What Brands Do Consumers Love? - A Study of … tastes, attitude towards fair trade products,...

What brands do consumers love? - A study of fashion brands and food brands

What Brands Do Consumers Love? - A Study of Fashion

Brands and Food Brands

Exposé

Sanya Saif

European Master in Business Studies

2013-2015


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Table of Contents

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................ 3

LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................. 3

LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................. 3

ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................... 4

1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 5

2. PROBLEM STATEMENT AND RESEARCH QUESTION .................................... 7

2.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT ..................................................................................... 7

2.2 RESEARCH QUESTION ...................................................................................... 7

3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ..................................................................... 8

4. REVIEW OF LITERATURE ........................................................................... 11

4.1 BRAND LOVE ............................................................................................... 11

4.2 BRAND RELATIONSHIP .................................................................................... 15

4.3 BRAND ENGAGEMENT .................................................................................... 16

4.4 BRAND ATTACHMENT .................................................................................... 17

4.5 FASHION CONSUMPTION ................................................................................ 18

5. HYPOTHESIS ............................................................................................. 20

6. METHODOLOGY ....................................................................................... 24

7. OVERVIEW OF CHAPTERS ......................................................................... 25

8. WORK PLAN ............................................................................................. 26

9. BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................... 27


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List of Abbreviations BRQ – Brand Relationship Quality

WOM – Word Of Mouth

List of Figures Figure 1. Sternberg’s dimensions of love

Figure 2. BRQ and its seven facets

List of Tables Table 1. Literature review: Journals/ Articles

Table 2. Literature review: Books


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Abstract

Title: What brands do consumers love? - A study of fashion brands and food brands

Keywords: love, brand love, categories of brands, differences, food brands, fashion brands

Background: The concept of brand love claims that consumers feel a feeling of „love‟

towards brands and this feeling can be considered similar to the feeling of love we feel

towards people. Even though the definition of „love‟ remains debatable, the general notion of

romance is considered when we talk about brand love. Brand love is comparatively a new

field of study and one can see that not many studies have been carried out in this area. This,

therefore, makes the scope of study in this field quite vast. The studies that have been

carried out are mostly in the direction of proving whether brand love exists or not and some

also show differences in this concept when applied to different cultures. This study, thus, can

be seen as a step forward.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to carry this concept of brand love a step further and

see if there are any differences in it if we look at different categories of brands. Studying all

categories of brands is not feasible for one study and comparison among all would be next

to impossible, therefore for this study, two categories of brands will be compared; fashion

brands and food brands. The reason for choosing these two categories is further explained

in the description.

Method: Mixed methodology is applied to collect data. Online questionnaires will be sent out

which will generate more qualitative data in the form of text. As this study does not take into

account cultural impacts, the whole world population from the age of 15 to 75 is considered

as our sample.


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1. Introduction

There is no one agreed definition of „love‟ and many schools of thought present different

definitions. As Whang, Florida and Allen put it in their article „Falling in love with a product:

the structure of a romantic consumer-product relationship‟ - “Love is an outcome of bi-

directional interaction between two partners, yet its highly dynamic interactivity makes it

challenging for researchers to study.” As love is seen to be interpersonal, it raises a question

whether love towards products and brands can be romantic even if it‟s not towards another

human being?

Branden (1980) define love as “The origin of our desire to love lies in our profound need to

value, to find things in the world which we can care about, can feel excited and inspired by. It

is our values that tie us to the world and that motivate us to go on living. Every action is

taken for the purpose of gaining or protecting something we believe will benefit our life or

enhance our experience” (p.67).

From this definition we can see that the concept of romantic love is not only restricted

towards other human beings. (Whang, Florida & Allen, 2004) Therefore when brand love is

discussed, it refers to the romantic feelings people may feel towards products/brands.

Different viewpoints exist and many definitions have been given of this concept, which is

further described in the theoretical background section.

In the article 'When consumers love their brands: Exploring the concept and its dimensions',

Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence (2008) carried out an exploratory research to find out

whether love in a romantic way exists between consumers and brands. They based their

study on social psychology‟s definition of love, which applies the relationship paradigm. An

internet study was carried out which didn‟t include the words „love‟ or „liking‟ and the attitude

of consumers towards the brands they mentioned were studied. The conclusion of this

research was proving that this kind of love do exists between consumers and brands. Albert

(2009) carried out another study „The feeling of love toward a brand: concept and

measurement‟ which was focused towards understanding the concept in more detail and

development of new scale to measure brand love.

This study is inspired from their work of 2008. It can be seen as an extension, being based

on their findings. As they proved romantic feelings towards brands exist, this study will try to

find out what are those brands that consumers feel these feelings towards. Can they be

towards brands of any category? Are there any specific categories?


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In order for this research to be more useful and applicable, I narrowed down the research to

two categories of brands and decided to compare fashion brands and food brands. Fashion

has many definitions, some of them are:

1) “Fashion is dress in which the key feature is rapid and continual changing of styles”

(Svendsen, 2010)

2) “ ...represents something special and striking, while at the same time he feels

inwardly supported by persons who are striving for the same thing…. It is peculiarly

characteristic of fashion that it renders possible a social obedience, which at the

same time is a form of individual differentiation” (Simmel, 2001)

3) “signifies union with those in the same class, the uniformity of a circle characterized

by it, and, uno actu, the exclusion of all other groups” (Simmel, 2001)

Food on the other hand is a simple and basic need, which we satisfy using various and

different brands.

The reason for choosing these two categories is when buying both these categories of

brands reflects something about the person. As we can see from the various definitions of

fashion, it is seen as something that differentiates one from the rest or in other words

something which creates one‟s identity. As Noesjirwan and Crawford (1982) put it “clothing is

primarily a means of communicating, not personal identity, but social identity” concluding

that “clothing is symbolic of that [social] identity and the values espoused by the group. The

same values serve as a yardstick for judging the clothing worn by others and the social

identity symbolized by it.” Therefore it is a category of brand consumers show interest and

concern towards. This is proved by the premium prices customers are willing to pay and the

commitment they show towards the brand (Schlobohm, Zulauf, Wagner, 2014)

Food brands on the other hand reflect the same principle. As food is something that is

consumed and has an effect on our body, it is also a category of brands consumers pay

attention towards. What we eat also shows something about ourselves, be it our preference

in tastes, attitude towards fair trade products, attitude towards waste disposal or just a

preference towards organic food. Although the issues mentioned above are not a part of our

study, they just show that while choosing food, consumers do pay some attention towards it.

Of course, for both fashion brands and food brands, the condition is the level of involvement

of consumers. Love towards brands can only exist if consumers are involved in the purchase

they are making. If they just buy on impulse or what seems most convenient, the concept


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does not come into play. Therefore, level of involvement would be an important filter while

carrying out this research.

This study hence covers how to deal with the problem question, i.e. do consumers really

love fashion brands and food brands. Following is the literature review of previous works

about brand love, what factors play a part and the definitions. Unfortunately no study about

brand love in the two categories is found, so we generally talk about what theorists say

about brand love. Finally, a research study is done to prove the hypothesis.

2. Problem Statement and Research Question

2.1 Problem Statement

As previously mentioned, this study is based on the work of Albert, Merunka, & Valette-

Florence (2008) 'When consumers love their brands: Exploring the concept and its

dimensions'

Based on it, this study will take a step towards finding out what brands do consumers love. It

is not aiming to study different brands on the market but rather categories of brands. In order

to make it more specific and comparable, we only compare two categories of brands.

2.2 Research Question The research question therefore is:

“How do consumers feel towards fashion brands and food brands?”

More specifically:

a) “How do consumers feel towards fashion brands?”

b) “How do consumers feel towards food brands?”


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3. Theoretical background

This area of research is relatively new and not many studies have been carried out on it

(Ahuvia,2005; Fournier,1998) There are some definitions of brand love given by theorists

which can be used to understand this phenomenon. When we talk about such romantic

feelings towards brands, we tend to talk about the interpersonal theories of love. Sternberg

(1986) presented the Triangular theory of love, with the three points of the triangle being:

intimacy, passion and decision/commitment. Using these three dimensions, he created eight

different types of love by the absence (-)/presence (+) of the three dimensions. (See

Figure.1 below)

Intimacy Passion Decision/commitment

Nonlove - - -

Liking/friendship + - -

Infatuated love - + -

Empty love - - +

Romantic love + + -

Companionate love + - +

Fatuous love - + +

Consummate love + + +

Shimp and Madden (1988) based their work on this theory and came up with three

dimensions as well, which are liking, yearning and decision/commitment. They said that the

presence of all three of these dimensions leads to brand loyalty, which is the same as

Sternberg‟s consummate love. While these two theories talk about the presence or absence

of the three dimensions, there are some theorists like Heinrich, Bauer and Muhl (2006) who

say that in order for brand love to exist; all three dimensions must be present. Some argue

that brand love and brand loyalty are the same concepts while some argue them to be

different. This is based on the argument that it becomes brand loyalty if the dimension of

decision/commitment is present. Whang, Allen, Sahoury and Zhang (2004) support this view

and say that consumers might experience passionate love and emotional love for a brand

which might turn into romantic love over time.

Figure1. Sternberg’s dimensions of love


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We also find some theorists talking about „consumer-object‟ relationship. For example

Fournier (1998) talks about the Brand Relationship Quality construct (BRQ), in which she

argues that passion and love are the core elements of any consumer-brand relationship and

people tend to develop intimate relationships with the brands similar to interpersonal ones.

She talks about seven facets in this relationship. (See Figure. 2 below)

These two paradigms (interpersonal theory and consumer-object relationship) show different

viewpoints of various theorists but both of them are criticised which is why it is difficult to say

which one of these will be agreed upon by later theorists and researchers.

So all in all, how do we define brand love? Carrol and Ahuvia (2006) define brand love as

“the degree of passionate emotional attachment that a satisfied consumer has for a

particular trade name”. On the other hand Rossiter (2012) defines brand loves as “achieved

only when “Deep Affection” and “Separation Anxiety” are jointly felt in relation to the potential

love object.” Keh, Pang, and Peng (2007) define brand love “as the intimate, passionate, and

committed relationship between a customer and a brand, characterized by its reciprocal,

purposive, multiplex, and dynamic properties”

BRQ

Passionate attachment

Love

Self connection

Nostslgic connection

Personal commitment

Brand partner quality

Intimacy

Figure 2. BRQ and its seven facets


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After discussing the definitions of brand love and what various theorists say about it, we

move on to see the literature on this topic, the hypotheses of this study and further how this

research will be carried out.

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4. Review of literature Before conducting the study, it is important to understand where the current status of academic research lies on brand love and related topics.

In order to do that, the following journal articles and books are reviewed.

Articles/Journals:

4.1 Brand love Topic Title Author(s) Year Source Content

Brand love When

consumers

love their

brands:

Exploring the

concept and its

dimensions

Albert,

Merunka, &

Valette-

Florence

2008 Journal of Business

Research, 61(10),

1062–1075.

doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.

2007.09.014

- Exploring the feeling of love towards brands

similar to those towards people.

- Comparing results in France to those in

America.

Brand love The feeling of

love toward a

brand: concept

and

measurement

N. Albert 2009 Advances in consumer

research, (1993).

Retrieved from

http://hal.archives-

ouvertes.fr/halshs-

00545936/

Understanding the concept and development of new

scale to measure brand love.

Brand love Psychometric

vs. C-OAR-SE

Ahuvia,

Aaron

2013 Marketing Letters, 25(2),

235–243.

Analysing brand love definitions, discussion and new

way of measurement.

Table 1. Literature review: Journals/Articles


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measures of

brand love: A

reply to

Rossiter

Bagozzi,

Richard P.

Batra,

Rajeev

doi:10.1007/s11002-013-

9251-4

Brand love Brand love Batra,

Rajeev

Ahuvia,

Aaron

Bagozzi,

RP

2012 Journal of Marketing,

76(March), 1–16.

Retrieved from

http://journals.ama.org/doi/

abs/10.1509/jm.09.0339

Investigating the nature and consequences of brand

love including concepts of brand loyalty, WOM and

resistance to negative information

Brand love The role of

brand love in

consumer-

brand

relationships

Albert, N., &

Merunka, D.

2013 Journal of Consumer

Marketing, 30(3), pp. 258–

266.

Proposing and testing antecedents and consequences

(brand identification, brand commitment and brand

trust) of brand love.

Brand love Some

antecedents

and outcomes

of brand love

Carroll,

Barbara a.

Ahuvia,

Aaron C.

2006 Marketing Letters, 17(2),

79–89.

doi:10.1007/s11002-006-

4219-2

- Brand love linked to brand loyalty and effect of

positive WOM.

- Concluded that love is more for products

perceived as hedonic compared to utilitarian

ones

Brand love Two studies of

consequences

Bergkvist,

Lars

2010 Journal of Brand

Management, 17(7), 504–

Assessing managerial relevance of brand love by

testing two antecedents – brand identification and



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and actionable

antecedents of

brand love

Bech-

Larsen,

Tino

518.

doi:10.1057/bm.2010.6

sense of community

Brand love

Effects of

brand love,

personality

and image on

word of mouth:

The case of

fashion brands

among young

consumers

Ismail, A. R.

2012 Journal of Fashion

Marketing and

Management, 16(4),

pp. 386–398.

doi:10.1108/1361202

1211265791

Studying the impact of brand personality, brand image

and WOM on brand love

Brand love Falling in love

with a product

: The structure

of a romantic

consumer-

product

relationship

Whang,

Yun-oh

Florida,

Central

Allen, Jeff

2004 http://www.acrwebsite.org/

volumes/v31/acr_vol3

1_107.pdf

31(1989), 320–327.

Definition of brand love and analysing the romantic

feelings in consumer-brand relationship

Brand love Romancing

with a brand :

a conceptual

Sarkar,

Abhigyan

2011 http://www.managementm

arketing.ro/pdf/articole/212

.pdf

Literature review of customer-brand relationship,

differentiating brand loyalty from brand love and how

the concept can be useful for marketing strategy


http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/v31/acr_vol31_107.pdf



http://www.managementmarketing.ro/pdf/articole/212.pdf




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analysis of

romantic

consumer-

brand

relationship

6(1), 79–94. formulation and implementation

Brand love Brand love,

brand image

and loyalty in

Australian elite

sport

Landau, LD 2010 Zhurnal Eksperimental’noi

I Teoreticheskoi

Fiziki. Retrieved from

http://scholar.google.

com/scholar?hl=en&b

tnG=Search&q=intitle

:No+Title#0

- Relationship between brand image, brand love

and loyalty within Australian elite sport.

- Discussion of brand love literature

From reviewing the articles above, we discover how different authors define brand love and other concepts related to it like brand loyalty and

brand image. Different propositions about how to measure brand love and factors that influence it are also made.



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4.2 Brand relationship Topic Title Author(s) Year Source Content

Brand

relationship

Consumers

and their

brands:

developing

relationship

theory in

consumer

research

Fournier,

Susan

1998 Journal of Consumer

Research, 24(4), 343–353.

Retrieved from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/

10.1086/209515

Assessing relationship between consumers and

brands and tools for measuring the quality of the

relationship

Brand

relationship

Brand

relationship

quality and its

value for

personal

contact

Smit, Edith

Bronner,

Fred

Tolboom,

Maarten

2007 Journal of Business

Research, 60(6),

627–633.

doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.

2006.06.012

Study to assess if quality of customer-brand

relationship differs from brand to brand

Brand

relationship

How to

measure brand

relationship

quality?

Zhou, Z. 2007 Frontiers of Business

Research in China,

1(2), pp. 300-318.

Doi: 10.1007/s11782-

007- 0017-9

New evaluation approach based on a brand

relationship index model (BRI model)



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The articles above explain the different types of relationships that can exist between a product/brand and a customer as well as the factors that

impact this relationship.

4.3 Brand engagement Topic Title Author(s) Year Source Content

Brand

engagement

Exploring

customer

brand

engagement:

definition and

themes

Hollebeek,

Linda

2011 Journal of Strategic

Marketing, 19(7),

555–573.

doi:10.1080/0965254

X.2011.599493

Literature review of customer-brand engagement and

its themes – immersion, passion and activation

From this article we develop an understanding about the literature present on the topic of brand engagement and what it has to offer towards

this field.



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4.4 Brand attachment Topic Title Author(s) Year Source Content

Brand

attachment

The role of

attachment in

building

consumer-

brand

relationships:

an empirical

investigation in

the utilitarian

consumption

context

Belaid, S. &

Behi, A. T.

2011 Journal of Product &

Brand Management,

20(1), pp. 37-47. Doi:

10.1108/1061042111

1108003

Brand attachment is considered as an important input

to brand commitment for utilitarian products

Brand

attachment

Brand

romance: a

complementar

y approach to

explain

emotional

attachment

toward brands

Patwardhan

, H. &

Balasubram

anian, S. K.

2011 Journal of Product &

Brand Management,

20(4), pp. 297- 308.

Doi:

10.1108/1061042111

1148315

Explaining brand romance using the Self-Expansion

model



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From the articles above, we get an understanding about brand attachment and how it is a factor in a customer-brand relationship.

4.5 Fashion consumption Topic Title Author(s) Year Source Content

Fashion

consumption

A Theory on

Fashion

Consumption

Ma, Fang

Shi, Huijing

Chen, Lihua

Luo, Yiping

2012 Journal of Management

and Strategy, 3(4),

84–92.

doi:10.5430/jms.v3n4

Description of fashion consumption, main features of

fashion and relationship with innovation, classic and

prevalence

Unfortunately not many articles were found that could benefit us in both the fields of fashion and brand love. The article above gives us general

insights about fashion consumption and how it can be influenced.



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Books:

Title Author Year Content

Children's relationships

with brands: “True

love” or “one-night”

stand?

1. Mindy F. Ji

2002 Children develop

relationship with wide

range of brands and

these relationships are

embedded in the social

environment

Unfortunately, not many books on the related topic were found. The book mentioned in the table above is interesting as we find out that people

develop relationships with certain brands from a young age but not much research is carried out on it.

Table 2. Literature review: Books


5. Hypothesis In order to answer the research questions, the following hypotheses are formulated:

In the results of 'When consumers love their brands: Exploring the concept and its

dimensions', Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence (2008) discovered 11 dimensions of love

towards a brand. Consumers who loved the brands they talked about, fully agreed with these

11 dimensions. As this study is based on their findings, we will use these 11 dimensions and

apply them to fashion brands and food brands. Therefore each hypotheses represents a

dimension from their results:

Passion

It is the first dimension discussed in the findings of Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence

(2008) and as they say, it is often associated to the feeling of love. As it is referred to

„intense longing for union with another‟ (Hatfield & Walster, 1978), it is significant to link this

factor to the categories of brands in our study.

H1a: Consumers are passionate towards the fashion brand(s) they love

H1b: Consumers are passionate towards the food brand(s) they love

Duration of the relationship: long

Long term relationship is linked with satisfaction and intimacy with the partner (Albert,

Merunka & Valette-Florence, 2008) i.e. one of the factors of love. Therefore the following

hypotheses are made to address this factor.

H2a: Consumers have a long term relationship with the fashion brand(s) they love

H2b: Consumers have a long term relationship with the food brand(s) they love

Self congruity: congruity between self image and product image

In their work, Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence (2008) state that couples usually have

some form of similarity, for example, in beliefs, attitudes, humour, physical attractiveness

etc. This means that when love exists, there is usually some similarity between the two

people. In the same way for love to exist between brands and customers, this similarity is


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expected. This is seen in the sense of product image being similar to self image. To test this,

the following hypotheses are made.

H3a: Fashion brand(s) consumers love is congruent with their self image

H3b: Food brand(s) consumers love is congruent with their self image

Dreams

Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence (2008) say when consumers are in love with a brand,

they dream about it. This means that they think about it often and that particular brand

favours their dreams. The following hypotheses will test this dimension.

H4a: The fashion brand(s) consumers love support their dreams

H4b: The food brand(s) consumers love support their dreams

Memories: evoked by the brand

In their work, Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence (2008) state that certain brand brings back

some memories to the consumers. These memories can be of their childhood, something

special that happened or just nostalgia, but these feelings suggest a special relationship with

the brand. Therefore, in order to understand this, we develop the following hypotheses.

H5a: The fashion brand(s) consumers love evoke some memories

H5b: The food brand(s) consumers love evoke some memories

Pleasure

Love is linked to positive emotions, including pleasure (Fehr & Russel, 1991) and when it

comes to love between a brand and a consumer, pleasure effects the duration of the

relationship (Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence, 2008) In the following hypotheses we test

the dimension of pleasure.

H6a: The fashion brand(s) consumers love provide them with some pleasure


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H6b: The food brand(s) consumers love provide them with some pleasure

Attraction:

Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence (2008) describe attraction as a dimension of

interpersonal love. This means consumers feel attracted towards the brand they love. To test

this, the following hypotheses are made.

H7a: Consumers feel attracted towards the fashion brand(s) they love

H7b: Consumers feel attracted towards the food brand(s) they love

Uniqueness:

Lovers usually consider their partners unique (Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence, 2008).

Also many respondents say that the brand they prefer is unique, which leads to feelings of

idealization often mentioned in interpersonal love theories (Murray and Holmes, 1993;

Murray et al., 1996; Sternberg and Barnes, 1985) The following hypotheses are made to test

this dimension.

H8a: Consumers see the fashion brand(s) they love as unique

H8b: Consumers see the food brand(s) they love as unique

Beauty:

“Beauty is a determinant of love relationships” (Merunka & Valette-Florence, 2008, Walster

et al, 1966) Therefore when it comes to love, beauty is considered to be one of the most

prominent factors. The following hypotheses are made to study this.

H9a: Consumers see beauty in the fashion brand(s) they love

H9b: Consumers see beauty in the food brand(s) they love


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Trust: No disappointment

“Consumers in love seem to declare they have never been disappointed and express their

satisfaction with the brand” (Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence, 2008) This shows that trust

is also a dimension in the concept of brand love and the following hypotheses are made to

study this.

H10a: Consumers fully trust the fashion brand(s) they love and have never felt

disappointed

H10b: Consumers fully trust the food brand(s) they love and have never felt

disappointed

Declaration of affect

This refers to the expression of love or sentiments towards another person/object/brand.

Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence (2008) state that they did not name this dimension

„declaration of love‟ but rather „declaration of affect‟ because consumers use many different

words to express their feelings of love for example adore, appreciate, like etc. The following

hypotheses are made to test this dimension.

H11a: Consumers declare their feeling of affect for the fashion brand(s) they love

H11b: Consumers declare their feeling of affect for the food brand(s) they love

The 11 hypotheses discussed above are made to prove whether brand love exists between

consumers and fashion brand(s)/food brand(s). If these 11 hypotheses are tested to be true,

we will successfully be able to say that brand love exists in the categories of fashion and

food. The method to carry out this research is described in the next section.


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6. Methodology

Method of research: Hybrid survey- exploratory study via an online questionnaire

As this study is inspired by the work of Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence (2008)

'When consumers love their brands: Exploring the concept and its dimensions', it will be

using the same research approach as was used by them, but a little modified to suit the

purpose of this study. In their study, interviews were first carried out to see what generally

people felt towards this area of study, later questionnaires were spread. In this study, we will

not carry out the interviews and only focus on the questionnaires, as this study is a step

forward to the research and wants to investigate these feelings for two categories of brands.

Description/data analysis: The research consists of both qualitative and quantitative

techniques: Quantitative: close-ended question, large number of respondents; Qualitative:

exploratory study, projective techniques, text answers from respondents

The projective technique is used in this study because it is effective in encouraging people to

bring forward their hidden opinions, attitudes or feelings about the object or situation. Such

methods are useful when direct methods are unable to acquire the required information

precisely or researchers need a better understanding of the phenomenon (Malhotra, 2004),

(Albert, Merunka & Valette-Florence, 2008). Therefore for our purpose of study, they seem

best.

Setting: The questionnaire will be spread in early December 2014

Instruments: Software used for online survey - Sphinx

Sample and participants: This study does not take into account nationality as a factor so,

the questionnaire will be spread as far and wide as possible using online platforms and

personal contacts. The age group considered is 15-75 because people from a very young

age show attitudes towards brands and this carries on till later in life. Also, as the medium of

survey is online questionnaire, this age group seems most suitable to be able to access it

and answer it. As the population size ideally is the total population of the world from the age

15 to 75, with an error margin of 5%, confidence level of 95% and response distribution of

50%, our sample is 385 respondents, calculated using the article „sample size calculation‟

(Kadam & Bhalerao, 2010)


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7. Overview of chapters

Abstract

List of content

List of tables

List of abbreviations Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Problem statement and reasoning

- Importance of topic

- Inspiration

Chapter 3 Purpose and research questions

Chapter 4 Literature review and theoretical background on brand love

4.1 Overview

4.2 Definitions of brand love

4.3 Different models and previous works done

Chapter 5 Fashion brands and food brands

5.1 Overview

5.2 Connection with brand love and reasons for choosing

Chapter 6 Methodology

6.1 Setup & inspiration 6.2 Execution 6.3 Results

6.4 Summary of results 6.5 Concerns for validity

Chapter 7 Discussion and conclusion

7.1 Managerial and scientific implications 7.2 Limitations of the study 7.3 Suggestions for further researchers

Chapter 8 Bibliography Chapter 9 Appendix


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8. Work plan

Time Tasks/Phases Level

1 1.07.2014-31.08.2014 Finding a thesis topic Completed

2 1.09.2014 Handing in thesis proposals &

selection of one

Completed

3 2.09.2014-12.10.2014 Development of the topic and

finding the focus of study

Completed

4 13.10.2014 Handing in the Expose‟ Completed

5 13.10.2014-23.10.2014 Checking of Expose‟ & receiving

feedback

Completed

6 24.10.2014- 30.11.2014 -Elaboration of the Expose‟

-Formation of questionnaire

To follow

7 1.12.2014-14.12.2014 -Work on the Intermediate thesis

draft

-Online distribution of questionnaire

To follow

8 15.12.2014 Handing in the intermediate thesis

draft presentation

To follow

9 15.12.2014-12.01.2015 Checking and feedback on

intermediate thesis draft

To follow

10 13.01.2015-27.01.2015 -Finalising of intermediate thesis

report

-analyzing results of questionnaire

-pushing questionnaire further

To follow

11 28.01.2015 Intermediate thesis report

presentation

To follow

12 9.02.2015-28.02.2015 Studying the results obtained and

analyzing them further

To follow

13 1.03-2015-15.05.2015 Writing the final thesis To follow

14 16.05.2015-31.05.2015 Proof reading and finalizing of the

thesis

To follow

15 1.06.2015 Final thesis presentation To follow

Important deadlines


27

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