Strong Brands, Strong Relationships

From the editor team of the ground-breaking Consumer-Brand Relationships: Theory and Practice comes this new volume. Strong Brands, Strong Relationships is a collection of innovative research and management insights that build upon the foundations of the first book, but takes the study of brand relationships outside of traditional realms by applying new theoretical frameworks and considering new contexts. The result is an expanded and better-informed account of people?s relationships with brands and a demonstration of the important and timely implications of this evolving sub-discipline.

A range of different brand relationship environments are explored in the collection, including: online digital spaces, consumer collectives, global brands, luxury brands, branding in terrorist organizations, and the brand relationships of men and transient consumers. This book attends to relationship endings as well as their beginnings, providing a full life-cycle perspective. While the first volume focused on positive relationship benefits, this collection explores dysfunctional dynamics, adversarial and politically-charged relationships, and those that are harmful to well-being. Evocative constructs are leveraged, including secrets, betrayals, anthropomorphism, lying, infidelity, retaliation, and bereavement. The curated collection provides both a deeper theoretical understanding of brand relationship phenomena and ideas for practical application from experiments and execution in commercial practice.

Strong Brands, Strong Relationships will be the perfect read for marketing faculty and graduate students interested in branding dynamics, as well as managers responsible for stewarding brands.

Introduction: Strengthening our Understanding of the Importance of Brands to Consumers, Firms, and Society at Large (Michael Breazeale, Susan Fournier, and Jill Avery) Part I: How Contexts Shape Brand Meaning 1.Loyalty and Brands in Consumers’ Assembled Lives (Linda L. Price) 2.Framing the Game: How Brands’ Relationships with Their Competitors Affect Consumer Preference (Neeru Paharia, Jill Avery and Anat Keinan) 3.The Role of Cultural Capital in Creating Glocal Brand Relationships (Dannie Kjeldgaard, Søren Askegaard, and Giana M. Eckhardt) Part II: Brands, Identities, and Self-Expression 4.Boys Will Be Brands: Exploring Male Consumer-Brand Relationships (Aliette Lambert and John Desmond) 5.Brand Relationships and Self-Identity: Consumer Use of Celebrity Meaning to Repair a Compromised Identity (Jennifer Edson Escalas and James R. Bettman) 6.How Lonely Consumers Relate to Brands: Insights from Psychological and Marketing Research (Christopher Long, Sukki Yoon, and Mike Friedman) 7.Identity Degrading Brands (Zeynep Arsel and Scott Stewart) Part III: Humanizing and Anthropomorphizing Brands 8.Befriending Mr. Clean: The Role of Anthropomorphism in Consumer-Brand Relationships (Jing Wan and Pankaj Aggarwal) 9.Anthropomorphism and Consumer-Brand Relationships: A Cross-Cultural Analysis (Mandeep Kaur Ghuman, Li Huang, Thomas J. Madden and Martin S. Roth) 10.The Post-Human Future of Brands (Robert V. Kozinets) Part IV: #BrandsOnline 11.From Stranger to Friend: Shaping Consumer-Brand Relationships with Social Media (Renée Richardson Gosline) 12.How Social Media Influencers Build a Brand Following by Sharing Secrets (Barbara Bickart, Soyean Kim, Seema Pai, Frédéric Brunel) 13.Customer-to-Customer Relationship Management (CCRM): How Marketers Can Successfully Engage Consumers Online (Molan Kim and Scott A. Thompson) Part V: Relationship Threats and Endings 14.The Unfaithful Brand: When Flirting with New Customer Segments, Make Sure You Are Not Already Married (Marius K. Luedicke and Elisabeth A. Pichler-Luedicke) 15.Dyads, Triads and Consumer Treachery: When Interpersonal Connections Guard Against Brand Cheating (Miranda Goode, Mansur Khamitov, and Matthew Thomson) 16.This Brand Is Just Not That Into You: Exploring the Role of Firm Integrity in How Consumers React to Customer Firing (Martin Mende, Maura L. Scott, Katherine N. Lemon, and Scott A. Thompson) 17.Communitas Interruptus: Consumer Experiences of Leaving Community (James H. McAlexander and Beth Leavenworth DuFault) 18.Consumers’ Experience of Brand Withdrawal: Unfolding Consumption Bereavement Theory (Cristel Antonia Russell and Hope Jensen Schau) Part VI: Building the Brand-Driven Organization 19.Building Brands from the Inside Out: Three Practitioner Stories (Chris Allen and Matt Carcieri) 20.Branding Terror: Building Notoriety in Violent Extremist Organizations (Michael Breazeale, Erin G. Pleggenkuhle-Miles, Gina Scott Ligon and Mackenzie Harms) 21.Identity Tensions in Business-Based Brand Relationships (Benjamin Lawrence and Patrick J. Kaufmann) 22.Success Factors for the Implementation of an Intended Brand Personality: Conceptual Framework and Insights from the Swiss Luxury Industry (Wayne D. Hoyer, Harley Krohmer and Lara Lobschat) Part VII: Systems and Metrics for Measuring Brand Relationships 23.Secret Relationships: Uncovering Consumers’ Hidden Feelings about Brands (Chip Walker and Belle Frank) 24.Using Relationship Metaphors to Understand and Track Brands (John Wittenbraker and Helen Zeitoun) 25.Constructing Consumer-Brand Relationships To Better Market and Build Businesses (MaxBlackston and Edward Lebar) Part VIII: The Futures of Branding 26.Contemplating the Futures of Branding (Michael Breazeale, Susan Fournier, and Jill Avery. With contributions by David Aaker, John Deighton, Gavan Fitzsimons, Susan Fournier, Robert V. Kozinets, Deborah MacInnis, Ann L. McGill, Deborah Roedder John, and Jonathan Schroeder)

Dr. Susan Fournier is Questrom Professor of Management and Faculty Director of the M.B.A. Program at Boston University, USA.

Dr. Michael Breazeale is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Mississippi State University, USA.

Dr. Jill Avery is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, Harvard University, USA.