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- Title
Towards a Critique of Brand Relationships.
- Authors
Bengtsson, Anders
- Abstract
With the introduction of relationship thinking in the context of consumers and brands, the anthropomorphization of brands has been taken to its logical conclusion. While the idea of brand relationships has enriched our understanding for the role of brands in the life of the consumer, there is a considerable concern regarding the parallelism to human relationship theory. This paper examines the limitations with the relationship metaphor and interpersonal relationship theory in the context of consumers and brands. In research on consumers and brands, considerable efforts have been made to demonstrate the anthropomorphous characteristics such as personality (Aaker 1997; Batra, Lehmann, and Singh 1993; Durgee 1988) and charisma (Smothers 1993) that consumers credit to brands. A similar way of anthropomorphizing brands is found in the brand management literature, where issues of identity have been given considerable attention in recent years (Aaker 1996; Aaker and Joachimsthaler 2000; de Chematony 1999; Kapferer 1997). This personification of brands has now reached a new phase with the introduction of a discourse based on relationships (Apéria 2001; Blackston 1993; Fournier 1998; Palmer 1996). In her seminal article, Fournier (1998) introduced relationship theory to consumer research and demonstrated its usefulness for understanding the roles brands have in the life of the consumer. The article has already been characterized as a modem classic (Østergaard 2002), and subsequent research on consumers and brands that builds on the relationship idea is emerging (Ji 2002; Kates 2000; Olsen 1999). While brand relationship is a promising new way of thinking about consumer brand behavior (e.g. Fournier and Yao 1997), there has been a lack of reflection regarding its feasibility to accurately represent the way consumers interact with brands. By arguing that the concept...
- Subjects
CONSUMER behavior; MATHEMATICAL models of consumption; CONSUMER preferences; BRAND name products; PRODUCT management
- Publication
Advances in Consumer Research, 2003, Vol 30, Issue 1, p154
- ISSN
0098-9258
- Publication type
Article