The impact of brand personality on consumer behavior: the role of brand love

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influences of brand personality on consumer behavior, with a special emphasis on the brand love construct. The aim is to expand upon existing literature in the field of branding, investigating the relationship between brand love and brand personality through experiential approaches to consumer behavior. Design/methodology/approach The conceptual model and the analysis of related hypotheses were based on a sample of 478 Portuguese clothing brand consumers. The data were collected using an online survey and the data analysis was done using the structural equations modeling. Findings The results show that brand personality has a positive and significant impact on brand love, resistance to negative information and self-disclosure and brand love has a positive and significant impact on brand loyalty, word-of-mouth, resistance to negative information, willingness to pay more, self-disclosure and active engagement. Research limitations/implications This study has some methodological limitation affecting its potential contributions. This investigation has a cross-sectional nature and only tested a few variables as consequences of brand personality. Practical implications This investigation provides evidence of the major impacts of both brand personality and brand love, showing how they combine to boost relevant outcomes like brand loyalty, WOW, willingness to pay more, resistance to negative information, self-disclosure or active engagement. Originality/value The originality of this research is related to three fundamental aspects: it is the first time the relationship between brand personality and brand love is tested using second-order modeling to capture the combined effects of all dimensions of brand personality; the influence of brand personality is usually related to attitudes (e.g. word-of-mouth, willingness to pay more, etc.) and not with feelings, such as love, the most powerful feeling that can be established between two people or between a person and a brand (in the case of brand love); and the authors tested brand love by linking brand personality and some traditional relational outcomes under the assumption that brand love can strengthen such relationships.