BRAND ATTACHMENT, CUSTOMER TRUST AND CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT: WHAT RANKING OF THESE LINKS IN THE RELATIONAL CHAIN?

Abstract

Brand attachment, customer trust and customer engagement have been recognized for their mandatory role to build a strong brand-customer relationship and brand loyalty. The interactions between theses attitudinal variables have also been examined in different fields. However, no conceptual framework has examined at once, the interactions between the brand attachment, customer trust and the customer engagement. The present study explores the ways these marketing relational chain’s links interact and in what order they form the relational chain responsible of the long term brand-customer relationship. Using a structural equation modeling, on a sample of 220 costumers, we have found that the relational chain starts with the customer trust which is linked to the brand attachment, than the emotional engagement which leads to the calculated engagement.

Keywords

• brand attachment
• customer trust
• customer engagement
• affective engagement
• calculated engagement