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Does Brand Love Really Exist?
One way to conceptualize intense loyalty is to use love construct. Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi, was an early advocate and elaborated the concept in his 2004 book Lovemarks.
Three Michigan researchers, Rajeev Batra, Aaron Ahuvia and Richard P. Bagozzi, have provided more depth to “brand love.” They conducted two qualitative studies exploring what a person means by loving a brand or other object and a quantitative study to identity its underlying dimensions and the output or value.
The findings are fascinating.
The qualitative studies found characteristics that subjects reported when discussing brands they loved. They included feelings that the loved brand:
- is the best in every way from value, to key attributes, to experience.
- connects to something deeper. Apple (the most mentioned loved brand was the iPod) represents
creativity and self-actualization.
- creates emotional benefits like being happy, e.g. “Pinkberry frozen yogurt makes me smile.”
- provides self-expressive benefits and high levels of WOM communication.
- generates affection and warm-hearted feelings.
- has a natural fit and harmony between people and the loved brands.
- stimulates a desire to maintain proximity to the brand and even feeling “separation distress.”
- engenders a willingness to invest time, energy and money into loved brands.
- involves frequent, interactive contact with the consumer
- has a long relationship history.
In the quantitative study, a brand love variable was found to predict loyalty, word-of-mouth communication and resistance to negative information.
This, to me, is an impressive validation and elaboration of what had been basically a common sense analogy. Each of the 10 characteristics has implications about the creation, maintenance and measurement of loyalty.
Join the discussion and share your thoughts below in the comments or on my Facebook Page.
Posted September 13, 2011 / Permalink
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David: Thanks for mainstreaming the dialogue on this subject. As you know, much has been written and debated around the whole concept of "brand Love"...does it exiist, how is it different from other human love types, what emotions are associated with it, how can it be measured, etc.
I believe there is something here (otherwise, how does one explain people having brands tattooed on their bodies, the creation of "shrines", etc?). We are working to develop and test a robust tool to measure and quantitfy brand love. Stay tuned!
Alan Bergstrom
Global Head, Brand Strategy
Nunwood, Inc.
David,
Sounds a bit like the Holy Grail for brands to move to such a meaningful position in a consumer's mind. AT&T's brand head recently said: "We are not using our brands [only] as a way to sell product, but also as a way to activate our company vision." Indeed, brands that care are not only remembered but are rewarded; a nice plus for CLV. Brand love does exist.
Mark Burgess
Blue Focus Marketing
Great post, David. I have always encouraged my clients to consciously look for the "emotional derived benefit" of their brand. My mantra (and method for developing a creative brief) has always been that successful brands move through a linear process of acceptance by understanding "what it is, what it does, what does that mean to the user".
This study is a nice validation of that process, but I will now add "how does that make me feel". Thanks for sharing.
— Added by Don Morgan on September 14, 2011