۱- Introduction

۲- Literature review

۳- Method

۴- Results

۵- Discussion

References

Abstract

This research aimed to identify structural associations among image, satisfaction, trust, lovemarks (love and respect for a particular brand) and brand loyalty for name-brand coffee shops. A total of 401 pieces of data were analyzed through the SPSS and AMOS statistical packages. It was found that customers’ brand love and respect significantly moderated the relationship between trust and brand loyalty, suggesting that the theory of lovemarks is useful to explore the development of generating brand loyalty. It was also shown that brand image was a helpful originator of satisfaction and trust. Moreover, satisfaction affected trust, and brand loyalty and trust were positively related to brand loyalty. The current research contributed to the literature, empirically theorizing brand loyalty formation in the name-brand coffee shop industry.

Introduction

Chiu et al. (2012) emphasized that finding factors influencing brand loyalty is becoming more important in an increasingly competitive business market. In this regard human emotions and feelings as antecedents of brand loyalty have been of greater interests since the core of business has evolved from information-centered to experience-centered businesses (Tandon et al., 2014). As far as the emotional relationship between consumers and brands is concerned, Roberts (2004) introduced a theory about consumers’ emotional attachment, called the lovemarks theory including brand love and respect. Interestingly, the theory of lovemarks seems to be easily related in the backdrop of namebrand coffee shops since name-brand coffee shop consumers tend to love, protect, and support a brand based on strong trust, and they develop passionate emotional relationships with a coffee shop brand (Roberts, 2004). Among many name-brand coffee shops, Starbucks has been reported as one of the legendary brands since it has upgraded coffee from a general product to a premium cultural product with successful marketing practices. Although the relationships amongst image, satisfaction, trust, and loyalty have been frequently examined with other variables, there has been no empirical study which has directly applied the lovemarks theory to Starbucks. Moreover, beyond the simple causal relationships among core marketing variables (e.g., image, satisfaction, trust, brand loyalty) which have been mainly verified in prior brand research, the additional consideration of moderator variables (e.g., lovemarks theory) seems to be a proper approach to more accurately understand the formation process of brand loyalty. This exploration is expected to successfully reveal the complicated relationships among brand image, satisfaction, trust, lovemarks (i.e., brand love and brand respect), and brand loyalty in the name-brand coffee shop background.