• Introduces brand attachment styles to examine consumer views of brand behavior. • Adapts the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) scale for brands. • Shows brand attachment styles are empirically distinct from related constructs. • Finds brand attachment styles are linked to third-party performance metrics. • Offers implications for how managers can assess and strengthen brand relationships. Consumer–brand relationships are dyadic yet research has largely focused on how consumers think and feel about brands, overlooking how brands are perceived to relate to consumers. We explore whether consumers also form impressions of how brands behave in relationships, drawing on attachment theory as a framework for organizing these perceptions. Specifically, we propose that the dimensions that define interpersonal attachment styles—anxiety and avoidance—can be meaningfully adapted to describe how brands are perceived to engage with consumers over time. We introduce a two-dimensional scale of brand attachment styles, adapted from the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) scale, and provide evidence of its reliability, validity, and conceptual distinctiveness from related brand constructs. Across multiple studies, we show that the scale meaningfully differentiates brands and predicts different brand performance metrics. Together, these findings offer a new lens on brand behavior—one with implications for both branding theory and relationship management in practice.
Whelan et al. (Wed,) studied this question.