Analysis of consumers' response to brand community integration and brand identification

Brands play an increasingly important role in consumers' purchasing decisions. The integration of consumers into brand communities may manifest the ultimate degree of connectedness between a consumer and a brand. This article proposes and tests an empirical framework of brand community members' integration and their distinctive behaviors. The specific aim of this study is to analyze the influence of brand community integration on brand identification and to show how brand identification influences satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth communications. The sample consisted of 450 subjects from three different brand communities (Iphone, Thermomix and Nespresso). The results confirm the influence of brand community integration on brand identification and consumer satisfaction. We additionally discovered that brand identification has an effect on consumer loyalty and word-of-mouth communications. The findings contribute to consumer and brand literature and may have implications for brand community management. © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.