The Role of Emotions to Brand Attachment and Brand Attitude in a Retail Environment: An Extended Abstract

Introduction 

Consumers are able to interact with thousands of products and brands throughout their life, but they develop a strong emotional bond by a subset of them (Schouten and McAlexander 1995). It is really interesting the likelihood that consumers might develop strong emotional bonds with brands (Thomson et al. 2005). The analysis of the degree of consumers’ emotional bond will be studied by examining the nature of the influence of the attachment and attitude toward the brand. Retail environment is perfect for this study because retailers come in direct contact with the final consumers (Swarbrooke and Horner 2005). Furthermore, the richness of the retailing environment adds significant more variables, which influence consumer buying decisions (Levy and Weitz 1998). Therefore, the retail environment offers an ideal stage upon which the concept of emotions, attachment, attitude, and brand interacts. The aim of the study is to examine the influence of purchase attitude and attachment toward the brand in the emotional-rich environment of retailing. The above aim needs to broken down into four goals that need to be persuaded. Thus, (a) the antecedes of emotions especially in the brands of retailing stores, (b) how emotions influence on brand attitude in retailing environment, and (c) how emotions influence on brand attachment in retailing environment are to be investigated. It will be an empirical research on the field of psychology and the consumer’s behavior in a relation to the buying decisions that a consumer has to make in a retail context.

Literature Review 

Emotions are variables, which are stronger than the nature of mood and are closely related to the stimuli (Batson et al. 1992). A contemporary study about emotions suggests that they play a significant role over the cognitive process. There are many definitions and their conceptualization varies considerably (Richins 1997; TenHouten 2007). As a result, some definitions have focused on specific aspects of emotions, describing them as an essential and primary motive in consumer behavior (Chaudhuri 2006) or a temporary psychological mood, but yet so true and infallible (Ekman and Friesen 1975). Trying to select a solid definition of emotions will be adopted in the following: “a mental state of vigilance which is aroused from perceptive evaluations of events or thoughts, which is accompanied by normal procedures and often expressed naturally, and can lead to specific actions in order to be ensured or to watch the produced emotion, according to the nature and the meaning given by the person involved” (Bagozzi et al. 1999). Emotions are reminiscent of the moments, during which similar emotions where experienced, and are possible to change thoughts according to their intensity and content (Shiv 2007). There is an indirect relationship between the emotion and consumers’ purchasing intention (Yu and Dean 2001). Thus, trying to examine the behavioral interaction as a whole, one discovers a motivational force which enables emotions to spread, where some of them stimulate an instinctive mimetic reaction, while others exhibit a complementary reaction (Parkinson 1995). Attitude puts people into a frame of mind: liking or disliking an object and moving toward or away from it. Thus, attitude leads people to behave in a fairly consistent way toward similar objects (Cohen et al. 1972; Hoyer and MacInnis 2001; Swarbrooke and Horner 2005). According to literature, the structure of attitude is threefold (cognitive, affect, conation) and it could predict the consumers’ attempt to consume or purchase. More specifically, emotions are believed to coexist with perceptual elements associated with beliefs, expectations, and other affective influences that are contained in attitudes. Several models for measuring attitudes have been designed. Fishbein’s model is the most widely accepted over time. Nevertheless, according to Zanna and Rempel (1988), Fishbein’s model seems too narrow in its suggestions about the utilitarian beliefs and without emphasis on affective experience. However, greater integration of emotional information with attitudinal evaluations may be anticipated as the consumer gains more experience with the studied behavior (Abelson et al. 1982). As a further confirmation of the above aspects is the research of Thomson et al. (2005), which states that consumers, who are emotionally involved with a brand, are also more likely to have a positive attitude toward the specific brand name. Hence, as an antecedent of attitude, emotions could be expected to have a more pronounced role for more experienced customers. In recent years, it has been argued that attitude is an insufficient predictor of consumers’ purchasing decisions, and it has been revealed that consumers’ final buying decision depends on their emotional involvement with a brand (Park et al. 2010). Lately, attention to the emotional attachment to the consumers’ brands has been increased, and, thus, the influence of attitude has been obscured.

The field of human psychology is related to the integration feeling of the human being when he or she is a part of a much larger group (Patwardhan and Balasubramanian 2011). It has been shown that people, who are linked (attached) to a group, are more likely to commit investments and make sacrifices for that group (Bowlby 1978). Similarly, consumers’ emotional brand attachment could predict their commitment to the brand and their willingness to make sacrifices in order to get it. From the perspective of marketing, the emotional attachment could be characterized as intuitive emotional connection that indicates how much a person is identified with a product, a brand, a manufacturer, etc. In this relationship a myriad and potentially complex emotions are involved. These could include sadness, anxiety of brand separation, happiness, comfort from the brand closeness, pride of exposure, and self-brand prominence. Thus, consumers may be connected with a brand because it represents what is important in relation to their goals, personal concerns, or their lifestyle (Fedorikhin et al. 2008; Mittal 2006; Park and MacInnis 2006; Park et al. 2010; Thomson 2006). Retailing is one of the largest sectors in the global economy and is one going through a period of dramatic changes (Levy and Weitz 1998). Innovative retailers are using new technologies and changing customers needs to build the next generation of industry giants. Stores are becoming more than just a place to buy products, to places offering exciting experiences to attract customers (Solomon 2009). In this dynamic environment, some retailers have launched new companies and concepts and they have become strong brand names. The strong internationally presence of brand retailing is an important and interesting feature of modern market. Therefore, corporate identity could be selected as another significant element for the successful building of retailer’s brand image (Bronn 2002). The brand image in retailing aims to create retailers’ brand personality, which consumers could identify and match with the experiences they receive during the purchasing process. The store’s image can be defined as the functional and subjective elements, which are organized into perceptual frames of consumers (Bloemer and Ruyter 1998). Store image is supposed to be composed of eight different features of the retail marketing mix: location, merchandise, the quality of products, price, staff, store’s visibility and promotion, store atmosphere, and customer services (Ghosh 1990). Generally, it is accepted that the store atmosphere (a) provides significant utility and enjoyment to consumers (sacrificing disposal cost), (b) motivates consumers to revisit the store (sacrificing time cost), and (c) motivates consumers to remain longer in it (sacrificing resource cost). Thus, Baker et al. (2002) confirmed that the atmosphere could affect consumers’ perceptions about the economic and psychological costs of shopping in a store, and if the consumers get emotionally involved, these two different costs could be reduced. Furthermore, Mehrabian and Russell (1974) revealed that the consumers’ emotional responses in the store atmosphere are divided into categories of pleasure and non-pleasure. These responses increase the likelihood of buying in a pleasant environment and conversely reduce the likelihood of buying in an unpleasant environment. In general, the store atmosphere affects subconsciously the consumers’ emotions and their purchasing behavior consequently (Levy and Weitz 1998).