Advertising Intimacy: Relationship Marketing and the Services Consumer

The article proposes intimacy theory as the basis of services relationships communicated by advertising. It advocates intimacy theory as more generalizable across services marketing situations than either exchange or seduction theory. Drawing from psychology and social psychology, it presents intimacy attributes relevant to services marketing—the "five C's" of communication, caring, commitment, comfort, and conflict resolution. It then streamlines Levinger's five-stage model of intimate relationships into one with four stages—acquaintance, buildup, continuation, and dissolution. Dissolution collapses Levinger's stages of "deterioration" and "endings" into a multidimensional phase that includes four consumer responses adapted from Rusbult's work. These responses are "exit," "voice," "negative WOM," and "loyalty." The article concludes with suggestions for future research on intimacy skills and individual differences in intimacy needs.