Tie the knot: building stronger consumers’ attachment toward a brand

Extant research has promoted the importance and seeking to establish a deeper understanding of brand loyalty. However, it still remains elusive and uncertain. A study with more than 1,500 CEOs worldwide believes that creating a bond with consumers and continuing to learn how to strengthen the bond are essential for realizing strategies and delivering on shareholder expectations. Not surprisingly, firms and researchers are seeking ways to build a stronger connection with consumers, because such attachment acts as a key requisite in a firm’s success. Consequently, understanding how marketers can intensify the attachment is important. This article offers a framework for building stronger consumers’ attachment and testing it based on a survey of 432 participants. Four factors are deemed to be important: ideal self-congruence, sensory experience, responsiveness, and CSR beliefs. Attachment influences loyalty and resilience to negative information. Additionally, attachment fully mediates ideal self-congruence and responsiveness to loyalty, as well as ideal self-congruence and sensory experience to resilience to negative information. Publisher Statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Strategic Marketing on 29th June 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0965254X.2016.119586