Purpose

Building meaningful relationships between consumers and service brands has received significant attention. This paper aims to explore how brand love in services – a relationship between the consumer and the service brand – is created through relationships between the consumer and other people. Specifically, we explore how brand love is created through the social relationships consumers form with other consumers.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual paper synthesizes the literature on consumer-brand relationships, brand community, social support and service providers, psychological ownership and brand love in the context of services.

Findings

This paper suggests that consumers love brands that are meaningful to them. Brands can become more meaningful to consumers by facilitating interpersonal connections and helping consumers define their identity. The connection between social relationships with other consumers and brand love is mediated by the consumer's level of perceived membership in the community. For some consumers, perceived membership grows to the point of becoming perceived psychological ownership of the community, where the consumer feels a sense of responsibility for the brand's and the community's well-being.

Originality/value

This paper advances theoretical understanding of how brand love operates in services and how it can be enhanced through services’ management.

中文翻译：

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迈向服务中的品牌爱理论：身份和社会关系的力量

目的

在消费者和服务品牌之间建立有意义的关系受到了极大的关注。本文旨在探讨服务中的品牌爱——消费者与服务品牌之间的关系——是如何通过消费者与他人之间的关系产生的。具体来说，我们探讨了如何通过消费者与其他消费者形成的社会关系来创造品牌爱。

设计/方法/方法

这篇概念性论文综合了服务背景下关于消费者-品牌关系、品牌社区、社会支持和服务提供者、心理所有权和品牌喜爱的文献。

发现

本文表明，消费者喜欢对他们有意义的品牌。通过促进人际关系和帮助消费者定义他们的身份，品牌可以变得对消费者更有意义。与其他消费者的社会关系和品牌喜爱之间的联系是由消费者在社区中感知到的会员级别介导的。对一些消费者来说，会员意识发展到成为社区的心理主人翁意识，消费者对品牌和社区的福祉产生责任感。

原创性/价值

本文推进了对品牌爱如何在服务中运作以及如何通过服务管理来增强它的理论理解。