Effects of brand values on customer loyalty intention: The mediating role of trust, attachment and consumer - brand identification

Abstract

Customers and brands usually find a connection to one another through brand values, namely the functional, emotional, experiential, and symbolic values. This connection plays a considerable role in creating loyalty intention. However, studies on the mechanism of this relationship remain limited. This study proposes that perceived functional values lead to customers' loyalty to the brand as they create trust; the emotional and experiential values result in loyalty intention as they link customers to brand attachment; and the symbolic values lead to loyalty as they create consumer-brand identification. We conducted an empirical study using quantitative method on a sample of 311 customers in three different functional food brands. The results show that trust and attachment accordingly play partial mediating roles, and attachment plays a full mediating role.