Brand relationships and consumer intentions: mapping research trends through a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis

Branding research has shifted from traditional constructs such as brand loyalty, brand equity, and customer satisfaction towards contemporary concerns of digital, socially constructed, and ethically grounded branding. This shift reflects the growing influence of social media, influencer marketing, and consumer participation on how brands are perceived, experienced, and evaluated. Against this backdrop, this study offers a comprehensive analysis of branding literature, with particular emphasis on brand relationships and consumer intentions. Using bibliometric techniques including citation analysis, co-authorship analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, and thematic evolution analysis, the study identifies the leading contributors to the field. India, Malaysia, and the United States emerge as the most productive countries by publication volume, while citation analysis demonstrates the global reach of high-performing research clusters. Co-authorship analysis reveals regional and international collaboration, underscoring the interconnectedness of branding scholarship worldwide. Thematic analysis exposes a dichotomy between established constructs such as trust, brand loyalty, and purchase intention, and emerging themes such as influencer marketing, parasocial interaction, brand activism, and digital branding. Trend topic and thematic evolution analyses point to a growing movement towards interdisciplinarity and socially constructed branding paradigms. The findings map the intellectual structure of the field and identify directions for future research on brand and consumer relationships in digital environments.