The dialogue between social perception and consumer-brand relationship theories opens new opportunities for studying brands. To advance branding research in the spirit of interdisciplinary inquiry, we propose to (1) investigate the process of anthropomorphism through which brands are imbued with intentional agency; (2) integrate the role of consumers not only as perceivers but also as relationship agents; (3) consider important defining dimensions of consumer-brand relationships beyond warmth and competence, including power and excitement; and (4) articulate the dynamics governing warmth (intentions) and competency (ability) judgments to yield prescriptive guidance for developing popular and admired brands.

Our commentary focuses on the negative pole of Park et al.'s Attachment–Aversion continuum. We argue that the distinction between positively‐ and negatively‐valenced relationships matters, and open opportunities to further our knowledge about what makes a brand relationship “bad.” Two theoretical extensions are offered: (1) additional negativity dimensions beyond brand–self distance including pathology, power, and self‐ versus brand‐focused emotionality; and (2) distinctions between neutrality and variations of emotional ambivalence “in the middle” of the Attachment–Aversion spectrum. Our call is for a science of negative relationships concerning the negative outcomes, processes, states, and attributes of consumers' relationships with brands.

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This article endeavors to advance research on the cultural resonance of brands by building bridges between branding scholarship in the consumer psychology tradition and interpretive research regarding brands and their meaning makers. We adopt a cognitivist conceptualization of cultural meaning and focus on the application of interpretive insights to well-established constructs in the consumer psychology of brands: brand associations, product category associations, social identity, and self-identity. This integrative exercise highlights the value of cultural models in explaining the processes whereby brands acquire meaning, and suggests several themes that are under-valued when considering this process problem through a psychological lens: the motivational underpinnings of myths and other cultural meaning models, the relative value of shared cultural and brand meanings versus idiosyncratic meanings, the power and primacy of category-level meaning making over brand-level meaning making, the complex processes whereby brands gain and lose legitimacy, and the influence of lay theories about brands and branding on how consumers co-create meaning for brands.

Purpose Attachment theory is emerging as an important theoretical foundation in marketing because of the relational nature of consumption, but little guidance exists as to which of many attachment style measures is most suitable for use by researchers. As a result, many measures are being used with little justification, and frequently, these scales are being adapted due to poor measurement fit, length or wording unrelated to the focal attachment figure. This paper aims to evaluate seven existing attachment style measures and provides recommendations regarding which measure is the most suitable for assessing the impact of chronic attachment styles on marketing outcomes. Design/methodology/approach A literature review identified seven measures of attachment style for analysis. Two studies examine the psychometric properties, susceptibility to response bias and predictive validity of the seven measures (Study 1n = 325 and Study 2n = 205). Findings Among the seven scales evaluated, the Johnson et al. (2012) [Johnson, Whelan, and Thomson (JWT)] measure exhibited the best psychometric properties and predictive validity for general (i.e. not relationship-specific) attachment styles. In addition, two relationship-specific measures, also with strong psychometric properties, were better able to capture their respective relationships or relationship types than general attachment styles, as expected. Research limitations/implications This research provides guidance to researchers on which measure to use when examining the impact of attachment style in marketing. Practical implications This research provides marketing researchers guidance on which measure to use when examining the impact of general attachment styles. Because the JWT scale is brief, psychometrically sound and demonstrates strong predictive validity, it can be used for academic and managerial purposes. The authors also confirm previous research suggesting that relationship-specific measures of attachment style may act differently than general interpersonal attachment style measures and vary in their ability to predict marketing outcomes. Originality/value This research is the first to provide guidance regarding which measure of attachment style to use in marketing and consumer research. This research can serve as a reference point for future researchers in selecting measures of attachment style and may allow for convergence on a narrow set of measures to advance research in marketing.