The case was not an easy sell to a faculty comprised largely of dyed-in-the-
wool experimental cognitive psychologists who thought of brands as
economic sources of information. People have relationships with inanimate
brands, do they? Do tell! The methods I brought to bear to illuminate my
phenomenon were equally troubling. My thesis rested largely on phenome-
nological interviews among three—yes, three—women. The addition of
scale development work and some LISREL modelling surely helped. But, in
the end, the brand relationship ideas I generated seemed to sell themselves.
My thesis set forth several essential relationship tenets that helped academics
and practitioners think about their brands in new and powerful ways.
The first tenet stated that the provision of meaning lay at the core of all
consumer–brand relationships. Consumer–brand relationships were purposeful;
they were engaged as meaning-laden resources to help people to live their lives.
Consumers played active roles as meaning makers in the brand relationship,
mutating and adapting brand meanings to fit their life projects and tasks.
Significant brand relationships were based not on low or high category
involvement levels, but on the significance of the brand’s meanings in the
person’s life. Even mundane goods could foster strong relationships provided
their meanings resonated in the personal and cultural world.
A second tenet emphasized the variability of brand relationship types and
forms. The relationship perspective forced us to acknowledge that highly
committed and emotive brand loyal relationships were not the only mean-
ingful consumer–brand engagements. A broadened view of relationship space
included flings, secret affairs, committed partnerships, and friendships, not to
mention adversaries, enmities, and master–slaves. Each of these relationships
was governed by a unique set of contract rules: ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’ concerning
behaviours in the relationship. Friends should not reveal secrets to others, for
example, and marital spouses should not cheat. Brand relationships could be
distinguished as strong versus weak, hierarchical versus egalitarian, formal
versus informal, positive versus negative. Strong relationships could be qual-
ified beyond loyalty and affect using the brand relationship quality (BRQ)
scale and its added facets of self connection, sociocultural connection, interde-
pendence, partner role quality, and intimacy. The astute relationship manager
recognized that consumer–brand relationships were complex, and managed
relationships according to their operative dimensions and rules.
A third tenet supported that relationships were dynamic and reciprocating
phenomena that evolved and changed over time. Relationships unfolded
through stages, including Initiation, Growth, Maintenance, and Decline.
They manifested characteristic development trajectories: Biological Life
Cycle, Passing Fad, Cyclical Resurgence, and Approach Avoidance Curve.
Importantly, everything the brand did had the potential to affect the rela-
tionship. Brand behaviours—from packaging and logo choices to the saluta-
tions on customer service letters—sent ‘signals’ regarding the type of
The relational approach 177