Brand addiction conceptual development

Abstract

Purpose Although emerging literature has discussed different consumer–brand relationships and addictive behavior constructs, to date, it has not explored the brand addiction phenomenon. This study aims to undertake a conceptual inspection to better understand the nature of the brand addiction phenomenon, thereby providing a clear and concise conceptual definition. Design/methodology/approach To develop a concise definition of brand addiction, the researcher applies a conceptual development procedure, which identifies potential attributes of brand addiction by assembling a descriptive set of definitions, collecting the construct’s key attributes, generating a preliminary definition of brand addiction, identifying unique and shared attributes of brand addiction with other constructs in related areas and, finally, refining the conceptual definition based on a set of guidelines. Findings This study defines brand addiction as a psychological state that entails an emotional attachment to a particular brand, driven by compulsive urges that generally provide pleasure. This involves dependence, habit formation, loss of control, failure to withstand impulses and tension before starting the behavior related to the addicted brand. In addition, some of the following attributes might also characterize brand addiction: social, mental and behavioral preoccupation with the brand, tolerance development, frequent engagement in activities related to the brand, restlessness or irritability when unable to engage in activities/behaviors related to the addicting brand, repeated efforts to stop the behavior and dismissal of occupational, social and recreational activities to engage in activities related to the addicting brand. Originality/value Since the concept of brand addiction has not been empirically tested, this paper has the potential to append a compulsory conceptual understanding of the concept of brand addiction by developing an accurate definition that serves in discriminating the focal concept from other constructs in related areas, and helps advance subsequent work for theory development.

Neural Substrates of Brand Love: An Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-Analysis of Functional Neuroimaging Studies

“…Romantic love, however, showed dispositions toward more impulsive, intimate, and passionate relationships compared to brand love. The marketing literature stresses the importance of building impulsive, intimate, and passionate relationships between brands and consumers (Shimp and Madden, 1988;Fournier, 1998Fournier, , 2014Keller, 2001;Thomson et al, 2005;Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006;Park et al, 2008;Albert et al, 2009;Albert and Valette-Florence, 2010;Lastovicka and Sirianni, 2011;Sarkar, 2011;Batra et al, 2012;Sarkar et al, 2012;Cui et al, 2018;Mrad, 2018). Thus, while these strong emotions are important elements for brand love, we did not observe activation of brain regions related to impulsive, intimate, and passionate relationships in brand love in the present study.…”

Healthy beverage consumption among aging Thai consumers

“…With respect to environment-related determinants, respondents were influenced mainly by the branding factor, with a high average of 3.4308, followed by taste of relaxation, market trends, and social drinker. Going by the fact that brand addiction is a psychological state that entails an emotional attachment to a particular brand, driven by compulsive urges that generally provide ‹ 44 › pleasure (Mrad, 2018), it is inferred that the elderly usually pay more attention to the brand than market trends and social drinking.…”

Brand addiction: brand characteristics and psychological outcomes

“…Against this background, the current study aims to empirically analyze further brand addiction consequences identified by previous contributions (Mrad, 2018;Cui et al, 2018), which have not yet been tested by the existing literature (i.e. irritability, compulsive buying behaviors toward the brand and brand exclusiveness).…”

“…Brand addiction represents one of the most intense brandconsumer relationships (Cui et al, 2018). However, even if currently some studies Cui et al, 2018;Mrad, 2018;Mrad and Cui, 2017) focused their attention on this construct, brand addiction within the literature is a very recent phenomenon and research studies remain rare . Despite this scarcity of studies, some authors have still sought to conceptualize brand addiction systematically.…”

“…Notably, the authors demonstrated, on the one hand, that brand addiction Bauer et al (2007), Carroll and Ahuvia (2006) The necessity of analyzing these brand characteristics within an ever stronger way of brand-consumer engagement Analysis and test of the influence of specific brand characteristics (i.e. brand hedonism, brand self-expressiveness, brand innovativeness and brand authenticity) in the brand addiction context Outcomes Conceptual identification of salient brand addiction properties (also including brand addiction consequences) Cui et al (2018), Mrad (2018); Mrad and Cui (2017) The necessity of exploring and empirically testing the consequences of brand addiction Analysis and test of the relationships between brand addiction and three consumer outcomesnamely irritability, compulsive buying behaviors toward the addicted brand and brand exclusiveness represents a distinctive phenomenon with respect to compulsive buying and, on the other, that brand addiction has a positive impact on debt avoidance, self-esteem and life happiness. Finally, identified the brand addiction main motivations and outcomes in the luxury and fast-fashion brands' context.…”