Sustainability Matters: Unravelling the Power of ESG in Fostering Brand Love and Loyalty across Generations and Product Involvements

Abstract

The Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) concept is one of the potentially crucial strategic movements for sustainable business practices in the digital era. Despite this, there is a dearth of empirical evidence on the effect of ESG practices on customers’ brand perception and whether the effects of ESG on brand perception differ depending on product involvement and generational differences. This study aims to assess the effect of ESG on brand love and loyalty in product categories with high and low involvement, as well as in older and younger age groups. Utilizing the partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach, we conducted quantitative empirical research using an online questionnaire to examine the proposed model. The findings, based on a sample of 156 Thai respondents, indicate that ESG is significantly and positively related to brand love and loyalty. The result of the mediation analysis revealed that brand love partially mediates the effect of ESG on brand loyalty. The result of the moderation analysis indicates that product involvement has a moderating role between ESG and brand love, and between ESG and brand loyalty. The effects of ESG on brand love and loyalty are larger for low-product-involvement respondents than for high-product-involvement respondents. In addition, the effect of ESG on brand love was found to be stronger among younger age groups than among older age groups. The research underlines the importance of ESG and expands the existing understanding of the concept. Our study, which gives various implications and recommendations, is one of the rare attempts to verify the effects of ESG from the standpoint of customers.