Enhancing Brand Attachment Through Social Responsibility Associations: A Two-Path Moderated Model
authors
keywords
- Brand Social Responsibility
- Brand Attachment
- Brand Trust
- Brand Identification
- Personal Norms
document type
COMMabstract
Social responsibility has become cornerstone marketing policy, enabling brand differentiation in a high growth market. By distinguishing between symbolic and utilitarian associations of social responsibility, our study identifies two levers for consumer brand attachment. We posit that utilitarian associations enhance consumer brand attachment by strengthening consumer trust in a context imbued with fear and skepticism about consequences of consumption for health. We also argue that brands can encourage consumer attachment through their environmental and philanthropic engagements by conveying values with which consumers can identify. This second attachment lever is argued to be particularly effective for consumers with strong social/environmental personal norms. We empirically test our research model on a sample of regular consumers of organic food brands validating the two pathways from social responsibility to brand attachment. The moderating role of consumers' personal norms on the process was also confirmed regarding the philanthropic dimension but not the environmental one. Contributions and implications of these findings are presented in the discussion part.
