عوامل اصلی تعیین هویت مشتری به وسیله ی برند

The concept of consumer–brand identification (CBI) is central to our understanding of how, when, and why brands help consumers articulate their identities. This paper proposes and tests an integrative theoretical framework of the antecedents of CBI. Six drivers of CBI, a moderator, and two consequences are posited and tested with survey data from a large sample of German household consumers. The results confirm the influence of five of the six drivers, namely, brand–self similarity, brand distinctiveness, brand social benefits, brand warmth, and memorable brand experiences. Further, we find that all five of these antecedents have stronger causal relationships with CBI when consumers have higher involvement with the brand's product category. Finally, CBI is tied to two important pro-company consequences, brand loyalty and brand advocacy. Theoretical and managerial significance of the findings are discussed.

Striving for a sense of self (i.e., answering the question, “Who am I?”) is a fundamental aspect of the human condition (Belk, 1988, Berger and Heath, 2007, Brewer, 1991, Freud, 1922, Kleine et al., 1993 and Tajfel and Turner, 1985). Further, as succinctly put by Belk (1988, p. 160), “we are what we have”—what we buy, own, and consume define us to others as well as to ourselves. In this context, it is widely recognized that brands have the ability to embody, inform, and communicate desirable consumer identities ( Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003, Escalas, 2004, Escalas and Bettman, 2003, Escalas and Bettman, 2009, Fournier, 1998, Fournier, 2009, Lam et al., 2010, Levy, 1959, Strizhakova et al., 2008 and Tsai, 2005). Not surprisingly then, a growing body of research has focused on what it means for consumers to identify with brands and the implications of such consumer–brand identification (CBI) for both consumer behavior and effective brand management (e.g., Chernev et al., 2011, Escalas and Bettman, 2003, Escalas and Bettman, 2009 and Lam et al., 2010). Much less is understood, however, about the drivers of CBI—what factors cause it, when, and why. While a comprehensive sense for what produces CBI is of considerable importance to both marketing academics and practitioners, these issues have been examined from many diverse perspectives, causing our understanding to be rather fragmented. For instance, in their work on consumer–company identification, Bhattacharya and Sen (2003) draw on social identity theory to proffer consumers' self-defining and enhancing motives as the main drivers of identification (see also Ahearne et al., 2005 and Bhattacharya et al., 1995). The work of Escalas and Bettman (2003, 2009), on the other hand, locates such identity-based bonds in the broader social context, suggesting that consumers bond with brands whose identities are consonant with desirable reference groups and celebrity endorsers. The communal consumption of brands and its role in the construction of identity narratives by consumers is stressed in the work of Fournier (2009), McAlexander, Schouten, and Koenig (2002), Muniz and O'Guinn (2001), and O'Guinn and Muniz (2009). Sociocultural factors such as the circulation of brand stories and myths among consumers are highlighted by Brown, Kozinets, and Sherry (2003), Diamond et al. (2009), Holt (2005), and Thompson, Rindfleisch, and Arsel (2006). Thomson, MacInnis, and Whan Park (2005) and Park, MacInnis, Priester, Eisingerich, and Iacobucci (2010), on the other hand, emphasize the role of emotional reactions to the brand in the formation of consumer–brand connections. It is also worth noting that while it is assumed that CBI can occur in a wide range of categories, empirical research in this domain has usually been restricted to single category studies (e.g., Lam et al., 2010), thereby precluding a deeper understanding of the category-specific determinants, if any, of CBI. Given this backdrop of fragmented insights into the drivers of CBI, the present paper makes three key contributions. First, it synthesizes a wide range of ideas pertaining to identity construction, identification, and brand relationships to provide a comprehensive conceptual framework for the determinants of CBI. The outcome of our conceptual synthesis is a set of six antecedents of CBI that includes three primarily cognitive variables (brand–self similarity, brand distinctiveness, and brand prestige) as well as three affectively rich brand-related factors (brand social benefits, brand warmth, and memorable brand experiences). Second, to strengthen the validity of our conceptual framework and to go beyond extant single-category examinations of CBI (e.g., Lam et al., 2010), we implicate an important category-level variable—product category involvement—as a moderator of the relationships between CBI and its various drivers. Additionally, we relate CBI to two key consequences: brand loyalty and brand advocacy. Finally, in the process of establishing this nomological network for CBI, we develop a valid, parsimonious measure of this focal construct that attempts to assess the state of CBI more independently of its antecedents and consequences (e.g., social rewards, negative affective states produced by discontinued brand usage) than extant measures (e.g., Lam et al., 2010). Next, we develop our conceptual framework culminating in a set of predictions pertaining to the antecedents and consequences of CBI. We then test our hypotheses with survey data from a large sample of German household consumers. The paper ends with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial significance of our findings.

The idea that brands can play a crucial role in the construction and maintenance of consumers' identities is not new (Keller, 1993 and Levy, 1959). Nonetheless, it is only recently that the concept of consumer–brand identification is finally receiving the conceptual and empirical attention it deserves (Escalas and Bettman, 2003, Escalas and Bettman, 2009, Fournier, 2009 and Lam et al., 2010). This research adds to the growing body of knowledge on this topic by proposing and testing an integrated framework for the drivers, moderators, and consequences of consumer–brand identification. Based on a synthesis of a variety of literatures, the framework includes six antecedent factors for CBI, of which three are mainly cognitive in nature (brand–self similarity, brand distinctiveness, and brand prestige), while the other three are more affect-based (brand social benefits, brand warmth, and memorable brand experiences). We also theorize that the drivers will display stronger relationships with CBI when a consumer's involvement with a brand's product category is relatively high. The results of the two pilot studies and a main survey study provided convincing empirical support for our framework. The six antecedents together accounted for over half of the variance in CBI in the main study, emphasizing their collective efficacy as determinants of our focal construct. Interestingly, very little support was obtained for the predictive role of brand prestige. Aside from the most obvious possibility that brand prestige does not, in general, influence CBI, it is plausible, given that there was sufficient variance on the brand prestige measure, that CBI is less sensitive to brand prestige in categories such as supermarkets, soft drinks, and even athletic shoes than in the more conventionally status or luxury product categories. Clearly, further research is needed to better understand the precise role of brand prestige. The results also provided reliable and consistent support for the hypothesized moderating role of product category involvement. Additional analyses revealed no evidence of a common method bias or the plausibility of alternative nomological networks (e.g., with reversed causality). In providing these insights, this paper makes several contributions, both theoretical and managerial, which are discussed next. 5.1. Contributions to branding and consumer behavior theory This paper advances our understanding of the relationship between brands and consumer identity in several key ways. First, this research provides an integrative understanding of the antecedents of CBI, bringing together drivers that have, thus far, been examined only in isolation. In particular, this paper is the first to propose and test an overarching framework for CBI that contains both cognitive and experiential (i.e., affect-rich) drivers of identification. Second, by providing evidence for the role of multiple drivers of CBI in a single model, we demonstrate that each of these drivers has an influence even when controlling for the effects of the others. Third, in contrast to the prominence bestowed on the cognitive drivers of identification in the company domain (e.g., Bhattacharya & Sen, 2003), our findings highlight a generally stronger role of the affective drivers (see, e.g., Table 6). It may be the case that a consumer's idiosyncratic experiences with the object of identification matter more than reflective, mindful factors when the object is concrete and palpable, such as a brand, than when it is more abstract and amorphous, such as a company. Given that we did not contrast, in our studies, consumer identification with a brand versus a company, future research that does so would help to more definitively establish whether and to what extent the drivers of the two differ. Further, this research is the first, to the best of our knowledge, to empirically examine the category-specific moderators of the relationship between CBI and a number of diverse drivers. By documenting the moderating effect of product category involvement, the present research provides a more nuanced, contingent theoretical picture of the forces underlying CBI (see also Escalas and Bettman, 2009 and Reimann and Aron, 2009). Future research may be able to expand our nomological network even further, providing a fuller explication of the various contingencies that regulate the influence of the key drivers of CBI. Such research may also clarify whether the same drivers and moderating variables are at work in determining the intensity and durability of consumer–brand relationships (Fournier, 2009 and Park et al., 2010). For instance, while we conceptualized brand–self similarity as the perceived congruence between consumers' sense of their current or actual self and that of the brand, it is possible that under certain contingencies, such as low category involvement, low self-esteem, or high self-consciousness (Malär et al., 2011), it is the consumers' sense of who they ideally would be (i.e., the ideal self) that may be more relevant in driving CBI. 5.2. Managerial implications Our research corroborates the positive link between CBI and its pro-brand consequences, such as loyalty and advocacy. Thus, it would seem that marketers would want to maximize CBI. At the same time, however, some recent research points to the potential limits and drawbacks of encouraging CBI (Chernev et al., 2011), suggesting that doing so may, in fact, make the consumer–brand relationship more rather than less susceptible, at least in the short-run, to competing forces that satiate consumers' need for identity-expression. While marketers would be wise to take this eventuality into account when planning their brand strategies, it is contingent on future research that establishes the long-term, rather than the short-term, effect of identity saturation on brand preferences. That said, this research provides brand managers with some actionable insights into the why of CBI within their specific contexts. Managers of all product categories, regardless of consumer involvement levels, must focus on and better understand the more idiosyncratic and affect-rich experiences their consumers have with their brands to harness these in the service of greater CBI. Additionally, managers who offer products and services to highly involved consumers should pay special attention to consumers' perceptions of a brand's personality and distinctiveness. Our research also suggests that to enhance CBI, managers must ensure that their brands have high social value and thus serve consumers' interpersonal goals (see also Muniz and O'Guinn, 2001, O'Guinn and Muniz, 2009 and Schouten and McAlexander, 1995). This can occur not only through the fostering of interactions between the brand and the consumer through a myriad of approaches, from event marketing to product co-creation, but also through interactions among consumers around a brand, through brand communities, both physical and virtual. Additionally, marketers can enhance or at least highlight the emotional appeal of their brand, albeit within the constraints imposed by the brand's functionality and overall positioning, with the objective of convincing consumers to think of the brand in a warm and emotional way, rather than as a cold and distant entity (see also Aaker, 1997, Diamond et al., 2009, Fournier, 1998 and Park et al., 2010). This can be achieved not only through conventional communication strategies but also through a coherent, well thought-out CSR (i.e., corporate social responsibility) platform that, implemented correctly and genuinely, may contribute greatly to a brand's perceived warmth. Our findings also suggest that marketers can increase CBI by creating distinctive and memorable out-of-the-ordinary brand experiences (e.g., cruise ship gala banquets, Napa Valley winery wine tastings, and extraordinary personal touches at Kimpton Hotels). Clearly, this is easier said than done; affectively-charged memories reside ultimately in the consumer's mind and are, thus, not under complete control of the marketer. At a minimum, then, marketers can attempt to provide the types of unique and vivid experiences that engender indelible memories, and they can then assess the extent to which these experiences and memories enhance CBI. 5.3. Limitations and future research directions While this paper represents a significant advance in our understanding of the antecedents of CBI, it is not without limitations. The most important of these limitations is the fact that to test our framework, we had to infer causal relationships from cross-sectional survey data. Given the lengthy gestation period that is likely involved in a consumer identifying with a brand, experimental and longitudinal study designs seem unrealistic. Nonetheless, future research may be able to test at least parts of our framework with alternative methodologies. Additionally, our results reveal a great deal of consonance between the European respondents of our main survey and the U.S. respondents of the validating survey in terms of the key relationships in our model. However, an important question remains: Might the nomological network for CBI be different, particularly in radically different cultures, for instance, in parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle-East? Future tests of the generalizability of the relationships to a broader cultural context are needed. In particular, given the rising economic, political, and cultural influences of the BRIC nations, it is important to validate our model with populations from these countries. Similarly, while our framework was tested with research participants spanning a wide range of demographics, there is room for greater generalizability through tests among demographic groups that we did not examine. More specifically, some secondary analyses suggest that the relationships between CBI and its antecedents are directionally stronger for the men in our sample than for the women. A deeper investigation of such gender differences may be of both conceptual and practical value. Further, our study categories were restricted largely to products rather than to services, with supermarkets perhaps being the only exception. One could argue that this restriction results in a particularly stringent test of our theory, as the posited relationships, particularly between CBI and its experience-based determinants, are likely to be stronger for services than for products. At the same time, we obtained no meaningful differences across the four categories we examined in terms of the predicted relationships. Regardless, it is essential that our model be examined in a wider set of categories and settings, including services that have experiences as their core offerings. Such research and others of its type may be able to provide many more valuable insights on the fascinating topic of why consumers identify with some brands and not with others.