The relationship between brand love and actual brand performance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the different relationship that brand love, compared with brand attitude, has with actual brand performance in a cross-national and cross-category context. Design/methodology/approach An empirical study was conducted in the USA, Russia and Indonesia to develop and validate a short but comprehensive measure of brand love. A brand attitude measure derived from the company’s tracking studies and behavioural measures derived from panel data were used to examine the different relationship of brand love and brand attitude with brand performance. Findings The findings show that consumers in the USA, Russia and Indonesia share a similar concept of brand love. They also show that brand love, compared with brand attitude, is more strongly related to growth in behavioural loyalty, whereas brand attitude, compared with brand love, is more strongly related to the brand size in the present. Research limitations/implications The paper combines psychological and behavioural data from different sources. Future research may collect both types of data from the same sample of consumers. Besides, the paper uses brand love and brand attitude data related to loyal consumers and users, respectively. Future research may consider both types of consumers simultaneously. Practical implications The paper clarifies why brand love measures should be integrated in a company’s brand measurement system, and their specific contribution compared with brand attitude. Originality/value This paper is the first that examines brand love in a cross-national and cross-category context and that shows the relationship of brand love vs brand attitude with actual brand performance using company/industry-derived data.