Brand communities’ relational outcomes, through brand love

Purpose This paper aims to identify the impacts of brand communities on relational outcomes such as word-of-mouth, advocacy and loyalty through the mediating effects of brand love. Design/methodology/approach In total, 510 valid questionnaires were collected from Portuguese consumers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Findings This investigation shows how brand communities may contribute to reinforce the bonds between brands and customers by introducing love in these relationships. The results of this study show that the identification dimension of brand communities has an important effect on brand love, word-of-mouth, advocacy and brand loyalty. Building on the foundations of previous studies, this research also highlights the role of brand love on word-of-mouth, brand advocacy and brand loyalty and the impact of brand loyalty on word-of-mouth, brand advocacy and brand loyalty. Originality/value This investigation makes two major contributions: first, investigating the impacts of brand communities, and second, using the mediating effects of brand love on relational outcomes.