Exploring consumer–brand relationships (the Indian context)

Abstract

The ideas used in this study build on the basic model developed by Park and Lee (2005), which analyses consumer-brand relationships. This model comprises of relationships between brand personality-self image congruence (Sirgy 1982, 1997), brand relationship quality (Fournier 1994, 1998), satisfaction (Oliver 1980) and behavioral loyalty intentions (Zeithmal et al. 1996). We add to this model by including the constructs of self-completion and service quality, as well as by testing the model for two markedly different consumer age-groups. So far self-completion theory (Wicklund and Gollwitzer 1982) has largely been used in the contexts of status projection (e.g. Carr and Vignoles 2011) and materialism (e.g. Richins and Dawson 1992). Our study will contribute to the self-completion literature by illustrating its important role in consumer-brand relationships as well.