The Study On Structural Dimensions, Influencing Factors Of Brand Love And Its' Impact On Brand Loyalty

Brand love is a kind of relationship between consumer and brand which is analog to humun love, the main content of brand love is consumer's positive cognition and feeling to brand.With the increasing homogeneity of technical Competition between enterprises and the increasing fierceness of marketing competition, the importance of brand in consumer behaviors is also increasingly significant. Building consumers'brand love on the basis of constructing interactive relationship between brands and consumers is now becoming a new strategy for brand enterprises creating continuous competition advantage.The theoretical research focusing on brand love already has some discussion on the concept connotation of brand love and the general relation between brand love and brand loyalty. Brand love study is now still at an initial stage in general. Especially compared with western brand love studies, basic and systematic theoretical framework and empirical study in brand love studies focusing on Chinese consumers is scarce. The existing brand love literatures still has much disagreement on structural dimensions of brand love. Systematical and deep studies on brand love influent factors and influent mechanism as well as specific mechanism of brand love to brand loyalty are also in shortage.Based on previous research and using sports shoes brand as an example, this thesis starts from consumers'core connotation of brand love, refines the structural dimensions of brand love, analyzes the influences of brand experience and congruence between brand and consumers'self-concept on brand love, discusses the mechanism of brand love's effect on brand loyalty, analyzes the mediating effect of brand sensitivity and the moderating effect of hedonic consumption value and product price in the mechanism.Based on theoretical research, the empirical work of this thesis deals with the sports shoes brands. The author deeply interviewed 35 consumers in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shaoxin and Guangzhou. Scales for pre-investigation was formed with the combination of content acquired from interviews and related theories. A small scale survey aiming at testing the pre-investigation scales was carried out at sports shoes brand special counters and gymnasiums in Hangzhou, Shaoxin, Taizhou and Wenzhou.300 copies of questionnaire were disseminated and 187 valid questionnaires were acquired. According to item purification, reliability and validity test, the formal scales were made. A large scale survey using formal scales was conducted at sports shoes brand special counters and gymnasiums in 39 cities concerning 16 provinces (municipality directly under central government) in China.900 copies of questionnaire were disseminated and 516 valid questionnaires were acquired. Data analysis software tools used in this thesis were SPSS 15.0 and Amos 7.0. Descriptive statistic analysis, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were employed in data analysis for corresponding empirical tests of theoretical hypothesis.Based on theoretical study and empirical analysis, the dissertation got following conclusions:First, brand love has three dimensions named brand satisfaction and trust, brand attachment, brand passion. Brand satisfaction and trust is a rational dimension reflecting consumers'fundamental demand to brands; Brand passion is a perceptual dimension reflecting consumers'peak emotional brand experience; Brand attachment is also a perceptual dimension reflecting consumers'willingness to treat brands as their partners and build long term relationship with them.Second, brand experience and congruence between brand and consumers' self-concept are two factors influencing brand love. Brand experience has positive effects on each dimension of brand love, Congruence between brand and consumers' self-concept has positive effects on brand passion and brand attachment but has no positive effect on brand satisfaction and trust.Third, each dimension of brand love has direct effect on brand loyalty, different dimension has different effect strength and significance on brand loyalty. Brand satisfaction and trust has direct and positive effect on brand attitude loyalty, brand passion has direct and positive effect on brand behavior loyalty, brand attachment has direct and positive effect on both brand attitude loyalty and brand behavior loyalty.Forth, brand sensitivity is a mediating variable in the effect mechanism of brand love to brand loyalty. Brand satisfaction and trust has indirect and positive effect on brand attitude loyalty and brand behavior loyalty by positive effect on brand sensitivity. Brand attachment has indirect and positive effect on brand attitude loyalty and brand behavior loyalty by positive effect on brand sensitivity.Fifth, hedonic consumption value is a moderating variable in the effect mechanism of brand love to brand loyalty. High degree of consumers'hedonic consumption value significantly strengthens brand satisfaction and trust's effect on brand attitude loyalty, significantly strengthens brand attachment's effect on brand sensitivity, significantly strengthens brand attachment's effect on brand behavior loyalty.Sixth, product price is a moderating variable in the effect mechanism of brand love to brand loyalty. High price significantly weakens brand passion's effect on brand behavior loyalty, significantly strengthens brand attachment's effect on brand behavior loyalty, significantly strengthens brand attachment's effect on brand attitude loyalty.The concept of brand love was proposed only several years ago, A deep study of brand love in marketing has just started, The work of this thesis steps further from the performance already got in previous brand love study and get makes some theoretic progress. The value of this thesis lies in the aspects as follows:First, this thesis carries out brand love structural dimension research based on consumers' brand love concept connotation, this research method is much deeper than simply apply the studies of human love dimensions in psychology. The work of this thesis lays a foundation for further and systematic study on brand love.Second, this thesis develops a research framework of brand love influential factors including static and dynamic factors, this framework provides reference for subsequent studies.Third, this thesis is different from previous general studies on relationship of brand love and other variables, the work of this thesis studies the influential factors of brand love and mechanism of brand love's effect on brand loyalty to a dimensional level with the analysis of brand love structural dimensions. The research conclusions are much more available in marketing practice than previous research results.Fourth, this thesis discusses indirect effects of each brand love dimension on brand loyalty, makes clear the mediating effect of brand sensitivity on these indirect effects and acquires a integrated model explaining direct and indirect effects of brand love on brand loyalty. This model better explains the relationship of brand love and brand loyalty and provides a new way for subsequent studies aiming at relationship of brand love and brand loyalty.Fifth, this thesis considers the features of both consumers and products and verifies the moderating effect of hedonic consumption value and product price. The work of this thesis provides a new direction for subsequent studies concerning moderating variable in relationship of brand love and brand loyalty.Taking sports shoes brand as the research object, the result of this thesis can not be directly applied to other product or service context. This thesis can not control all other variables effecting brand love and all other mediating variables and moderating variables in the effect mechanism of brand love on brand loyalty because of the complexity of brand love,the limitation of sample data and the limitation of statistical analysis technique. Subsequent research can carry out more empirical studies in other product and service context and can also try to find other mediating variables and moderating variables different from variables in the models in this thesis to improve and enrich the work of this thesis.