Identification in Hyper-Loyalty Brand Communities

Abstract

For decades, marketers sought "the strategy" for building brand loyalty. When they succeeded in achieving extreme brand loyalty with customers, marketers simply followed the same template for other products and brands without bothering to examine the deeper, phenomenological processes involved with such loyal consumer behavior. Extreme brand loyalty can be thought of as consumer communities (Muniz & O'Guinn, 2001) created around and directed by particular brands--hyper-loyalty as defined by McAlexander and Schouten (1998), and Ebstein, Betou, Storakers and Torner (1999). It is critical to comprehend the underlying motives that exist in the marketplace for long-term sustained competitive advantage. Hunt (2002) states that effectiveness and efficiency are the keys for advantageous resources, but are these two criteria sufficient for a full and complete understanding of consumer hyper-loyalty?

Keywords: hyper-loyalty, brand community, identification, brand loyalty

JEL Classification: M30