Love toward brands: investigating gender differences in love behavior

Abstract

Fundamentally consumers can love brands when they experience strong and deep emotional attachment to the brand Given the important role of gender differences in love perception and behaviors this study aims to investigate the fundamental research question: how the relationship between brand love and its consequences differs by gender It has been shown that consumer behaviors are stronger when they are driven by brand love Namely brand love highly affects brand trust brand commitment brand forgiveness and self-disclosure Therefore current study will address gender differences in brand love-outcome behavior relationships The data was collected through an online questionnaire of 408 respondents from United States by using MTurk platform First pre-test was developed in order to make sure that questionnaire items were understood expectedly Second during main test data was analyzed by performing SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) and using IBM SPSS AMOS software Results of this study indicate gender differences in relationship between brand love and its outcome behaviors In particular female customers were found to have stronger brand forgiveness and continuance commitment under feeling of brand love than male customers As a result managers can apply these differences in brand love context They should develop more efficient strategies and invest more in female customers rather than male customers since they provide more beneficial behavior

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Supervisor	Ya-Hui Kuo (Supervisor)