Critique of Marketing Paper

Brand Love
Journal of Marketing 76.2 (2012): 1-16

Rajeev Batra , Aaron Ahuvia, and Richard P. Bagozzi.

November 30, 2012

Submitted to
Prof . Mithileshwar Jha
Professor of Marketing
IIM Bangalore
By
Praveen S, FPM 2012, praveen.s@iimb.ernet.in
Towards course credit of Advanced Marketing Management (AMM)

1
1 Introduction
This paper offers a critique of the article “Brand Love” published in Journal of Marketing.
It considers whether the approaches and theories adopted by the authors Ahuvia, Batra
and Bagozzi (2012) are appropriate. The paper is also put in to check for its generaliz-
ability and accuracy. Interpretation of the literature used in the original article is also
used as and when needed.
Customer brand relationships has been one of the important areas of marketing. Over
the years many researchers have studied about the nature and functions of consumer’s
relationship with the brand, and the processes which govern them. This has given way to
a number of constructs like brand liking, brand attachment, brand loyalty etc. which pro-
duces human relationship overtones. Brand Love is an interesting and relevant construct
which has been in the research domain in the past decade.
Since the author conceptualized an important marketing phenomena and developed a
new higher order model, the ideas present in the paper deserves to be closely examined.
The authors’ objective and findings are reviewed first. The standing of the present
paper on Brand love literature is evaluated. Then the methodology adopted is reviewed.
Multiple methods of study involved and their linkages are evaluated. Adequacy of sample,
category and restrictive assumptions used in theorizing and empirical analysis are also
discussed. Critical evaluations of some of the ideas presented in the paper is presented
next. Finally the writing style and structure of the paper are discussed.

2 Summary
One of the authors Ahuvia has been continuously researching about the effects of ’Love
on Brand’ Ahuvia (1993), Ahuvia (2005) and Ahuvia, Batra and Bagozzi (2009). The
current paper can be seen as an extension of their previous study. According to the
authors’ there is a need for grounded theory approach in studying Brand Love, due to

1. Increased substitution of interpersonal love literature in explorative studies in

Brand love. According to the author this seems to be inappropriate as Brand
love may be different from interpersonal love. This is due to fact that different
types of interpersonal love exists, and theories of one can not be applied to the
other. For example theories of sexual love can not be used to theories in parental
love.

2. Failure to distinguish between love as a relationship and love as an emotion. Emo-

tion can be a one time development, but relationship can be of long term and builds
through transactions.

3. Prototype approach is not used for identifying and defining different type of Brand
love.

(The concept Brand Love in this context can be taken as a metaphor applied to Branding
philosophy. It also should be treated like ’Organisational ecology’, where all the theories

2
in ecological studies can not be applied to organization studies). Extant brand love
research sometimes studies the love emotion and sometimes studies the love relationship,
but it rarely acknowledges the distinction. Therefore the objective of the paper is to fill
the gap in the present literature.

1. Brand love needs to be conceptualized from the ground up, built on a deep under-
standing of how consumers experience it, and only then should valid connections
be made to the interpersonal love literature.

2. Represent Brand Love from view of customer experience as a higher-order construct

including multiple cognition’s, emotions, and behaviors, which consumers organize
into a mental prototype. (Brand love as a mental prototype seems to be correct,
but how well the author has been able to express it using the prototype model
needs be analyzed).

The authors are trying to investigate the nature and consequences of Brand love. They
are providing more meaning to the Brand love construct using prototype modeling. Dif-
ferent elements of Brand love are identified using quality interviews. Then they use survey
data to model these elements in as both first and higher order model structural equation
modeling. Prototype modeling to Brand love is conceptualized using antecedents and
outcomes and various elements relating them.
Study 1 and 2 by Ahuvia, Batra and Bagozzi (2012) yielded ten major components
of Brand Love prototype: high quality, linkages to strongly held values, beliefs that the
brand provided intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards, use of the loved brand to express
both current and desired self-identity, positive affect, a sense of rightness and a feeling
of passion, an emotional bond, investments of time and money, frequent thought and
use, and length of use. A prototype is a list of attributes (i.e., prototype features) that
people associate with a particular kind of thing, in this case love. The authors also hier-
archically reduced the ten attributes as self–brand integration, passion-driven behaviors,
positive emotional connection, long-term relationship, positive overall attitude valence,
attitude certainty and confidence (strength), and anticipated separation distress.(Table
1 of Ahuvia, Batra and Bagozzi (2012). They also conclude that since none of the prior
brand love studies have all the aspects of Brand Love prototype uncovered here, they
conclude that interpersonal studies do not provide adequate theoretical foundation for
Brand Love research.
In study 3 using structural equation modeling they estimated first order and higher
order representations of Brand Love. Predictive models using the higher order model
showed that it predicts brand loyalty, WOM, and resistance to negative information
better than a simple overall measure of brand love.

3
3 Review
3.1 Standing in literature
The authors comment that interpersonal love can not be used in Brand love domain, and
we need new conceptualization. Ahuvia was instrumental in the application of interper-
sonal love theories in Branding. Ahuvia’s earlier studies were based in interpersonal love
literature. The authors also comment that “Progress in brand love research has been
hindered by a lack of exploratory studies that guide subsequent measurement and the-
ory development.”. But one of the cited papers Albert, Merunka, and Valette-Florence
(2008) is indeed an exploratory study, done in similar setting as study 1 and 2. It came
up with 11 dimensions underlying Brand Love.
Albert, Merunka, and Valette-Florence (2008) provide a similar type of analysis to
their Studies 1 and 2. They find that 11 dimensions underlie brand love: passion, a long
duration relationship, self-congruity, dreams, memories, pleasure, attraction, uniqueness,
beauty, trust (satisfaction), and a willingness to state this love. But their interviews can
be found to be superior as they do not use the word “Love” in their interview to prevent
any bias. Ahuvia, Batra and Bagozzi (2012) agree that prototypes are cultural models
and can be cultural sensitive. But they ignored the findings of Albert, Merunka, and
Valette-Florence (2008) which was based in French settings. The difference in finding
may be due to the cultural differences between the samples.
Loyalty, WOM and Resistance to negative publicity was identified as the outcomes
of Brand Love by Carrol and Ahuvia (2006). The same result is uncovered by two
qualitative interviews conducted by Ahuvia, Batra and Bagozzi (2012). But the authors
have not acknowledged the earlier paper for the findings. There might have been a bias
in the studies 1 and 2 to get antecedents as Loyalty, WOM and Resistance.
There is an extensive literature on Brand and customer relationships available. The
authors have not positioned their findings in relation to this literature. For example
studies like Allen, Fournier and Miller (2008) which view consumers are active meaning
makers, paving way for co creation embraced in Brand might be a useful conceptual
domain to better explain Brand love. The author is starting from a point in the literature
and critiquing some of the earlier development on Brand love. They failed to bring a
coherent definition of Brand love compatible to existing literature. It will be difficult
to distinguish between the other constructs which define the Brand-Customer interface.
Any construct during its development phase has to be defined and given meaning with
respect to the existing literature. Earlier studies in Brand love rooted in psychological
literature was able to explain the difference between Brand love and similar constructs
like Brand delight and Brand liking. They also could explain the type of categories in
which Brand love can be experienced. Distanced itself from previous literature, present
study by Ahuvia, Batra and Bagozzi (2012) do not have the distinctiveness or the destined
application of the construct.

4
3.2 Methodology
The methodology employed in the study is similar to a 2009 conference paper in AMA
“All You Need Is Love: Assessing Consumers’ Brand Love”. The authors of the mentioned
conference paper employed a two study, based on qualitative interviews and structural
equation modeling. Ahuvia, Batra and Bagozzi (2012) also follows the same methodology
as proposed by the conference paper.
Categories concentrated on, location of the samples and key demographic and social
details of the sample are not given. (even in the web appendix at Journal of Marketing).
Holt (2004) and others have contributed greatly to a changing perspective to branding
with focus on brands relationship with culture than customers relationship with brand.
Therefore with out understanding the socio-cultural setting it will be impossible to fully
appreciate the relationships developed. And therefore generalizability to other cultures
and geographies requires a wider sample accommodating different cultures.
Study 1 and 2 was conducted on respondents between 23 and 45 years of age, highly
educated, urban, and approximately equally male and female. Selection of sample was
inadequate as the existing literature already suggest that Brand love is high on brand that
offer symbolic benefits. A more appropriate sample would have been that of respondents
from all income groups and urban and rural areas.
Study 1 and 2 were based on qualitative interviews. Study 1 examined all types of
non-interpersonal love as 70 structured telephonic interviews and follow up interviews.
Study two had 18 detailed interviews focusing mainly on loved brands. They analyzed
the depth interviews in Study 1 and all interviews from Study 2 using a grounded theory
approach. They did a pretest data collection with undergraduate students for category
identification and scale refinement.
Final data collection was through an online survey to 268 undergraduate students.
After answering questions about this loved brand, respondents then answered the same
questions about another brand from the same product category toward which they felt
“mostly neutral about, instead of loved.” Undergraduate students will not become a good
sample as they are programmed to respond in a certain manner due to over exposure to
surveys and interviews. Also since there conception is limited, they would mostly talk
about their aspiring brands. Since Brand love is conceptualized as a post consumption
construct this sample is inadequate.
The use of qualitative interview can capture a thick description of the “Brand love”.
The methodology employed was appropriate and well supported by literature. It showed
how to structurally model survey data and showed how higher abstract notions can be
well represented using more concrete lower order sub components. There was adequate
rigor in the analysis and data collection methods. (The qualitative part in study 1
and study2 itself is vast as shown in appendix in AMA website). First confirming the
occurrence of the construct and then studying the nature of the construct seems to be
appropriate. This can be reapplied in similar cases when we are in similar situation of
developing a construct.

5
3.3 Issues
Some of the critical observations regarding the article could be the following.
1. Title “Brand Love” is apt but short, missing the information about the kind of
study that they try to employ. “Brand Love” makes an impression that they are
explaining the construct “Brand Love” in the paper.

2. Even though we can agree to the use of prototype model to Brand love as authors
propose, it does not not undermine the use of “love” metaphor to the Branding
domain. The gap as the authors mention using the interpersonal studies applied to
Brand love needs recheck with a more concrete theoretical background. Theorists
have long argued about the benefit of metaphors.They say that difference between
the compared and comparing domains need not be taken as the weakness of the
metaphor. In a metaphor “The focus is primarily on the similarities or overlapping
ground between domains and diverts attention away from the dissimilarities or
"tension" (Ortony, 1975).Morgan argues that the "creative potential of metaphor
depends upon there being a degree of difference between the subjects involved
in the metaphorical process" (1980: 611). Thus they argue that some degree of
differentiation between the two domains is necessary for the construction of an
effective metaphor. In that sense interpersonal love may provide as an effective
metaphor for brand theory development, and the perceived differences need not be
criticized.

3. The authors’ argue “Through this richer understanding of brand love, we gain
insight into how brand liking can potentially be changed into brand love, and we
draw theoretical and managerial implications.”. Finding the elements of Brand
Love does not explain how Brand liking can be changed in to Brand love. We also
need to know how Brand liking will influence the elements of Brand love. And
moreover brand liking has been found as a prerequisite for Brand Love in previous
literature. So managers should focus on achieving Brand liking. Author says in
his ’managerial implications’ that since elements of Brand love has been identified,
targeting some of these lower order concrete sub components will lead to Brand
love. But whether the elements of Brand Love will have a causal effect requires
further studies.

4. The author also tells that there is no adequate distinction between Love emotion
and relationship in the literature. But the branding literature has already estab-
lished the emotional route to Brand relationship. Keller’s Brand pyramid talks
about both emotional and performance route to Brand resonance. So making emo-
tion and relationship distinct in the case of Brand needs to be rechecked in the
wake of earlier literature.

5. The author comments on Brand love prototype that “prototype definitions are
always characterized by fuzzy boundaries, which, in the current context, means
that a typical consumer will view some brands as definitely loved, some brands as

6
 definitely not loved, and other brands falling into a “sort-of-loved” middle category”.
Brand itself is an abstract concept which lives in the mind of the consumer, without
having any clear cut boundaries. So having clear cut cut boundaries between loved
brands and ’sort of loved’ can be only category dependent. Since author has this
view, he should have tried to explain this variation of this behavior. By explaining
the difference in Brand love patterns across categories, author could have made the
findings more useful to managers.

6. While discussing about the applicability of using interpersonal love in the case of
Brand love, the authors noted that brands do not return the love received by them,
as in the case of interpersonal love. But if we take the view that Loyalty/WOM/ Re-
sistance to negative publicity are the outcomes of Brand Love, most brand rewards
the customers for this. Reward can be in terms of satisfying symbolic, sensory and
functional needs. It can also be in the form of social links that brand relationship
provide. Brand relations can also provide venues wherein emotional support, ad-
vice, companionship and camaraderie are provided Fournier (2009). The concept
of subjective well being within the domain of psychology, which makes people’s
lives easier, better and happier can also be seen as a major reward for consumers
Deiner, Kesebir and Lucas (2008) Guillen-Royo (2008).

7. Though the author tell “Sternberg’s decision/commitment component is largely

irrelevant to brand love” his results in Table 1 has commitment as a constituent of
Long term relationship. From this view decision/commitment part of Sternberg’s
triangular theory is valid and it is one of the factors that drives Brand Love. Ahuvia,
Batra and Bagozzi (2012) comments “Rather, Sternberg’s commitment refers to a
perceived normative, moral obligation to maintain the relationship even in the face
of a much better alternative”. This factor is captured in the Table 1-outcome
Loyalty, positive WOM and resistance to negative information about the brand.

8. It is also suspected that there is high covariance between the each of the lower
order constructs, as most of the loved brands have all of them. Brand love is just
like any other love with its own attitude and behavioral formation.Also no causal
relationship was found as claimed in the introduction. The study only explains the
antecedents and outcomes.

3.4 Future research

Future research in the following areas will help to explore the Brand Love even further

1. A longitudinal study on identifying the processes involved in Brand love building

is necessary and will be of significant importance to managers.

2. Just like other interpersonal love relationships, instances of breaking the Brand love
relationship needs to be found out. This will help managers to maintain Brand love.

3. Degree of tolerance in Brand love to certain behaviours needs to be studied.

7
 4. A typology of important relationship which is acting at the customer- brand inter-
face is important.

5. Love relationships in certain categories needs to be checked whether they are ori-
ented towards the Brand. It can also be oriented towards product or technology.
Such relationships are also imteresting areas for futher research. Some people seems
to be in love with Linux. But they are originally in love with open source technol-
ogy.

6. Willingness to pay for for loved brands has to be studied in detail. Businesses
which are profit oriented can turn customer centric, if substantial findings can be
made.

7. Research needed for generalizability of the findings to other customers and cate-
gories

8. Role of contract theory in Brand love relationships needs to be researched. (like

marital contracts)

9. A life cycle approach to Brand love can be done, and analyze the different temporal
stages.

3.5 Writing style

The abstract seems to be capturing the essence of the paper well. Most of the qualitative
analysis is not represented in the paper for meeting the space requirement. But these are
provided in the journal website. Use of previous literature was a model to follow as it
represents the finding of many and common readers can understand the arguments easily,
though the validity of the arguments can be disputed. All the elements of Brand love
uncovered are explained well in the article. The language used is simple and consistent
but the experimental methods were not described adequately.

8
References
1. Ortony, A. 1975. Why metaphors are necessary and not just nice. Educational
Theory, 2: 45-53.

2. Morgan, G. 1980. Paradigms, metaphors and puzzle solving in organization theory.

Administrative Science Quarterly, 25: 605-622.

3. Oswick, Cliff, Tom Keenoy, and David Grant. "METAPHOR AND ANALOGI-
CAL REASONING IN ORGANIZATION THEORY: BEYOND ORTHODOXY."
Academy of Management Review 27.2 (2002): 294-303.

4. Batra, Rajeev, Aaron Ahuvia, and Richard P. Bagozzi. "Brand love." Journal of
Marketing 76.2 (2012): 1-16.

5. Bauer, Hans, Daniel Heinrich, and Carmen-Maria Albrecht (2009), “All You Need
Is Love: Assessing Consumers’ Brand Love,” in Proceedings of the American Mar-
keting Association Summer Educators Conference, Michael Kamin and Ingrid M.
Martin, eds. Chicago: American Marketing Association, 252–53.

6. Albert, Noel, Dwight Merunka, and Pierre Valette-Florence (2008), “When Con-
sumers Love Their Brands: Exploring the Concept and its Dimensions,” Journal of
Business Research, 61 (10), 1062–75.

7. Carroll, Barbara A., and Aaron C. Ahuvia. "Some antecedents and outcomes of
brand love." Marketing Letters 17.2 (2006): 79-89.

8. Allen, Chris T., Susan Fournier, and Felicia Miller. "Brands and their meaning
makers." Handbook of consumer psychology (2008): 781-822.

9. Holt, Douglas B. How brands become icons: The principles of cultural branding.
Harvard Business Press, 2004.

10. Fournier, Susan. "Lessons learned about consumers’ relationships with their brands."
(2009).

11. Diener, Ed, Pelin Kesebir, and Richard Lucas. "Benefits of Accounts of Well-
Being—For Societies and for Psychological Science." Applied Psychology 57.s1
(2008): 37-53.

12. Guillen-Royo, Monica. "Consumption and subjective wellbeing: Exploring basic

needs, social comparison, social integration and hedonism in Peru." Social indica-
tors research 89.3 (2008): 535-555.