This study investigates brand switching behaviour among consumers in a competitive market. Emphasis historically places functional utility at the expense of social meanings. Given the paucity of literature, this study adopts a grounded theory methodology based on a series of in-depth interviews among Smartphone users in the UK to access consumers’ insights and experiences of specific brands and provides consideration of market disruptions. Data from this study confirms that literature does not capture non-utilitarian factors such as sociopsychological benefits. Underlying factors explore how resistance can be built from an identity theory perspective that motivate consumers to continue buying specific brands.

Introduction and background

There is a plethora of research on brand switching covering customers’ intentions to assess possible substitutes of product categories to maximise the functional utility of attributes and the marketing mix. Literature in this stream of research fails to acknowledge the impact of socio-psychological attributes besides functional utility maximisation. This research presents an empirical investigation into the phenomenon of brand switching behaviour of consumers in a competitive market, with implications for how resistance could be built from an identity theory perspective. Emphasis has historically been placed on functional utility of products at the expense of social meanings. With exceptions of product function, insufficient attention has been paid to socio-psychological attributes and personal and social meanings of brands (Lam et al., 2013; Sweeney and Soutar, 2001). The basic assumption underlying this study is that people are constantly involved in social interactions and interpreting their constantly changing world. Hence, this study deviates from the traditional economic viewpoint of dealing with brand switching as functional utility maximisation (Appiah and Ozuem, 2018), to treating brand switching as a consequence of social mobility between brand identities amongst consumers (He et al., 2012; Lam et al., 2013). The study explores existing literature on brand loyalty and identity theory to examine the effects of identity on customer loyalty. Despite extensive studies on brand loyalty (Ozuem and Lancaster, 2012) minimal research has been carried out to establish how market disruptions negatively impact customer-brand relationships and the strategies companies adopt to gain competitive advantage by repositioning themselves to sustain brand loyalty when disruptions occur in today’s complex and globalised business environment. Although loyalty literature offers valuable understanding of customer–brand relationships, two limitations trigger the need for critical investigation (Lam et al., 2013).