Meaning threats heighten consumer attachment: implications for global brand management

• Global brand managers are in urgent need to develop effective strategies to reinforce brand loyalty and lower the propensity of consumer defection.
• Consumer attachment and brand loyalty are closely correlated.
• Meaning threats in diverse occasions prove to heighten consumer attachment.
• Maximizing the fluid meaning compensation function of attached brands is conducive to reinforcement of global brand loyalty.
• Academic and strategic implications are provided for global brand management.

Global brand consumers have become more prone to engage in variety-seeking and loyalty-switching behavior, so global brand managers are in urgent need to develop effective strategies to reinforce brand loyalty and lower the propensity of consumer defection. As a growing body of research indicates, consumer attachment and brand loyalty are closely correlated. The current study, linking the concepts of fluid meaning compensation and consumer attachment, unravels a novel loyalty-reinforcing avenue. Three experiments, manipulating scenarios of meaning threats commonly seen in everyday life (sense of absurdity, anxious uncertainty and social exclusion) on global brand consumers, verify that meaning threats heighten attachment of consumers toward their most attached brands. More importantly, this finding applies to global brand consumers across product or service brand categories with luxury or non-luxury brand positions. Hence, maximizing the fluid meaning compensation function of attached brands is conducive to reinforcement of global brand loyalty. Academic and strategic implications are gleaned from the research result for global brand management.