Consumer Brand Relationships: Theory and Practice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Part 1: The What of Brand Relationships: Exploring Brand Relationship Varieties and Types
Chapter 1: When is our Connection to Brands like our Connection to People?
Chapter 2: Exploring Relationship Analogues in the Brand Space
Chapter 3: Understanding Negative Consumer Responses: Brand Avoidance Relationship
Chapter 4: Brand Flings: When Great Brand Relationships Are Not Made to Last
Chapter 5: Examining Childhood Consumption Relationships
Chapter 6: Mental Accounting in Consumer-Brand Relationships

 

Part 2: Understanding Consumer-Brand Relationship Bonds: Brand Love and Other Strength Indicators
Chapter 7: Love Actually? Measuring and Exploring Consumers Brand Love
Chapter 8: Brand Love: Interpersonal or Parasocial Love Relationships?
Chapter 9: Brand Relationship Quality Conceptualization and Measurement
Chapter 10: Brand Forgiveness: How Close Brand Relationships Influence Forgiveness
Chapter 11: Relationships Are Complicated: On Construct Validity when Consumer-Brand Relationships are Systems

 

Part 3: How Goals and Identity Drive Consumers Relationships with their Brands
Chapter 12: This Store Just Gets Me! Customer Chemistry and Its Role in Identity Construction
Chapter 13: Beyond Relationship: Metaphor Transfer and Beyond
Chapter 14: Teenagers Purposive Brand Relationships: From Social Filters to Shoulders to Lean On
Chapter 15: Brands Can Be like Friends: Goals and Interpersonal Motives Influence Attitudes toward Preferred Brands

 

Part 4: Managerial Applications and Extensions of Consumer-Brand Relationship Ideas
Chapter 16: Firing Your Best Customers
Chapter 17: On the Complexity of Managing Brands in a Social Media World
Chapter 18: Corporate Identity and its Reflective Effect in Developing Brand Relationships
Chapter 19: Brand Humanity: Transforming the Business of Building Brands

 

 

 

BOOK ENDORSEMENTS

 

“If you want to truly understand one of the most important concepts in branding, the consumer-brand relationship, you need to read the multiple perspectives provided in this book. This is a treasure of insights that will advance your thinking and your brand.”

David Aaker , Vice Chairman of Prophet, Professor Emeritus at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, and author of over 100 articles and 5 books on branding

 

“In the midst of this global economic crisis, Consumer–Brand Relationships re-focuses us on the primal foundations of branding: individuals, lived experiences, relationships and humanity. This book offers a vibrant framework for re-mastering our human understanding of brands. With this as a foundation, we can finetune our brand measurement systems and deliver improved present and future fi nancial performance through the discipline of branding.”

Ed Lebar , CEO of BrandAsset® Consulting™, a division of Young & Rubicam Brands

 

“Few subjects are more top-of-mind to marketers than the quest for resonant ‘brand relationships’ with customers. Yet, for all the talk in today’s socially networked world, there is little real scholarship applied to the actual science of relationship-building. In Consumer–Brand Relationships , the authors have taken a major, comprehensive step towards understanding the real drivers of successful brand-consumer intimacy. Through scholarly assessment and pragmatic insights, the real meaning of ‘brand relationships’ is revealed: how they are built, nurtured and, too often, abused. Read, learn and profi t!”

Hayes Roth , Chief Marketing Officer, Landor Associates

 

“Every marketer aspires to move his or her brand from one that is preferred to one that is loved. The consumer-brand relationship is a delicate dance that whenproperly choreographed can create material value for both the customer and the organization. Consumer–Brand Relationships provides an insightful primer in understanding the framework of what ignites, engages and sustains consumerbrand relationships over time. This book is a must-read for organizations seekingcompetitive advantage through deeper brand engagement.”

Michael Simon , Chief Marketing Offi cer, Panera Bread

 

“A brand cannot be valuable without a true understanding of its relationship with its customers. Consumer–Brand Relationships provides a thought provoking and lluminating journey through one of the most complex and multifaceted components of any great brand: its bond with customers. Consumers change so fast within society. Read this if you want a more thorough understanding of their world.”

Graham Hales, CEO, Interbrand London

 

“There are few concepts in marketing as illuminating as the consumer-brand relationship. Understanding the relationship dynamics between brands and people is a powerful tool for strategists, creatives, and CMOs. With terrifi c insight and vision Fournier pioneered the basis for the ideas presented in this book years ago while teaching at Harvard Business School. But in the modern marketing era, defi ned by connections that consumers actively choose, the framework has become more relevant and useful than ever. Relationships drive economicperformance. If you understand that, and care about the relationship your brand has with customers and prospects, read this book.”

Baba Shetty , Chief Strategy Officer, Hill Holliday

 

“Fournier, Breazeale, and Fetscherin have assembled heavy hitters to take on the big questions. I am wowed by the results. This book will transform the theory and practice of branding enormously and take us one great leap forward.”

Grant McCracken , MIT Research Affi liate and author of several leading cultural branding books including Culturematic and Chief Culture Officer

 

“This smartly edited volume, which brings together prominent academic and practitioner branding experts, advances our understanding of questions fundamental to consumer-brand relationships: their types, their properties, drivers, and consequences to consumers and marketers alike. Critical issues regarding the consumer as co-creator of brand meanings as well as the boundaries of the human relationship metaphor to the study of brands add novel insight to our understanding of this rich topic. A brilliant concluding chapter charts a far-reaching and powerful agenda for pushing the boundaries of knowledge about consumers’ relationships with their brands.”

Debbie MacInnis , Professor of Marketing, University of Southern California

 

“Too often relationship marketing practices have been more relationship destructive than helpful to consumers and their marketing sponsors. This book brings together leading scholars who breathe new life and understanding into the fundamental challenges of building the ‘right’ kinds of relationships with consumers. The insights in this book will revitalize relationship marketing in ways that will deliver value to marketers and foster ties that are valued, strong, and that can endure.”

James McAlexander , Professor of Marketing, Oregon State University

 

“This book provides a comprehensive overview of how consumers embrace brands. With creativity and originality, the authors go beyond theory and provide great insights into the blossoming area of consumer-brand relationships.”

Christian Casal , Manager McKinsey & Company, Switzerland