Consumers' self-congruence with a 'Liked' brand: cognitive network influence and brand outcomes

By E. Wallace, Isabel Buil, L. de Chernatony. 2017

117 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Purpose Brand “Likes” on Facebook facilitate self-expression, forming part of consumers’ virtual selves. Yet, consumers’ brand “Likes” may bear little resemblance to their material realities. This paper aims to test similarities of brand image with self-image for Facebook “Likes” to determine whether self-congruence with a “Liked” brand leads to positive offline brand outcomes. It also investigates whether consumers’ perceptions about their Facebook social relations influence self-congruent brand “Likes”. Design/methodology/approach A large-scale survey was conducted of regular Facebook users who “Liked” brands. Data from 438 respondents was analysed and hypotheses tested using structural equation modeling. Findings Empirical results show that the perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand increases with social tie strength. Perceived social tie strength is informed by perceived attitude homophily. When the perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand is higher, brand love and word of mouth (WOM) are enhanced. Consumers also have greater brand loyalty and offer more WOM when brands are loved. Research limitations/implications Findings demonstrate the influence of consumers’ cognitive network on “Likes” and brand outcomes. Further replication would enhance generalisability. Future research should use a wider sample and investigate other variables. Practical implications Findings support managers seeking to grow and analyse Facebook “Likes” by providing insights into brand loyalty, brand love and WOM for “Liked” brands. Originality/value The paper addresses the dearth of research exploring how consumers’ perceptions of their Facebook network influence their online brand behaviour and how perceived self-congruence with a “Liked” brand relates to brand outcomes.

Subfields: Literature and Literary Theory, Marketing, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/51633f4bb1acb279413adbca25709aaa613e52bd

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Literature and Literary Theory

1. Bang Nguyen

In Marketing

1. Arnold Japutra
2. Lyndon Simkin
3. Y. Ekinci
4. Bang Nguyen
5. K. Kaplanidou
6. A. Apostolopoulou
7. D. Papadimitriou

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Arnold Japutra
2. Lyndon Simkin
3. Y. Ekinci
4. Bang Nguyen
5. K. Kaplanidou
6. A. Apostolopoulou
7. D. Papadimitriou

Citations in the corpus

• The role of ideal self-congruence and brand attachment in consumers’ negative behaviour: Compulsive buying and external trash-talking (2018, background): “Many studies in the marketing literature focus on investigating the effects of selfcongruence on favourable consumer behaviours such as consumer satisfaction, brand love, favourable attitudes, Word-of-Mouth (WOM) and consumer loyalty (e.g. Ekinci & Riley, 2003; Kressman et al., 2006; Ekinci et al., ”