Consumer Brand Love for Luxury Brands in India

Abstract

To establish brand love as the strongest bond between consumer and brand is a valuable target: different approaches explaining the antecedents of brand love can be found in literature. Concerning the outcome, most authors conclude on some positive relations towards brand loyalty, the willingness to pay a price premium and spreading positive word of mouth. Because of the growing importance of the luxury industry especially in emerging markets, this study investigates on the existence of brand love for luxury brands in the Indian market where so far, no quantitative research about brand love for luxury goods exists. The objective of this study is to research if Indian luxury brands are subject of brand love, and in case of existence, what kind of outcome is related to this phenomina. Data was collected via online questionnaire in May and June 2018. The sample was a non-probability convenience sample (n = 164) from Indian consumers. Relying on a modified model created by Carroll and Ahuvia (2006) a correlation analyses proved the relations between brand love, self-expressive brands, brand loyalty, positive word of mouth and the willingness to pay a price premium. An exploratory factor analyses which was carried out later suggests the adoption of a new three factor structure of brand love for future research in the context of high hedonic product categories.

Keywords

• brand love
• self-expressive brands
• brand loyalty
• willingness to pay a price premium