ABSTRACT
In 1998, Susan Fournier published her seminal paper “Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research” in Journal of Consumer Research. Her study has encouraged many researchers to investigate the new, exciting concept of brand relationship. Studies using interpersonal relationship theory (Hinde 1979) indicate that through the interaction between consumers and brands, consumers are able to use brands in various ways, both functional and emotional. Undoubtedly, at the product level, brands serve basic functional attributes to allow consumers to perform required activities. For example, we need a pen to write. In addition to functional attributes, brands are embedded with meanings that help consumers enrich their desired life narratives (Elliott and Wattanasuwan 1998). We need a pen to write, but some of us may need a Mont Blanc pen to write. These emotional meanings reflect consumers’ self-identities and become prevalent in their lives. Life narratives are thus composed of brand experience in which interaction between brands and individuals demonstrates the concept of brand relationship akin to interpersonal relationship. This concept has been supported by many studies in the past fourteen years (Commuri 2009; Esch et al. 2006; Ji 2002; Story and Hess 2006; Sung and Choi 2010, to name a few).
