research theorizes on how perceived brand globalness and localness influence consumer-brand relationship building and discusses how these influences vary for brands of domestic versus foreign origin. Two studies in mature and emerging markets, using several brands across multiple product categories, reveal that both perceived brand globalness and localness have positive effects on consumer-brand identification. These effects (1) hold in both mature and emerging market settings, (2) are independent of brand quality assessments, (3) interact in a mutually-reinforcing way, and (4) are moderated by brand origin in a substitutional manner indicating that the relational effects of brand localness (globalness) are stronger for foreign (domestic) than for domestic (foreign) brands.

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