Guest editorial: 30 years of brand relationship research
| Date | 30 July 2024 |
| Pages | 413-418 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-05-2024-024 |
| Published date | 30 July 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Marketing,Product management,Brand management/equity |
| Author | Marc Fetscherin,Cleopatra Veloutsou |
Guest editorial: 30 years of
brand relationship research
1. Introduction
Last year (2023) marked the 30-year milestone of consumer brand
relationship research. Can you believe that it has been 30 years
since Blackstone’s (1993) initial research, followed by Fajer and
Schouten’s (1995) and Fournier’s (1998) papers? Together they
have formed the basis and inspired the brand relationships field.
Since these early days, the consumer brand relationship field, or
brand relationship in short, has evolved and growing in scope and
complexity. The early papers portrayed brands as active
participants in brand relationships, laying the foundation for a
diverse study area that captivates both academic and practical
attention from various disciplines over the last three decades. The
progress of this field is demonstrated by the creation and
implementation of diverse cutting-edge metrics and frameworks
(Fetscherin et al., 2021) aimed at comprehending the different
brand relationship types varying in polarity and strength
(Fetscherin et al., 2019), also identified in bibliometric literature
engagement (Alvarez et al.,2023).
The relationship paradigm comes as a response to brands today
not merely being symbols of transactions; but having evolved into
entities with which consumers form relationships, such as engage,
interact, experience and co-create meaning and value (Bagozzi
et al., 2021). This shift in perspective underscores the
development of two main types of brand-centric relationships:
individual and collective (Veloutsou, 2009;Veloutsou and Ruiz
Mafe, 2020). Individual brand relationships emerge when
consumers connect to brands on a personal lev el, often leading to
deep emotional bonds, regardless of ownership. Collectively,
consumers seek out others with similar brand affinities, forming
communities, tribes or brand-centric collectives with consistingof
members sharing a collective identity, sharing information,
enjoying communal activities and expressing shared brand
enthusiasm.
In that respect, brand relations hips have transformed from
an initial concept introduced ov er three decades ago into a
robust field within marketing. This evolution has seen a
transition from exploratory inve stigations to the development
of measurement tools and a broadening of ac ademic
encounter. The creation of measur ement instruments such as
the MBLM Brand Intimacy Study (MBLM, 20 22) and
Edelman’s Trust Barometer (Edelma n, 2024) indicates the
concept’s relevance to both academia an d practitioners. This
issue in the Journal of Product and Bra nd Management aims to
contribute to provide first an update on t his research field, and
then particularly presents the latest ar ticles on that field.
2. Current state of research
The research approach adopted in thi s editorial follows the
same methodology established by Fe tscherin and Heinrich
(2015) and Fetscherin et al.’s(2019)special issue editorial in
the Journal of Product and Brand Managem ent. In construct
with other recent bibliometric wor k using Scopus and a
specific set of keywords to assess collect ive brand relationships
(Roy Bhattacharjee et al.,2022;Veloutsou and Liao, 2023),
or both individual and collective bran d relationships in the
online context (Veloutsou and Ruiz Maf e, 2020). The papers
selected for this analysis were extrac ted from the Web of
Science (WoS) and are publications citing Fournier’s(1998)
seminal work. The purpose of thi s work is to complement the
previous two bibliometric analy ses (Fetscherin and Heinrich,
2015;Fetscherin et al., 2019) by coll ecting data since the last
bibliometric paper in 2019 based on dat a until November
2018. To achieve this goal, this d ata set includes papers
published between January 1, 2018 and Fe bruary 22, 2024
(date retrieved from WoS). To demon strate the trend in the
number of publications per year, the dat a from the previous
two bibliometric studies is com bined with the data
downloaded for the current analys is, without double counting
work published in 2018. It needs to be noted that, given the
inclusion criteria and choices t he process is not totally
replicable, because the time wind ows they cover cannot be
exactly repeated since they are not up to the end of a period
that the database recognizes (calendar year ). The selected
papers for analysis in this editoria l focus on individual
consumer brand relationships in any context citing Fournier’s
(1998) seminal paper, but this choi ce has possibly led to
omitting some relevant work not citin g this particular article.
The concept of brand relationshi p has become widely
accepted in the marketing field. After an introduction stage
(around 1993–2010), brand relation ship went into a
significant growth stage between 2010 and 2020 and it lo oks
as if it might be entering the mature stage since 2020 wit h less
growth in the number of papers pub lished but with a
consistent number of around 250 pape rs per year published
(Figure 1). More specifically 251 pa pers were published in
2019, 255 papers in 2020, 267 papers in 2021, and 25 8 and
256 papers in 2022 and 2023, respecti vely.
To assess and compare these three periods, the num ber of
articles published, the average nu mber of articles published
per year, the total number of contribu ting authors and
journals publishing brand rela tionship-related articles were
examined (Table 1). A breakdown of the main disciplines
these journals belong to, demonst rates that business and
management are the two dominant s ubject disciplines. There
is a clear and substantial growth in res earch output,
collaboration and diversity of publication venues across the
evaluated periods, with the cur rent editorial highlighting the
most substantial data set, the highest av erage of articles
published per year (close to 250 pape rs), the most authors
(over 3,300) and the greatest va riety of journals when
compared to the previous two bibliome tric studies. This trend
suggests not only an increase in re search activity but also a
significant expansion of the researc h community and
dissemination channels over the last thr ee decades.
The comparison clearly demonstrat es an evolving
landscape of academic research, wher e the volume of
contributions, the scale of autho rship and the spectrum of
Thecurrentissueandfulltextarchiveofthisjournalisavailableon
Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
33/4 (2024) 413–418
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/JPBM-05-2024-024]
413
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting