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OIR
43,5 Fostering brand love in Facebook
brand pages
Mariola Palazon, Elena Delgado-Ballester and
710 Maria Sicilia
Department of Marketing, School of Business and Economics,
Received 31 May 2017 University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
Revised 23 May 2018
13 September 2018
Accepted 28 October 2018 Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze how brand love is built in the context of brand pages by
proposing a model in which brand love depends on relationships ties with other brand consumers (sense of
brand community) and with the brand itself (self–brand connection).
Design/methodology/approach – Information was collected from a sample of 559 members of the
community of a well-known baby food brand on Facebook. Data were collected through an online
questionnaire sent by the company.
Findings – Results suggest that both sense of brand community and self–brand connection foster brand love
and that self–brand connection exerts a mediating role between sense of brand community and brand love.
Furthermore, the effect of brand community on brand love is conditioned by a personal trait of individuals
such as brand engagement in self-concept. In addition, this study identifies a new consequence of brand love
not previously analyzed in the literature: brand equity.
Research limitations/implications – A potential shortcoming is the product category analyzed and that
the length of membership was not controlled and it may be a moderator between participation and
community consequences.
Practical implications – The key implications are the importance of nurturing relationship ties among
brand users and building self–brand connections on brand pages as precursors of brand love.
Originality/value – The study offers empirical evidence about the mechanism through which brand love is
formed on social-media platforms such as Facebook. Furthermore, the authors have demonstrated the
relationship between brand love and brand equity, which had not been examined yet in the literature.
Keywords Brand love, Brand pages, Brand engagement in self-concept, Self–brand connection,
Sense of brand community
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Social network sites (SNSs) have enabled consumers to engage more with brands and other
consumers. In this context, companies have developed official Facebook pages for their
brands. Brand pages can be considered a new form of online brand community embedded in
SNSs (Habibi et al., 2014a), which is considered a group of individuals with common interests
in a brand, who communicate with each other electronically (Sicilia and Palazon, 2008). These
communities perform many important tasks on behalf of the brand (Habibi et al., 2014b) such
as sharing information (Mamonov et al., 2016), perpetuating the history and culture of the
brand and providing assistance to consumers (Laroche et al., 2012). Furthermore, community
members can help to defend the brand, make desirable brand impressions and provide ideas
for innovation and product improvements (Habibi et al., 2014a).
Brand pages have emerged as an important form on online brand community because of
the interactive and networked nature of social media (Turri et al., 2013). They give
consumers a feeling of belongingness and empower them to express their sentiments about
the brand to different shoppers and diminish the mental separation between consumers and
Online Information Review
Vol. 43 No. 5, 2019
pp. 710-727 The authors thank the editor and the two reviewers for their helpful comments. This research was
© Emerald Publishing Limited supported by the grant ECO2017-83999-R from the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI)
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/OIR-05-2017-0175 and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
the brand (Kudeshia et al., 2016). Consequently, social media platforms such as Facebook are Brand love in
viewed as a valuable context for building consumer–brand relationships (Schamari and Facebook
Schaefers, 2015). brand pages
Strong consumer–brand relationships are characterized by feelings much greater than
mere brand preferences that support relationship stability and durability (Fournier, 1988).
In particular, brand love has recently been raised in the branding literature to set a new
standard in relation to the existence of strong consumer–brand relationships at a more 711
emotional level (Batra et al., 2012). However, while brand pages are viewed as a marketing
tool to create emotional bonds between consumers and brands (Schamari and Schaefers,
2015), their role in fostering brand love is in its early stages (Vernuccio et al., 2015).
Specifically, Hudson et al. (2016) claim more research efforts in understanding
consumer–brand relationships in social media by including emerging concepts such as
brand love. Furthermore, the mechanisms mediating and moderating brand community
effects on these relationships remain uncharted (Zhou et al., 2012).
This study addresses all these concerns. Since the roots of brand community
development reside on sociology and social psychology (Muñiz and O’Guinn, 2001),
hypotheses formulation is based on two social theories: social identity theory and
self-expansion theory. Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) is used because brand
communities are becoming more and more important in defining consumer identities, as
they contribute to a form of shared or collective identity (Muñiz and O’Guinn, 2001). We also
use self-expansion theory (Aron and Aron, 1986) as a background theory for this study
because it deals with how people feel in the context of close relationships, as the ones that
may occur between individuals who admire a brand within a community as well as between
those individuals and the brand itself (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006; Fournier, 1988; Reimann
and Aron, 2009). Theoretical development results in a model in which brand love depends on
relationships ties with other brand consumers of the community (sense of brand
community) and with the brand itself (self–brand connection).
By doing so, this study goes a step further than Hudson et al. (2016), Vernuccio et al.
(2015) and Zhou et al. (2012) by proposing two new antecedents of brand love in the context
of brand pages: sense of brand community and self–brand connection. In relation to sense of
brand community, research on traditional offline communities has emphasized the focal role
of sense of community among community members, yet there has been relatively little work
on its role in online communities (Mamonov et al., 2016). For instance, Turri et al. (2013)
observed that emotional relationships were cultivated by the intimacy and self-connection a
consumer has toward the brand, but ignored the effect that the relationships with other
consumers may have on the emotional commitment with the brand.
Finally, another contribution resides in the inclusion of brand engagement in self-concept
(BESC) as a moderating variable and a new outcome variable of brand love not considered
by previous studies: brand equity. Overall, the results obtained will provide managers with
valuable guidelines to design social media strategies that will strengthen consumer–brand
relationships in terms of brand love.

Brand pages and brand love

Brand pages have emerged as a widely accepted channel for companies to communicate and
interact with their consumers and share information in the form of posts. They have been
the subject of active research in information systems (Mamonov et al., 2016). To date, extant
research has provided empirical evidence related to: the effects that participation in brand
pages has on trust, sense of community and community identification (Habibi et al., 2014a;
Mamonov et al., 2016), consumers’ purchase decisions (Kudeshia et al., 2016), word-of-mouth
behavior (Kudeshia et al., 2016; Royo-Vela and Casamassima, 2011) and brand loyalty
(Laroche et al., 2012); the process underlying the development of consumer loyalty to brand
OIR pages (Ruiz-Mafe et al., 2014); and the key drivers of consumers’ online engagement on
43,5 brand pages (Luarn et al., 2015).
However, in a context where companies are changing their marketing objectives to
focus more on building and maintaining desirable consumer–brand relationships by
leveraging the interactive and social nature of brand pages (Hudson et al., 2016), little is
known about the potential of brand pages as an instrument to forge these relationships
712 (Turri et al., 2013). In this regard, the emotional branding paradigm (Gobe, 2001)
establishes that strong consumer–brand relationships are characterized by the existence
of an emotional attachment with the brand, which is strong enough to be considered love
(Maxian et al., 2013).
Brand love is defined as the degree of passionate emotional attachment a consumer has
for a brand (Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006). Its importance resides in the fact that it serves to
more effectively predict key variables such as repurchase intentions, positive
word-of-mouth and resistance to negative information (Wallace et al., 2014; Batra et al.,
2012; Maxian et al., 2013). It also increases consumers’ willingness to pay a price premium
and forgiveness of brand failures (Thomson et al., 2005).

Theoretical framework and hypotheses formulation

The existence of a social identity in brand communities represents one of the most
important markers of community, named as “consciousness of kind” by Muñiz and O’Guinn
(2001). It describes the fact that “members feel a solid connection to the brand, but more
significantly, they feel a stronger connection toward one another” (Muñiz and O’Guinn,
2001, p. 418). Bender (1978) referred to this feeling as “we-ness,” a shared feeling of
belonging that creates a differentiation and separation between users of their brand and
users of other brands. Following brand community literature, brand pages may be
envisioned as a consumer–consumer–brand triad formed by two types of relationships:
those established between the brand and the consumers, and those that emerge between
members of the brand page (Muñiz and O’Guinn, 2001).
In addition, based on social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979), consumers’
attachment to objects has been explained through a dichotomous view of self-identity at two
levels: the individual and the group level (see Alnawas and Altarifi, 2016; Bergkvist and
Bech-Larsen, 2010; Bhattacharya and Sen, 2003; Escalas and Bettman, 2005; Swaminathan
et al., 2007). According to this theory, attachment to objects can be fostered by self–brand
connection, which symbolizes a consumers’ individual identity, and by social or group-level
connections which is more related to the feeling of belonging to a distinctive group of users
of the brand (i.e. brand community).
Furthermore, according to self-expansion theory (Aron and Aron, 1986), individuals seek
to expand their selves by acquiring perspectives, resources and identities to enhance their
ability to achieve goals, in the process generating positive affect. Love emanates from this
desire to expand (Reimann et al., 2012). In our context, brand communities may be used for
this self-expansion process, acquiring identities and perspectives from both types of
relationships, those that occur between members of the community and those between
members and the brand itself. This theory was first applied to individuals’ relationships
(see e.g. Aron et al., 2001), then extended to consumer–brand relationships (see Reimann and
Aron, 2009; Reimann et al., 2012; Patwardhan and Balasubramanian, 2011) and now we
propose it may apply to brand communities. In this context, the process of expansion
emanates from relationships that are built upon a specific brand. As the process of
expansion is inherently positive and emotionally arousing (Strong and Aron, 2006), we
propose that these two types of relationships may foster brand love because they enrich,
shape and expand people’s identities through the provision of meanings about consumers’
sense of identity and their close social relationships.
 Consequently, this study hypothesizes that in an online brand community context, Brand love in
brand love emanates from the individual’s desire to expand at the two dimensions of Facebook
identity: individual level and group level. Then, brand love is fostered through both the brand pages
interpersonal relationships facilitated by the brand itself (sense of brand community)
and through the integration of the brand into consumers’ sense of identity
(self–brand connection).
713
The effect of sense of brand community on brand love
Brand pages provide new opportunities for brand development, because the tie that binds is
the brand and grows by building relationships among members interested in it ( Jang et al.,
2008). Consumers interact with other members of the brand community and draw values
and utilities from consuming the same brand (Zhou et al., 2012). In fact, repeated interactions
result in high levels of excited positive affect and a strong desire to re-engage with the brand
(Patwardhan and Balasubramanian, 2011).
Members of the brand page may share a feeling of comfort and a sense of belonging to
the group constituted by the brand page ( Jang et al., 2008). The satisfaction derived from the
need for affiliation helps individuals to construe their identity based on the identity of the
group (i.e. social identity). According to Swaminathan et al. (2007), and based on social
identity theory, this social identity may contribute to brand attachment. In addition,
consumers’ perceptions of belongingness to brand communities (sense of brand community)
foster the creation and negotiation of brand meanings (McAlexander et al., 2002). These
brand meanings constitute the most important social resource shared among members of
such communities through ongoing interactions between them (Thomson et al., 2005). As a
result of repeated interactions, consumers integrate these brand meanings to some extent as
their own. According to self-expansion theory, such appropriation serves consumers to
expand their self-identities (Reimann and Aron, 2009). As the process of embedding in these
social structures around the brand generates positive affect (Patwardhan and
Balasubramanian, 2011), a deep emotional connection and strong feeling of closeness
with the brand will emerge.
Based on the previous arguments, past studies have offered empirical evidences that
support the relationship between sense of community and brand love in different research
contexts. In an offline context, McMillan and Chavis (1986) concluded that sense of
community is related to emotional attachment. Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen (2010)
suggested a direct relationship between sense of community and brand love in a context
where there was no membership to any social group. Finally, Vernuccio et al. (2015)
demonstrated that the social identity that emerges in online brand communities
affects brand love.
Therefore, it is expected that sense of brand community experienced by members of
brand pages has a positive effect on brand love:
H1. Sense of brand community has a positive effect on brand love.

The effect of self–brand connection on brand love

Levy (1959) was the first to advance the idea that people do not buy branded products just
for what the products do, but also for what they mean to the consumer. Since then, the
notion that brands become powerful resources for consumers because of their multiple
meanings (e.g., quality, personal identity and values) has been well documented in
the literature (see Strizhakova et al., 2008). More recently, Ahuvia (2015) affirmed that the
importance of brands to people can be explained by the fact that “people have mentally
connected [brands] to important social relationships or other important sources of personal
identity.” Thus, in terms of social identity theory, brands may contribute to the individual
OIR dimension of the identity. Through a basic cognitive mechanism of incorporating these
43,5 brand meanings into consumers’ concept, a self–brand connection is formed. Self–brand
connection represents the extent to which individuals have incorporated the brand into their
self-concept (Escalas and Bettman, 2003).
As self–brand connection captures an important part of consumers’ self, it leads to
increased satisfaction and generates more robust brand attachments in terms of brand
714 attitudes and brand loyalty (Escalas and Bettman, 2003). In addition, following the
self-expansion postulates, the inclusion of the brand meanings in the self will generate
positive affect (Reimann et al., 2012), fostering brand love. Branding literature also support
this relationship. Specific studies suggest that brand attachment is fostered when the brand
overlaps with consumers’ own traits (Escalas and Bettman, 2005) or shares the same
self-definitional characteristics (Swaminathan et al., 2007). Furthermore, in an SNS context,
Wallace et al. (2014) suggested the existence of a positive relationship between
self-expressive brands liked on Facebook and brand love.
Therefore, this research proposes that self–brand connection will foster brand love. The
more a brand is part of a person’s self-definition, the closer the emotional bond and the
better the relationship quality between the individual and the brand (Aron et al., 2001). Since
the process of integration or inclusion of the brand in the individual’s self is particularly
important in fostering brand love (Aron et al., 2001), it is reasonable to expect that the
greater the personal connection with the brand, the more likely it is that the consumer will
experience brand love:
H2. Self–brand connection has a positive effect on brand love.

The mediating role of self–brand connection

By using the brand as a resource for constructing their self and as a tool for social
integration into the brand page, consumers also develop a sense of oneness with the brand,
establishing cognitive and affective links that connect the brand with the self. Based on the
above reasoning, it is expected that consumers’ perceptions of belongingness to a brand
page (sense of brand community) have a positive effect on self–brand connection. In fact,
repeated interactions may result in a strong desire to engage with the brand (Patwardhan
and Balasubramanian, 2011). In addition, self–brand connection is likely to enhance brand
love, since stronger connection with the brand results in more favorable feelings that may
foster brand love. As a result, we propose the following hypothesis:
H3. Self–brand connection mediates the influence of sense of brand community on
brand love.

The moderating role of BESC

The effect of sense of brand community in strengthening the linkage of consumers with a
specific brand may depend on their general engagement with brands or the role that brands,
in general, play in consumers’ self-concept. According to Albert et al. (2008), some consumers
may be willing to develop love-based relationships, while others may not. In a similar vein,
Reimann et al. (2012) suggested that there may be certain personality traits that are
particularly prone to these brand relationships. Specifically, this study incorporates a personal
trait called BESC into the proposed model. In the same way that people vary in their tendency
to possess particular self-schemas, this trait suggests that people also vary in their tendency to
possess brand-related schemas (Sprott et al., 2009). Specifically, BESC refers to a propensity to
include important brands as part of how consumers view themselves. Overall, Sprott et al.
(2009) demonstrated that BESC meaningfully affects brand-related consumer constructs,
including brand knowledge, attention, preference and loyalty. The underlying assumption of
BESC is that some consumers develop and possess self-schemas about how the brands they Brand love in
use and like are related to the self, while others may not develop such schemas or may develop Facebook
them to a lesser extent. This differential propensity implies that high-BESC consumers are brand pages
characterized by having closer and more clearly defined memory ties between their favorite
brands and the self, and higher self–brand image congruity than their low-BESC counterparts.
In a brand community setting, being part of a brand community does not mean the same thing
for all consumers because favorite brands do not play the same defining role for all consumers 715
– some consumers may be more open than others to establishing close relationships with
brands (Albert et al., 2008).
The proposition regarding the moderating role of BESC implies that sense of brand
community will not have the same impact on self–brand connection, and thus on brand love,
for high-BESC consumers than for low-BESC consumers. As consumers develop clearer and
more stable schemas of their preferred brands (higher BESC levels) to signify their
individual self, the influence of others (sense of brand community) in fostering linkages with
the brand will be lower. These individuals could be more willing to develop love-based
relationships (Albert et al., 2008) and the contribution of the community in terms of its
ability to generate feelings of love may be lower. In contrast, for consumers who do not have
stable and salient schemas of their preferred brands (lower BESC levels), sense of brand
community may better connect these consumers with the brand thanks to the brand
meanings that are transferred from the social group. Thus:
H4. BESC has a moderating impact on the relationship between sense of brand
community and self–brand connection, such that as BESC increases, the effect of
sense of brand community on self–brand connection decreases.

Self–brand connection and BESC-moderated mediation effect

Based on the previous line of reasoning, the existence of a moderated mediation effect of
self–brand connection and brand engagement in relation to the self-concept is also proposed.
As consumers with lower levels of BESC (vs higher) are more likely to establish self–brand
connections as a consequence of their interaction with other community members (H4), the
effect that sense of brand community has on brand love through self–brand connection will
be more salient for individuals with lower levels of BESC:
H5. The effect of sense of brand community on brand love through self–brand
connection is likely to be greater for consumers with lower BESC.

Outcome of brand love: brand equity

As previous research has demonstrated, brand love helps to explain and predict variation in
desirable post-consumption behaviors among satisfied consumers (e.g., positive word-of-mouth)
(Carroll and Ahuvia, 2006). However, past works have not studied its effect on brand equity. For
that reason, Patwardhan and Balasubramanian (2011) recommended specifically to explain the
relationship between brand love and brand equity. Brand equity constitutes an important line of
research because it is considered one of the main drivers of customer lifetime value, which is the
net present value of the long-term profit contribution of the customer (Stahl et al., 2012). As a
precursor to consumers’ actions, brand equity drives the key components of customer lifetime
value; that is, acquisition, retention and profit margin.
From a consumer’s perspective, brand equity is defined as the differential effect of brand
knowledge on consumer response to marketing of the brand (Keller, 2013). Therefore, brand
equity is rooted in the hearts and minds of consumers. According to this definition, a brand is
said to have positive (negative) customer-based brand equity if consumers react more (less)
OIR favorably to the presence of the brand than they do to a fictitiously named or unnamed
43,5 version of the product or service.
The theory of planned behavior (Azjen, 1991) is useful to relate the feeling of brand love
and brand equity as a behavioral consequence of brand love. It suggests that attitude,
subjective norm and perceived behavioral control influence an individual’s intention to
perform a given behavior, and this intention is claimed to be the precursor of behavior.
716 Thus, the feeling of love serves as an action disposition (Maxian et al., 2013) that can
potentially impact consumers’ preferences and choices in favor of that brand because a
loved brand is considered irreplaceable, leading to biased and positive perceptions of it
(Albert et al., 2008). Therefore:
H6. Brand love has a positive effect on brand equity.
A graphical representation of the hypotheses is provided in Figure 1.

Method
Data collection
Participants were all members of the brand page of a well-known baby food brand in Spain.
The community of the brand on Facebook has more than 350,000 members.
The total population of the database was around 150,000 individuals with children who
buy different products of the brand. Data were collected through an online questionnaire
linked to an e-mail sent by the company to 4,000 customers from its database. A simple
random sampling procedure was employed by the company to select these 4,000 customers.
An incentive was offered by the company to the respondents in exchange for completing the
survey. In order to identify members of the brand page, individuals were asked whether they
were followers of the brand on Facebook, and non-members were excluded from the study.
A total of 559 members of the brand page completed the questionnaire, for a 13.98 percent
useful response rate. Of these, 98 percent were women, and their average age was 34.42 years
(SD ¼ 3.98, range 22–53 years).
The brand community selected for this study was quite active because about
51.3 percent of the respondents mentioned that they participated sometimes in the brand
community and 19.7 percent did it frequently.

Measures
The constructs were measured using reflective, multi-item, ten-point Likert scales, anchored
by “strongly disagree” (1) and “strongly agree” (10). The measures relied on scales used by
previous research (see Table I).

Psychometric characteristics of the scales

The unidimensionality of each construct was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis of
the 19 items and the five constructs. The fit of the measurement model was acceptable

Brand engagement H5: Moderated

H3: Mediating effect
in self-concept mediation
Self-brand connection
H4: Moderation H2: Main effect

Sense of brand
Figure 1. Brand love Brand equity
Proposed model community H1: Main effect
H6: Main effect
 Factor Average
Brand love in
loadings variance Composite Cronbach’s Facebook
Constructs Scale itema (t-value) extracted reliability α brand pages
Self–brand [Brand] reflects who I am 0.88 (26.40) 0.81 0.93 0.92
connection I can identify with [brand] 0.91 (27.72)
I feel a personal connection to [brand] 0.90 (27.32)
[Brand] suits me well 0.82 (23.29) 717
Sense of brand I feel strong ties to other brand 0.90 (27.06) 0.84 0.93 0.95
community consumers
I find it very easy to form a bond with 0.91 (27.66)
other brand consumers
I feel a sense of being connected to 0.94 (29.22)
other brand consumers
A strong feeling of camaraderie exists 0.93 (28.89)
between me and other consumers of
the brand
Brand love I love [brand] 0.78 (21.69) 0.75 0.83 0.90
I am passionate about [brand] 0.90 (27.13)
I am very attached to [brand] 0.92 (27.86)
Brand equity It makes sense to buy [brand] instead 0.86 (25.60) 0.87 0.94 0.96
of any other brand, even if they are the
similar
Even if another brand has the same 0.95 (29.96)
features as [brand], I would prefer to
buy [brand]
If there is another brand as good as 0.97 (31.51)
[brand], I prefer to buy [brand]
If another brand is not different from 0.97 (31.41)
[brand] in any way, it seems smarter to
purchase [brand]
Brand I often feel a personal connection to the 0.92 (28.53) 0.86 0.96 0.96
engagement in brands I purchase
self-concept Part of me is defined by important 0.97 (31.42)
(BESC) brands in my life
I can identify with important brands in 0.93 (29.25)
my life
My favorite brands are an important 0.90 (27.41)
indication of who I am
Table I.
Notes: aSelf–brand connection items came from the scale of Escalas and Bettman (2003); sense-of-brand Constructs and
community items were adapted from Carlson et al. (2008); brand love measure came from Carroll and Ahuvia psychometric
(2006); brand equity items were derived from Yoo and Donthu (2001); and BESC measure came from Sprott, properties of the
Czellar, and Spangenberg (2009) measures

( χ 2 (142) ¼ 586.4, p ¼ 0.000; GFI ¼ 0.90; RMSEA ¼ 0.07; SRMR ¼ 0.03; CFI ¼ 0.99,
NNFI ¼ 0.98; IFI ¼ 0.99). In support of the convergent validity, all items loaded
significantly on their respective constructs, and factor loadings exceeded the suggested
threshold of 0.6 (see Table I). Composite reliability and the average variance extracted for
each construct met acceptable threshold levels (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988; Fornell and Larcker,
1981). Discriminant validity was indicated by the AVE of each construct being larger than
the shared variance with any other latent construct (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).
Furthermore, the 95% confidence intervals (CIs) (± 2 × standard error) around the
correlation was also examined, and found that none between any two latent indicators
included the value 1 (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988).
OIR Because the same rater responds to the items in a single questionnaire at the same point
43,5 in time, data are likely to be susceptible to common-method variance. To test for such a bias,
a CFA approach was used (Malhotra et al., 2006). It consists on the estimation of one-factor
model in which all the observable variables or indicators are modeled to load on the same
factor. This model yielded a χ2 ¼ 5,472.26 with 152 degrees of freedom (compared with the
χ2 ¼ 586.4 with 142 degrees of freedom for the measurement model – see Table I). A χ2
718 difference test suggests a considerably worse fit for the unidimensional model than for the
measurement model. The results of these tests confirmed that common-method bias is not a
serious threat in this study. The basic descriptive statistics of the measures used and the
correlations are presented in Table II.

Results
Structural equation modeling with LISREL 8.8 was conducted to test H1, H2 and H6. Model
fit was satisfactory ( χ2(86) ¼ 420.45, p ¼ 0.000; GFI ¼ 0.91; RMSEA ¼ 0.084; SRMR ¼ 0.069;
CFI ¼ 0.98, NNFI ¼ 0.98; IFI ¼ 0.98). However, Anderson and Gerbing (1988) propose model
comparisons to evaluate nomological validity by using a χ2 difference test to test the null
hypothesis: MT–MA ¼ 0. Accordingly, the initial main effects model’s fit was compared with
two alternative models specifications that were suitable from a theoretical point of view.
Table III reports the sequential χ2 tests. MT was contrasted with a more parsimonious
alternative model (MA1), where self–brand connection exerts a full mediating role in the
relationship between sense of brand community and brand love. Compared to the theoretical
model, this alternative model was found to have a significantly worse fit. Subsequently
MT was compared with a less parsimonious alternative model (MA2), in which both
self–brand connection and sense of brand community exert a direct and positive effect on
brand equity. The χ2 difference test indicates that MA2 has a significant better fit than the
theoretical model, which led to retain it as the model that better represents the relationships
among the concepts. Specifically, this model acknowledges that brand love is not only

Variable 1 2 3 4 5

1. Self–brand community
2. Self–brand connection 0.70***
3. Brand equity 0.47*** 0.64***
4. Brand love 0.66*** 0.80** 0.57***
5. Brand engagement 0.66*** 0.78** 0.52*** 0.81***
Table II. Mean 6.44 7.49 8.4 7.24 7.12
Descriptive statistics SD 2.02 1.98 1.78 1.96 2.16
and correlations Notes: **p o0.05; ***p o0.01

Degrees of χ2 Degrees of freedom

Model χ2 freedom difference difference Probability

Proposed model (MT) 420.45 86

Alternative model 1 (MA1) 439.84 87 19.6 1 0.000a
Alternative model 2 (MA2) 360.76 84 59.69 2 0.000b
Notes: aCompared to the proposed model, this model presents a more parsimonious specification but a
significantly worse fit. Therefore, proposed model MT is seen as a better alternative than MA1; bcompared to
Table III. the proposed model, this model presents a less parsimonious specification but a significantly better fit.
Sequential χ2 tests Therefore, alternative model MA2 is seen as the better alternative than MT
fostered through self–brand connection but also through sense of brand community. Brand love in
The model also indicates that brand equity is only significantly affected by brand love and Facebook
self–brand connection because the path between sense of brand community and brand brand pages
equity is not significant. These results give support to H1, H2 and H6 (see Table IV ).

Mediation analysis to test H3

The results of the model comparison suggest that self–brand connection does not exert a full 719
mediating role in the model. To further analyze this mediating effect (H3), the bootstrapping
procedure recommended by Preacher and Hayes (2004) was used. The mediation analysis
was performed by applying Hayes’ PROCESS SPSS macro (model 4), using 5,000
bootstrapped samples to estimate the indirect effect. The analysis was run using brand love
as the outcome variable (Y ), sense of brand community as the causal agent (X) and
self–brand connection as the mediator (M ).
The results reveal that sense of brand community has a significant positive effect on
self–brand connection (b ¼ 0.6555, SE ¼ 0.0310, t ¼ 21.1428, p ¼ 0.000), indicating that when
consumers belong to a brand community they develop a sense of oneness with the brand. A
significant effect of self–brand connection on brand love was identified (b ¼ 0.6017,
SE ¼ 0.0368, t ¼ 16.3704, p ¼ 0.000). As hypothesized, a significant positive indirect effect of
sense of brand community on brand love via self–brand connection was found (point
estimate ¼ 0.3994, 95% CI ¼ 0.3185–0.4687). Thus, the mediation hypothesis (H3) was
supported. However, this mediation is partial as the direct effect of sense of brand
community on brand love remains significant (b ¼ 0.1931, SE ¼ 0.0361, t ¼ 5.3499, p ¼ 0.000)
since the CI around the estimate excludes zero (95% CI ¼ 0.1222–0.2639). This is
consistent with H1. Thus, brand love is achieved through both self–brand connection and
sense of community.

Moderation of BESC (H4) on the relationship between sense of brand community and
self–brand connection
The process linking sense of brand community to self–brand connection is likely to be more
sophisticated. The level of connection of the brand to the self does not always increase to the
same extent as sense of brand community increases. Rather, it may depend on BESC in such
a way that the influence of sense of brand community on self–brand connection will be
lower for individuals with higher BESC levels (H4).
To analyze this moderating effect, a regression was performed on self–brand connection
with the independent variables mean-centered sense of brand community and BESC. The
results showed a significant two-way interaction between sense of brand community and
BESC attitude (b ¼ −0.056, t ¼ −2.066, p ¼ 0.039). Thus, H4 was supported.
To further understand the nature of this two-way interaction, conditional effects (“simple
slopes”) of sense of brand community on self–brand connection were estimated using the
“pick-a-point” approach (Gobe, 2001), with the sample mean and plus and minus one
standard deviation from the mean representing “moderate,” “high” and “low” BESC,
respectively. Figure 2 shows the pattern of results. Sense of brand community was
significant and positively related to self–brand connection at low, moderate and high levels

Hypothesis Parameter estimate (t-value) Sig.

H1: sense of brand community has a positive effect on brand love 0.20 (4.46) p o0.010 Table IV.
H2: self–brand connection has a positive effect on brand love 0.66 (12.88) p o0.000 Structural model
H6: brand love has a positive effect on brand equity 0.15 (2.36) po 0.05 estimates
OIR 4
43,5 3.5

Self-brand Connection
3

2.5
Low
720 2
Moderate
1.5 High
1
Figure 2.
Simple slopes for 0.5
self–brand connection
on sense of brand 0
community at value 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
of the moderator
Sense of Brand Community

of brand attitude ( p ¼ 0.00), while conditional effects were 0.35, 0.31 and 0.26, respectively.
As hypothesized, the influence of sense of brand community on self–brand connection is
higher for individuals with lower BESC levels.

Moderated mediation analysis to test H5

The simple mediation analysis provided evidence of a mechanism carrying the effect of
sense of brand community on brand love through self–brand connection. Next, the
moderation analysis revealed that the extent to which individuals integrate the brand into
their self is contingent on BESC. Putting these findings together, the mediation was
moderated (H5). That is, the indirect effect of sense of brand community on brand love
through self–brand connection (mediator) depended on BESC (moderator). In this situation,
Preacher et al. (2007) recommend estimating the conditional indirect effects and testing
whether these indirect effects differ from zero at specific values of the moderator using a
bootstrap CI.
To analyze H5, a regression-based approach developed by Hayes (2013) was used in
which sense of brand community was the independent variable, self–brand connection was
included as a mediator, BESC was the moderator and brand love was the dependent
variable. The mediating variable was significantly influenced by the interaction between
sense of brand community and BESC (b ¼ −0.0206, SE ¼ 0.100, t ¼ −2.065, p ¼ 0.0393).
Brand love was predicted by self–brand connection (b ¼ 0.6017, SE ¼ 0.368, t ¼ 16.37,
p ¼ 0.00) and sense of brand community (b ¼ 0.1931, SE ¼ 0.0361, t ¼ 5.349, p ¼ 0.00),
providing further support for H1 and H2. To examine the mediated moderation effect, the
conditional indirect effect of the interaction between sense of brand community and BESC
on brand love through self–brand connection was analyzed. The indirect effect was
consistently negative and decreased with the level of BESC. The effect was significantly
different from zero among those with low (95% CI ¼ 0.1439–0.2744), moderate
(95% CI ¼ 0.1328–0.2350) and high levels (95% CI ¼ 0.1082–0.2086) of BESC (see Table V ).

Discussion and conclusions

The interactive and social nature of brand pages has converted these platforms into an ideal
environment for building and maintaining consumer–brand relationships. Consumers
increasingly use brand pages to interact and to exchange information with brands and other
consumers. Brand pages, by virtue of their social and interactive nature, are one of the most
straightforward instances where relationships with other brand users can be built Brand love in
(Kudeshia et al., 2016). In this context, this study aimed to investigate how brand pages Facebook
foster a deep and emotional consumer–brand relationship such as brand love. brand pages
This study reveals that there are two ways through which brand love is generated on
brand pages. The relationship ties with other community members become a central
element in enhancing brand love (direct effect) because brand meanings shared among
consumers are experienced and appropriated by them, to some extent, as their own. This 721
result is in line with past empirical evidences which showed that emotional connections with
other brand consumers may influence consumers’ sentiments toward the brand
(Gensler et al., 2013). Moreover, as proposed in H2 and H3, brand pages may reinforce
the personal connection of the individual with the brand, which serves to foster brand love
(indirect effect).
This study also hypothesized (H4 and H5) that for those consumers who are more
prone to include their preferred brands into their self-concepts, their relationships with
other brand users (sense of brand community) exert a lower effect on brand love through
self–brand connection. This result may be explained by the fact that for high-BESC
consumers the perspectives and opinions of other brand users exert a lower influence on
them when it comes to integrating the brand into their self (self–brand connection).
Additionally, brand love has a positive effect in other important marketing concepts such
as brand equity (H6).
Regarding the theoretical model, one might suggest that the relationship between sense
of community and self–brand connection should be reserved. Although this might be
generally true if a brand community is considered as a place for consumers who are loyal
and identified with the brand, this might not be the case in social media contexts, where
there is neither limit nor requirement for anyone to become a member of a brand community.
Enjoying a brand community is as simple as just pressing the “like” button. As Habibi et al.
(2014a, p. 159) affirm, “brand communities based on social media are different from
traditional brand communities for which only brand owners and those who already trust
brand could become members.” In other words, not all individuals have the same
motivations or attitude about the brand when joining the community as the community does
not mean the same thing to all of them. In fact, previous research has shown that people may
be motivated to become members and participate in brand communities in social media for
many different reasons (Park and Kim, 2014; Pentina et al., 2008). For example, some people
might join it because they are just curious or because their friends have suggested them to
visit the brand page. Park and Kim (2014) have recently identified four benefits that
consumers derive from using brand community on SNSs. These include: social benefits
(e.g., social interaction with others), informational benefits (obtaining information), hedonic
benefits (e.g., enjoyment) and economic benefits (e.g., promotional deals). Furthermore,
previous studies support the direction of the relationship proposed as far as they have
analyzed how brand communities enhance brand identification (Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen,
2010; Zhou et al., 2012) and community identification (Ho, 2014), which are concepts close to
self–brand connection.

Table V.
Indirect effect
Conditional indirect
BESC Effect (boot SE) 95% bias-corrected bootstrap CI effects of sense of
brand community on
Low (4.9557) 0.2087 (0.0330) 0.1439–0.2744 brand love through
Moderate (7.1241) 0.1818 (0.0257) 0.1328–0.2350 self–brand connection
High (9.2925) 0.1550 (0.0255) 0.1082–0.2086 at different levels
Note: Values for brand attitude are the mean and plus/minus one SD from mean of BESC
OIR Theoretical implications
43,5 This investigation extends self-expansion theory (Aron and Aron, 1986) by focusing on
brand pages as a place where self-expansion can occur. While brand pages have been
investigated as a means for addressing positive word of mouth, brand trust or community
identification (Habibi et al., 2014a; Kudeshia et al., 2016), the consequences in terms of brand
love had not been analyzed yet. Furthermore, we have demonstrated the relationship
722 between brand love and brand equity, which had not been examined yet in the literature.
Second, this study describes the complex process through which brand love is fostered in
brand pages. By investigating and identifying self–brand connection as a mediator between
sense of brand community and brand love, it provides empirical support for previous
assumptions that individuals incorporate brands into their self-concepts due to the
meanings they associate with brands (i.e., Escalas and Bettman, 2003). In addition, it also
demonstrates that the relationship ties with other brand consumers also create direct
emotional bonds with the brand. This study therefore confirms the postulates of social
identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979) in a brand community context, as it suggests that a
group (i.e., brand page) can change individuals’ behaviors (i.e., brand love) if it can modify
their self-identity or part of their self-concept that derives from the knowledge of, and
emotional attachment to, the group. Specifically, we demonstrate that brand love can be
fostered through sense of brand community.
Third, it contributes to knowledge about the role of BESC. According to our results,
community on brand pages will be less important to explain self–brand connection to the
extent that a personality trait, named BESC, is strongly present in the individual. Given the
different motivations to join brand communities in social media (Pentina et al., 2008`; Habibi
et al., 2014a; Park and Kim, 2014), individuals with high BESC may be more motivated by
reasons that have to do with the relationships with brands, such as informational or
transactional reasons than by reasons that have to do with the community and its members,
such as social integration reasons. Therefore, when consumers are very prone to develop
special relationships with brands, their relationships within the community will be less
salient for enhancing self–brand connection. As a result, for high BESC individuals, sense of
brand community may be less important to explain the connection with the brand than
other individual traits, such as need for affiliation (see Marín and Ruiz, 2013, for a
description of this trait), very much related to social integration.
In sum, our results are in line with previous findings that demonstrate the influence of
sense of community in other brand-related consumer constructs. Nevertheless, we offer
empirical evidence for its influence on brand love through self–brand connection. By doing
so, this paper extends the results obtained by Turri et al. (2013), who observed that
emotional relationships in online brand communities were cultivated by the intimacy and
self-connection a consumer has toward the brand. This study demonstrates that not only
self–brand connection but also sense of community are important to develop brand love
within the brand community.

Managerial implications
These findings suggest that placing the brand on social media via the creation of brand
pages may convert the brand into a loved brand. But the mere creation of the brand page is
not enough to foster brand love. As sense of brand community and self–brand connection
are proposed to have positive consequences for brand love, marketers should be looking for
strategies to nurture relationship ties among brand users, and among consumers and
the brand.
On the one hand, to nurture relationship ties among brand users, companies should
develop marketing actions to stimulate familiarity between members of the brand page.
Brand posts should encourage members to show their preferences regarding the products.
Companies may also organize online actions such as contests in which groups of consumers Brand love in
visit the company and interact between them. Through these actions, individuals may get to Facebook
know each other better, which will increase the ties between them and therefore their sense brand pages
of belonging to the community.
Furthermore, marketers may create content that highlights the existing ties between
members of the brand page. In fact, some brand pages do not allow members to start the
conversation within the network, or they relegate consumers’ posts to the background. 723
These actions undermine consumer–brand interactions, and hence the construction of a
brand community and the generation of brand love. For example, Facebook recently
launched a “friend’s day” video with the aim of celebrating its 12th birthday, but also with
the intention of improving friendships and strengthening the relationships between
members (Nudd, 2016).
On the other hand, to build self–brand connections marketers may involve consumers in
storytelling, since practitioners are using storytelling to enhance consumers’ brand
connections. Nowadays, the emergence of social media has changed the consumer’s role in
storytelling from that of a passive listener to a more active participant. Thus, marketers may
encourage consumers to follow the story by uploading posts, photos or videos to brand
pages. They may also add apps to the brand page to create personalized products (e.g.,
personalized labels provided on the Nutella brand page) or to give information about brand
lovers around the world (e.g., see Nutella lovers around the world in their Facebook app,
www.facebook.com/Nutella.Spain).
Finally, variation among consumers in their level of engagement with their favorite
brands implies that managers may benefit from segmenting their markets in terms of BESC
and adapting their brand communication strategies.

Limitations and future research opportunities

As for the limitations, the first relates to the product category selected: baby food. Carroll
and Ahuvia (2006) show that brand love tends to be higher for products that provide
hedonic and symbolic benefits and the food category used may be characterized as more
utilitarian. Therefore, the model could be tested with other product categories.
Second, length of membership was not controlled and Madupu and Cooley (2010) identified
it as a moderator between participation and community consequences. So, the effects
described could vary for consumers who have been involved in the community for a long time
compared to those who have just become members of the community. Brand communities
may have a cumulative effect on brand love over time. That is, consumers who are during a
long time in the community may love more the brand. However, based on self-expansion
theory, the opposite effect may be predicted, because according to this theory love is more
likely to emerge in the early phase of a relationship (Aron et al., 2001). Therefore, the effect of
time may be very interesting to be investigated in future studies.
Third, this study is focused in one SNS, Facebook. However, brand communities may be
embedded in other SNSs such as YouTube, Instagram or Twitter. These SNSs differ in
terms of intensity of use, time spent daily on the platform and use motivations (Alhabash
and Ma, 2017). For example, convenience is the main motivation to be on Facebook, while
e-entertainment is to be on Instagram. Therefore, further research should consider different
motivations and their influence on the relationships proposed.
Finally, further studies could analyze other types of online brand communities not
embedded in SNSs, which vary considerably from brand pages in terms of size of
community or interactions between members. A significant part of consumers’ interactions
occurs outside of a brand’s “home turf,” on consumer-generated platforms such as Facebook
groups created by individual users or independent brand communities (Schamari and
Schaefers, 2015). It is possible that consumers’ involvement will be higher in these groups,
OIR and it would be interesting to analyze how the connection with the brand and the emerging
43,5 feeling of love may arise in such communities. In addition, in online brand communities not
embedded in SNSs but controlled by the company, membership may require acceptance by
the brand and interactions may be more frequent and intense. Therefore, the sense of brand
community could play a stronger role than in the proposed model.

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Further reading
Armstrong, J.S. and Overton, T.S. (1977), “Estimating nonresponse bias in mail surveys”, Journal of
Marketing Research, Vol. 14, pp. 396-402.
Belk, R.W. (1988), “Possessions and the extended self”, Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 15 No. 2,
pp. 139-168.
Morris, R.J. and Martin, C.L. (2000), “Beanie Babies: a case study in the engineering of a high-
involvement/relationship-prone brand”, Journal of Product and Brand Management, Vol. 9 No. 2,
pp. 78-98.
Veloutsou, C. and Moutinho, L. (2009), “Brand relationships through brand reputation and brand
tribalism”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 62 No. 3, pp. 314-322.

About the authors

Mariola Palazon is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Murcia (Spain). Her main
areas of interests are focused on communication and consumer behavior. Her articles have appeared in
Psychology and Marketing, the International Journal of Market Research, the European Journal of
Marketing and the Journal of Product and Brand Management.
Elena Delgado-Ballester (PhD in Business Administration, University of Murcia) is Associate
Professor in the Department of Marketing of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
at the same university. Her primary research interests include branding and consumer behavior.
Her work has been published in International Journal of Electronic Commerce, European
Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Behaviour and Psychology and Marketing among others.
Elena Delgado-Ballester is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]
Maria Sicilia is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Murcia (Spain). Her main
areas of interests are focused on word-of-mouth, advertising and consumer behavior. Her articles have
appeared in the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Interactive
Marketing, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications and the European Journal of Marketing.

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