Title: Self-congruity and brand loyalty - an innovation of diffusion approach

Authors: P. Praveen Babu; S. Prabakar

Addresses: Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India ' Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan College of Engineering, Navakkarai Post, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India

Abstract: Brand loyalty is a much debated topic in marketing and the present challenge for marketers' lie in understanding the self-image and product-image from the consumer's perspective. Though awareness remains the first factor in the adoption process, the interest and desire stages are of prime importance because consumers relate themselves to the offerings during these two stages. This article aims at relating the concept of self-congruity to brand loyalty across various consumer adoption categories [innovation of diffusion, Rogers (1962)] and suggests strategies to increase brand loyalty of the various adopter categories. It theoretically brings forth the differences in self-congruity levels amongst various adoption categories of consumers and its related brand loyalty levels. The need for relating self attributes to brand attributes is the need of the hour. Therefore this article aims at discussing the various theoretical assumptions built on concrete constructs which provides a new approach towards measuring brand loyalty.

Keywords: consumer adoption categories; self-image; product-image; self-congruity; brand loyalty; innovation of diffusion; innovators; early adopters; early majority; late majority; laggards; purchase intentions.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEMR.2020.111158

International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, 2020 Vol.11 No.4, pp.343 - 351

Received: 14 Apr 2018
Accepted: 13 Jun 2018
Published online: 12 Nov 2020 *

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