Strategic relationship management and service brand marketing

Abstract

PurposeIn recent years, the notion of consumer‐brand relationships has drawn increasing attention from both researchers and practitioners in the field of service brand marketing. However, different paradigms conceptualize and measure this notion from diversified perspectives. The current study, integrating and modifying the main concepts of different consumer‐brand relationships paradigms, proposes to test an integrative‐model.Design/methodology/approachThe paper conducts an exploratory investigation and a cross‐regional survey, alongside the statistical technique of structural equation modeling, confirms the appropriateness of the entire model structure as well as the causal path pattern explicated by the proposed Strategic Management of Service Brand Relationships model.FindingsAccording to the Strategic Management of Service Brand Relationships model, service brand commitment and service brand love partially mediate the effects of eight relationship components on service brand loyalty. Moreover, amid the eight relationship components, there are three components (satisfaction of affective attributes, trust, and self‐concept connection) also exercising a direct positive influence on service brand loyalty.Originality/valueThe Strategic Management of Service Brand Relationships model delineates the antecedents and consequence of positive service brand relationships. Specific indicators of the latent constructs as well as the causal pathways among these constructs provide strategic principles for fostering strong and durable brand loyalty through consumer‐brand relationships in the context of service brand marketing.

Love and Satisfaction Drive Persistent Stickiness: Investigating International Tourist Hotel Brands

“…Afterward, 19 surfaced indicators of brand love were carefully compared with the conceptual definitions and operational measures reported by prior research with regard to passionate love (Albert et al ., ; Tsai, ), emotional attachment (Fedorikhin et al . ; Malär et al ., ) and self‐brand integration (Batra et al ., ; Correia Loureiro et al ., ).…”

“…In contrast, brand love transcends the expectancy‐disconfirmation principle and mental‐accounting behavior. It is a construct with cognitive, emotional and socio‐cultural elements that organizes into a mental prototype of love, bringing out stronger switching resistance loyalty toward the brand (Malär et al ., ; Tsai, ; Batra et al ., ; Correia Loureiro et al ., ; Reimann et al ., ).H The impact generated by brand love on switching resistance loyalty toward the hotel brand is greater than the impact generated by overall customer satisfaction…”

Humanizing brands: When brands seem to be like me, part of me, and in a relationship with me

“…Consumers appear to show stronger and more positive brand attitudes (Moore & Homer, 2008) and greater brand loyalty (Tsai, 2011) as the brand becomes closer to the self. This appears to be particularly true when there is high congruity between the consumer's gender and gender's relevance to the product category, as well as when the brand is symbolic of a desired in‐group (Moore & Homer, 2008).…”

Customer commitment to luxury brands: Antecedents and consequences

“…In this sense, calculative commitment relates to the feeling of having to stay with the company, either due to less attractive alternatives or no alternatives (Bansal et al, 2004). The concept of calculative commitment is applied extensively in business and consumer research to investigate a variety of issues, such as the antecedents of brand loyalty (Li & Petrick, 2008), brand-customer relationship (Tsai, 2011), and relationship in the services (Dalziel, Harris, & Laing, 2011). The cognitive mechanism behind calculative commitment is described as the state of attachment to a partner, cognitively experienced as a realization of the benefits that would be sacrificed and the losses that would be incurred if the relationship were to end (Gilliland & Bello, 2002, p. 28).…”