Examination of the roles played by brand love and jealousy in shaping customer engagement

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of the present paper is to develop and validate a scale of romantic brand jealousy and to examine the role played by the brand love-jealousy framework on consumers' active engagement. Design/methodology/approach – In order to develop and validate the romantic brand jealousy scale the present study has employed Churchill's methodology. The study has used common factor analysis and structural equation modeling using LISREL 8.72. Findings – This research provides empirical evidence for a three-item romantic brand jealousy scale. The study results indicate that the romantic jealousy scale developed is valid and reliable. It also shows that in contrast to previous literature, wherein authors found that brand love would create customer engagement, the brand love-jealousy framework would act as a better mediator to create customer engagement and also to motivate the customer to purchase the brand. Research limitations/implications – This research was conducted in a specific country (India). It would be more robust if the scale developed by this study could be examined in the context of other countries. Practical implications – This study is expected to help managers to formulate a better marketing strategy to increase customer engagement using the proposed brand love-jealousy framework. Originality/value – This research adds value to the domain of consumer psychology research by proposing that brand jealousy needs to be created along with brand love in customer's mind to augment the level of active engagement.