The marketer may consider a brand to have unassailable importance, but the consumer’s view also plays a significant role. Across three essays, this dissertation speaks to questions of when and why a brand may matter to consumers. It examines the phenomenon of consumers developing a sense of connection with a brand and compares it with material possession attachment. It also investigates the extent to which social identity plays a significant role in the appearance and durability of brand resonance, or the outcomes of feeling connected to a brand, sensing a community of brand users, and evangelizing its benefits.
Essay 1 reviews brand attachment, material possession attachment, and related literature streams. This review leads to a set of hypotheses and a proposed design for testing them in a controlled setting. Essay 2 presents a Social Identity-based Model of Brand Resonance indicating that brand resonance is a self-sustaining process with factors such as alignment between brand meaning and a social identity combined with identity cultivation stage influencing a consumer’s tendency to do more than simply purchase a branded product. Essay 3 reports results of testing the predictions of Essay 1 and the conceptual model proposed in Essay 2 with two studies.
Results of testing Essay 1 predictions clarify some similarities and differences between how consumers relate to brands versus possessions. Consumers tend to be more readily attached to brands but reserve a special significance for their most favorite possessions. Results of testing the model from Essay 2 illuminate the crucial role of social identity in determining when a brand matters. Experiences with and use of a brand influence whether a consumer will become an avid user by way of some specific internally and externally focused evaluations of it. This process from experience to appraisal to resonance is changed by how a brand is implicated in a social identity.
Taken together, the results of comparing brand attachment and material possession attachment suggest that brands matter in predicting the nature of a consumer’s attachment to a particular object. Consumers may feel attached to brands but this special relationship may be fleeting. This suggests that brand attachment should not necessarily be a gauge of success for marketers. Further research is needed to ascertain how brand attachment and material possession attachment may influence one another in a more enduring and beneficial manner.
Additional research is also needed with regards to the Social Identity-based Model of Brand Resonance. Results from the present research provide initial support for the model but additional testing with some respecification is necessary. The implications of this portion of the dissertation suggest that managers should look to alignment between their brand and a relevant social identity as a guide to brand building. As consumers develop within a social identity, the importance they place on brands as well as those they chose to use will vary. In short, brands matter to the extent they are socially useful to consumers.