Brand experience: The dimensional necessitation of self-congruence facets and spillover to consumer's affective responses

Abstract

The central purpose of the study is to investigate the role of brand experience with respect to actual self-congruence, ideal self-congruence, brand experience, emotional brand attachment and orientation toward happiness. In order to achieve the objective, the chapter comprehensively discussed the study variables and their association in the hypothesized direction. The study is based on self-congruity theory and argued that consumers associate their sense of self with brands, and brand imbued with consistent brand personality to self evokes strong brand experience, emotional brand attachment and orientation toward happiness. The self-congruence can be in the form of actual self-congruity and ideal self-congruence. The actual self-congruence and ideal self-congruence relationships are based on self-verification theory and self-enhancement theory. The relationship of actual self-congruence and ideal self-congruence with orientation toward happiness and brand experience is based on positive psychology contention that people seek happiness from their daily life activities. The chapter further discussed and grounded the hypothesis based on theoretical groundings and prior literature.