Falling in Love with Brands: An Inductive Qualitative Exploration of Pathways to
Emotional Attachment
Doug Grisaffe, University of Texas at Arlington, USA
Hieu Nguyen, California State University, Long Beach, USA
Correspondence:
Doug Grisaffe
Department of Marketing
College of Business Administration
The University of Texas at Arlington
701 S. West Street, Arlington, TX 76019
P: 817-272-0772
E: Grisaffe@uta.edu
INTRODUCTION
Emotional attachment to brands (EAB) is a relatively new construct in the consumer behavior
literature and little is known about the construct except a seminal scale development paper
(Thomson, MacInnis and Park 2005 – hereinafter referred to as TMP). The process through
which EAB, as a basis of deep “brand relationships” (Park and MacInnis 2006), is developed
remains far from well understood. The purpose of our paper is to explicate a set of underlying
psychological mechanisms that consumers themselves cite as reasons for developing and
exhibiting devoted EAB. Our paper contributes to the understanding of the EAB construct and
expands the discoveries of TMP’s work by presenting the pathways through which EAB is
formed. We also address some issues that TMP point out as unanswered in their research.
METHOD
Given the relative infancy of this line of research, we intentionally designed our study to be
inductive in nature. We asked 125 respondents to explain in their own words the reasons why
they feel emotionally attached to brands that they listed. We then used a thematic content
analytic approach to extract a set of data-reductive codes that capture and summarize the original
responses. To interpret our findings, and to provide initial support for their validity, we bridge
back to broader theoretical and empirical literature in consumer research. Eighteen frequentlymentioned themes emerged from our analysis which we grouped into four “pathways” reported
below.
FINDINGS
Pathway 1: Marketing Characteristics, Value, and Satisfaction
Oliver (1989) proposes a research approach that has been extensively used in the satisfaction
literature: the comparison standards paradigm. The paradigm suggests that consumers hold
certain product standards prior to consumption, observe product performance, compare the actual
performance with their standards, form confirmation/disconfirmation perceptions, combine these
perceptions with standard levels, and form satisfaction judgments with the product. Many
respondents in our study cited satisfaction with the focal brand as the main driver for their EAB.
This satisfaction is derived from perceived values including pricing (better prices), product
(superior product quality and design), promotion (corporate image and advertising/market
communication activities), and distribution (product/service availability, physical facilities). We
propose that the first pathway to EAB is through customer satisfaction with superior product and
service values as reflected in marketing characteristics.
Pathway 2: Utilitarian and Hedonic Benefits - What the Brand Does for Me
Fournier (1998) suggests that in close consumer-brand relationships, consumers come to identify
and be involved with many of the brands they regularly consume. One important reason why
people form lasting brand relationships is that such behavior helps create their personal identity
and construct their own self concept (Ball and Tasaki 1992; Belk 1988). Work by Park, Jaworski,
and MacInnis (1986) and Keller (1993) shows that there are three general dimensions of brand
identities: functional, symbolic, and experiential. Brand functional attributes represent the
utilitarian function or benefits of the product. Our data show that oftentimes consumers tried
different brands but only one brand would provide the most satisfying solution to their problem,
which formed the foundation of their EAB. These brands can aid consumers in fulfilling either a
self-oriented goal (internally driven, e.g. having younger looking skin, softer hair, stronger teeth)
or a social-oriented goal (supporting consumers’ identity and social/professional roles, e.g.
expressing self identity). Enhancing consumers’ role in and out of the home is another attribute
that these brands often possess.
Pathway 3: Consumer Socialization and Intergenerational Influence
Brands can also serve a social purpose by reflecting social ties to one’s family, community, or
cultural group (Muniz and O’Guinn 2001). Since the family is typically a consumer’s most
significant reference group, one way in which these social ties may be formed is via
intergenerational transfer (Moschis 1985, 1987). In our surveys, many consumers revealed that
they became emotionally attached to brands that they grew up with and their parents never used
other brands. Many respondents also reported EAB with brands that their parents used as a way
to “honor” the family tradition. The “family tradition” theme is not only limited to highinvolvement, expensive branded goods, our respondents also reported their attachment to brands
of fast-moving consumer goods such as soft drinks, laundry detergent, mayonnaise, and cookies.
Pathway 4: Sentimentality and Emotional Memories
Our fourth pathway to EAB involves an especially personal and meaningful pairing between a
brand and some situation(s), experience(s), place(s), and/or person/people. For example, a
woman might recall the “ritual” of visiting her grandfather as a child, sitting on the front porch of
his house, and sharing Coca-cola and a Snickers candy bar. Now as an adult, she often has Cocacola and a Snickers bar, and it reminds her of her grandfather, his house, and their front porch
talks. With Pathway 4, specific brands become powerfully connected to sentimental and
emotionally-imbued memories involving some meaningful place, situation, experience and/or
person. It is as if repeatedly returning to the brands invokes a commemorative re-experiencing
of some favorable or even longed-for past. It should be noted that inter-generational transfer
doesn’t require sentimental/emotional memory. Transfer alone could involve a user of Tide
simply saying her grandmother used it, her mother used it, and so she uses it too. Likewise,
Sentimental and Emotion memory does not require inter-generational dynamics. Someone might
say he drank Taster’s Choice coffee with his first long-term girlfriend in college while they
stayed up nights to study. He reflects back fondly on those times to this day when he buys
Taster’s Choice. Thus Pathway 4 can correlate with Pathway 3, but not necessarily.
CONCLUSION
We expand the understanding of the EAB construct, initiated by TMP, by showing the pathways
through which consumers form their EAB. We were also successful in having respondents report
on brands with extreme levels of emotional attachment. While TMP’s results suggest that brands
to which consumers are emotionally attached tend to be high involvement and symbolically or
hedonically related, out results show that EAB is also evidenced in low involvement and
functionally related product categories. This finding could be more formally tested by controlling
brands within different product categories (e.g. low vs. high involvement, utilitarian vs. hedonic).
Future research should also examine the strength of each pathway, as well as the relation
between EAB and market leadership.
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