The effects of brand attachment on consumer's quality of life, beyond brand performance

Consumers’ attachment to brands (or brand attachment) has gained significant interest among academic researchers and practitioners in marketing. It was well documented that brand attachment has a positive relationship with brand supportive behaviors, which will eventually increase brand profitability and customer life time value. The existing studies focused only on the effect of brand attachment on brand performance, ignoring its significant effect on consumers’ well-being or quality of life. However, in reality, if a person develops a strong attachment to a brand, he or she tends to not only show strong brand supportive behavior, but also feel happy or satisfactory in life. The main objective of this study is to examine how brand attachment can affect consumers’ well-being or quality of life, beyond brand supportive behavior. Interestingly, we found that brand attachment has not only a positive effect through self-efficacy on life satisfaction, but also a negative effect through escapism. We further found that actual- ideal self-discrepancy can moderate the relationship between brand attachment and escapism. Based on our findings, several important academic and managerial implications were provided for practitioners to perform marketing and brand strategies in ways to improve both the well-being of the companies (e.g., brand profit) and the well-being of consumers (e.g., life satisfaction).