| Extensive work in brand loyalty, notwithstanding, researchers and practitioners are still confounded over seemingly loyal customers' disloyal behavior. Choice behavior is often a function of external factors like convenience, shelf-display, etc. Evidently the attraction is not strong enough to seek out the liked brand. How can the brand create and maintain strong attraction?; Viewing loyalty as a consumer-brand relationship, two theories from the inter-personal relationships literature are evoked. The self-expansion model proposes that novelty is the key to keeping the attraction strong, and its loss is associated with declining romance. The attachment theory, extended to romantic relationships, proposes that attachments are formed when partners become familiar and, are available and responsive to each others needs. This research proposes that favorably-evaluated brand knowledge and perceived brand novelty on the one hand, and satiety with the brand on the other, work in opposite ways to create a structure of brand perceptions. This structure is considerably enhanced by the consumers' romantic psyche to create a state of attraction, termed brand romance, similar to romance in the interpersonal context. Brand romance is hypothesized to be a strong driver of brand loyalty.; Empirical results support the construct's three-factor structure, its reliability and validity. A discussion on its relationship with attitude to brand is also attempted. Finally the hypothesized model of antecedents and consequence of brand romance is also supported, save for the direct effect of brand knowledge on loyalty. Interpreting the results, the core forces of familiarity, novelty and satiety underlying the model are identified and a discussion of their workings in consumer-brand relationships is offered.; Marketers need to devise strategies which enhance brand romance by continually protecting the brand's key attributes while injecting novelty and monitoring satiety levels. If novelty declines, the way to recreate novelty is to increase the strength, favorability or uniqueness of the brand associations, or create a new set of brand associations. Keeping brand knowledge and novelty always ahead of brand satiety is the key. Several important benefits of brand romance are highlighted and directions for future research are offered. |
