Brand Authenticity and Brand Attachment: How Online Communities Built on Social Networking Vehicles Moderate the Consumers’ Brand Attachment

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse consumers’ attachment behaviour to a particular brand due to its perceived authenticity. The study aims to identify the relationship of brand authenticity with the consumers’ brand attachment behaviour in the presence of online brand communities (OBCs) built on social networking vehicles. The descriptive research was conducted on 354 Indian respondents and the findings were then analysed using SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 24.0. The analysis revealed that consumers’ brand attachment is fairly very high when the brand is perceived as genuine and authentic. Further, the relationship between brand authenticity and consumers’ brand attachment behaviour is moderated by the presence of OBCs. Therefore, companies should be attentive towards developing an authentic product in order to catch the consumers’ buying inclination and should consider to have their presence on communities and forums over social networking sites. This article is novel in the sense that it provides an understanding about the impact of perceived brand authenticity on brand attachment behaviour. Authenticity of the product articulates the consumers’ desire to discover meaning and purpose in their lives and is a process of living out one’s set of strongly held personal attachment with the brand.

Keywords

Brand authenticity consumer buying behaviour brand attachment brand loyalty purchase intention online brand communities

Introduction

Brand value plays a vital role as a mediator between the market and the prospects. Managers with their confidence make relentless efforts to cater to the demand of the market. However, in today’s times when the market is flooded with thousands of new products, it is very difficult to position the brand as an ‘authentic brand’. In times of the rapidly changing consumer-market scenario, authenticity corresponds to human aspiration and thus has been propounded as a contemporary marketing issue, thereby emerging as an essential factor for brand success (Bruhn, Schoenmüller, Schäfer, & Heinrich, 2012). Customers are always on the lookout for authentic products from the brand they own. Thus, authenticity has become the major concern of modern-day marketing strategies (Brown, Kozinets, & Sherry, 2003). Brand image is also defined as an important key value derived by brand authenticity (Ballantyne, Warren, & Nobbs, 2006), and brand identity is a consequential characteristic for any successful brand (Beverland, 2005b; Kapferer, 2004). However, so far academics have not conducted in-depth study to ascertain the role of brand authenticity (Grayson & Martinec, 2004), especially in the digital era, where consumers’ engagement on social networking sites is accounted very strongly. Research conducted in previous years (Ballantyne et al., 2006; Beverland 2006; Brown et al., 2003; Grayson & Martinec 2004; Groves 2001) detailed authenticity in different ways. As per a study by Evans, McKee, and Bratton (2010), these days interaction processes between consumers and brands have become very powerful and convenient both for the brands and the consumers, and chances to engage the customer with the process of curation, creation and collaboration have been increased by social media platforms (Evans et al., 2010). The phenomenon of brand authenticity has been studied for wine by Beverland (2006), tourist attractions by Grayson and Martinec (2004) and food production by Groves (2011). But there is no study on authenticity carried out for apparel products, that too focusing on a brand dealing within sports category where community building is quite obvious for sharing experience, enthusiasm, having competition, guidance services and so on. And exploring such a kind of study may help to develop the association of the rapidly changing meaning of brand for millennials and the growing digital social context for customers since Beverland (2006) argued that authenticity of the brand should be checked whether it is transferred in the same manner to those brands dealing with products reflecting current advancement benefits and features for their customers or not. To continue the same, Trudeau H. and Shobeiri (2016) also suggested in their study that it would be interesting to study the consumers’ brand experience and their brand attachment behaviour with regard to apparel products where consumption of the product is more visible, and results may change in this scenario as compared to the cosmetic products. Thus, it is imperative to study the relationship of brand authenticity and consumer brand-attachment behaviour on apparel products, where social networking vehicles are providing digital platforms for consumers to form the online communities, and to obtain a profound understanding of how authentic brands from the apparel industry are perceived by the customers in the digital era. For the selection of a particular brand from the apparel industry, a pilot study was conducted, where 32 people working in managerial or higher positions were asked to rate the most authentic brand out of 10 given options, and the outcome of the pilot study suggested Nike as the most authentic brand in the apparel category. So the current study was conducted on the Nike brand.

Developing the image of authenticity for any brand in a milieu which is dominated by the widespread presence of social networking sites is the biggest challenge for the brand manager. Brand managers are not the only persons who are responsible for creating the brand value; there are several other factors which help in designing the brand authenticity positively such as product quality (Auslander, 1998), greater likelihood of affiliated brand communities (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006), greater attributions of corporate social responsibility (Mikkelsen, 2008), more resilient consumers’ brand relationship (Green, 2007), their brand commitment in combination with the increased use of internet (Hur, Ahn, & Kim, 2011) and improvements to brand extension success (Spiggle, Nguyen, & Caravella, 2012). Even if the brand is authentic, it does not proclaim that the brand is successful because for some consumers, brand could represent a real (vs counterfeit) one, while for others, brand could have some other bearing, which is deeper and emotional. Sometimes the projection of the authenticity driven in the market is essential to introduce the product as this provides a base to the consumer(s) to make them comfortable with the product’s attributes which are real, though efforts delivered by companies are contrived. In this day and age, millennials feel more attachment with the brand when its authenticity is retained by the present times with its newly launched model(s) or modified style of products as per the demand of the market, in fact they don’t deviate from the original brand (Postrel, 2003). And the recent consumers’ communities building, especially in the digital scenario, shows that millennials are more focused on online communities, which impacts on business (Ganley & Lampe, 2009). Consumer communities are segmented into brand communities which are further divided into individual communities for sub-brands (Muñiz & O’Guinn, 2001), and this has become a major area for researchers to explore as this binds the brand and the community together. Since human behaviour is conditioned to be socialized in nature, so customers’ relationship with and attitude towards the brand are getting influenced by the members in the communities developed through social interaction (McAlexander, Schouten, & Koenig, 2002). The formation of social communities relating to a particular brand has many benefits for the brand (Brown et al., 2003), and develops a strong attachment with the customers (Algesheimer, Dholakia, & Herrmann, 2005). The social-communities built on the digital platforms have provoked the consumers from being inaudible, remotely inaccessible and imperceptible individuals into becoming boisterous, publically active and even more collective people (Patterson, 2012). Consequently, modern digital branding strategies also necessitate exploring and grabbing social networking environments.

Literature Review

Brand Authenticity

The Greek word authentikos is the source root of the word ‘authenticity’, which is the substitute of trustworthy (Cappannelli & Cappannelli, 2004). Kennick (1985) describes it as real and Boyle (2003) characterizes authenticity by honesty and simplicity. In addition to this, it may consider something that is sincere, innocent and novel (Fine, 2003). Steiner and Reisinger (2006) observed that authenticity results when the consumer relates it to one’s identity. Other studies have also identified the importance of authenticity (Kernis & Goldman, 2006; Walumbwa, Avolio, Gardner, Wernsing, & Peterson, 2008; Wang, 1999).

On one hand, researchers (Handler & Saxton, 1988) have defined authentic experience as something wherein people perceive themselves to belong to the real world and to the real self; while on the other hand, Arnould and Price (2000) looked at authenticity from the consumerism perspective propounding that it is equivalent to an object in itself if it facilitates consumers in understanding their true self through consuming it. Guignon (2004) and Fine (2003) theorized authenticity as self-fulfilment from a sociopsychological viewpoint. Several studies (Beverland, 2005a, 2005b; Blackshaw, 2008; Eggers, O’Dwyer, Kraus, Vallaster, & Güldenberg, 2013; Gilmore & Pine, 2007; Pine & Gilmore, 2008) have viewed brand authenticity as a latent support to create brand credibility and trust. Brands have used different words to denote authenticity: Coca-Cola calls it ‘the real thing’; Adidas asserts ‘once innovative, now classic, always authentic’ and Nike claims ‘authentic athletic performance’.

All this is acceptable until the term ‘marketing’ comes in the picture, as there is no definition available for authenticity which can fit perfectly true to the marketing domain. The meaning of authenticity associated with genuineness has been proposed by several authors (Aaker & Drolet, 1996). Marketers are considering authenticity serenely since it aids the brand to engage customers in a productive manner. As indicated by Newman and Dhar (2014), Beverland and Farrelly (2010), Gilmore and Pine (2007), Leigh, Peters, and Shelton (2006), Rose and Wood (2005) and Holt (2002), even academics appreciate the fact that authenticity not only drives customer behaviour but also facilitates branding.

Studies by Ballantyne et al. (2006), Holt (2002) and Stark (2002) used terms such as cultural, positive valuation and originality in association with authenticity. Authenticity considers other terms as well, such as uniqueness, traditional links, cultural base, antiques of the production process, availability of authority, heritage and pedigree, quality commitments, association with the place, method production and evidence and truth (Beverland, 2006; Groves, 2001). Beverland and Farrelly (2010) stated that brand authenticity is based on the assessment of some elements of authenticity made by individuals rather than the brand’s intrinsic traits. Napoli, Dickinson, Beverland, and Farrelly (2014) explained the notion of brand authenticity for a food item from three facets: quality commitment, sincerity and heritage. Bruhn et al. (2012) measured brand authenticity using the four constructs of continuity, originality, reliability, and naturalness. Our study develops and expands upon these constructs.

Brand Attachment

Psychology considers Bowlby’s (1982) research to be the source of the theory of attachment, which describes ‘attachment’ as the ‘relationship that is developed between infants and their caregivers’. As indicated by Hazan and Shaver (1994) and Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991), humans tend to develop and uphold emotional bonds with some brands and end such bonds with particular others. Later on, the theory extended from person-to-person relationship to that with corporate or brands (Carroll & Ahuvia, 2006). Japutra, Ekinci, and Simkin (2014) and Main (1999) associated brand attachment to a sense of security experienced by a person with regard to a brand. Sikkel (2013), Ghose and Lowengart (2013), Heilbrunn (2001) and Lacoeuilhe (1997) pronounce brand attachment as consumers’ long-term inclination to a brand. Schmitt (2012) considered brand attachment as an expression of consumers’ connectedness with the brand. Thomson, MacInnis, and Park (2005) pioneered in linking brand attachment with emotional bonding and association. Japutra et al. (2014) and Park, MacInnis, Priester, Eisingerich, and Iacobucci (2010) explained and Heilbrunn (2001) supported the postulate that brand attachment encapsulates emotional, cognitive and affective bonding. It was later that the concepts of approachability and dependency got associated with brand attachment.

Brand attachment is multifaceted, and researchers have tried to deliver various definitions, each from their own perspective. As per the attachment theory, consumers’ attachment with the brand is a kind of emotional bond between the brand and the consumers (Bozzo, Merunka, & Moulins, 2003; Lacoeuilhe & Belaïd, 2007, Thomson et al., 2005). Every product or brand has some loyal customer(s), who get in touch with the product or brands, show passion or affection towards them, have some feeling of connection which varies as per their choice of brand (Thomson et al., 2005). Researchers have gone through the analysis of the emotional attachment and have figured out its basic characteristics (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970; Lacoeuilhe, 2000). In continuation to this, brand attachment is considered as an important psychological variable that divulges a strong unmodifiable and affective-relationship. Previous research claims that brand attachment is the combination of brand and the self-link with the brand (cf. Kleine, Kleine, & Mundane, 1993; Schulz et al., 1989). Research has given preference to self-concept to form attachment. As per Park, MacInnis, and Priester (2006), the emotional and cognitive bond together help individuals to connect with the brand which is a result of their self-extension. The customers developing emotional brand attachment probably will behave in the same manner when having the experience of the same brand in future, which helps to conclude that a combination of cognitive and emotional schemas forms the characteristic of brand attachment (Baldwin et al., 1996), and consumers develop the bond to connect themselves with the brand—their self and the brand (Thomson et al., 2005). Bahri-Ammari (2012) propounded that attachment with the brand is a kind of long-term association, which foresees the consumer-commitment towards the brand. Japutra et al. (2014) and Belaïd and Temessek Behi (2011) concluded that brand attachment ascertains the consumers’ willpower to endure the relationship with the brand as well as their readiness to pay in order to acquire any of its products.

Authenticity and Consumer Behaviour

If the brand is perceived as an authentic brand, the consumers take initiatives to form brand communities (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006; Schouten & McAlexander, 1995). Certainly, consumers’ need is captured by authentic brands in such a way that they relate consumers’ connection to each other and build a social network (Beverland & Farrelly, 2010). Targeting individual consumers for identity building is not possible without confirmation of others (Leigh et al., 2006). These online communities give the impression that they are around the brand to resolve the diverse standards and passions that predict together the owners of authentic brands (Leigh et al., 2006). The concept of brand communities has been derived by previous researchers to show the existence of different brand categories and branches, the culture of the brand and different communities for different purposes, which later are transformed into offline and online brand-related communities (Muñiz & O’Guinn, 2001; Muñiz & Schau, 2005), communities representing the brand within a small group (Bagozzi & Dholakia, 2006), virtual communities based on a wide network (Adjei, Noble, & Noble, 2010) and communities to celebrate brand-fest (Schouten, McAlexander, & Koenig, 2007). To measure the consumers’ willingness to join the community, an established scale used by Johnson, Thomson, and Jeffrey (2015) has been employed here. Even consumers once attached to the brand become more brand vocal, which means that consumers start influencing others with the last experience they have had with the brand or what they have learnt in the brand community. On the other side, this centralized behaviour helps consumers to approach the brand with an intention to pay more.

Nike on Social Networking Sites

According to Greek mythology, Nike is the goddess of victory, who is depicted as being winged. Nike is an international brand name, and has an advantage of the consumers’ intensive desire to buy their products, which comes from their cultural comprehensiveness, and also the consumers’ athletic accomplishment. These two factors actually imply an enigmatic desire, which is on the rear end for both the consumers’ heart and mind, and lead them to have the strong zeal to possess Nike products. Nike started its journey in the early 1960s and continued until the late 70s with the name of Blue Ribbon Sports, which later on was renamed as Nike. It got a financial boost during the same period with the sales jumping from $10 million to $270 million, which can be credited to the owner’s risk-taking ability, leadership quality and entrepreneurship skills. Katz and Shapiro (1994) explained success with the example of Nike’s placement within the domain of the fitness revolution.

As far as sports is concerned, it is a social activity aimed at bringing people of the same spirit together, so Nike as a sports brand is a natural fit in this frame when it comes to a digitally socialized community. Nike holds individual Facebook pages for each of its sub-brands, such as Golf, Snowboarding and FuelBand. Nike Basketball also attracted football lovers with its two Facebook pages, one for the American version and another for rest of the world. Most fans of any of the Nike pages (29 m) followed the main corporate account (12.3 m), American Football (2.4 m). Every sports’ dedicated page is updated on a daily basis with amazing videos or images, while Nike’s corporate page is updated once in a week. And it is interesting to note that posts featuring players do not get as much attraction as the product-related posts, for instance, one post about Nike boots had more than 35k Likes and approximately 1k Comments. Nike actively deals with its social media account more to respond to the customers, instead of pushing their marketing messages. For example, the Nike.com feed has 4.4 m followers and they respond to their customers more promptly (approx. 100 tweets per day) to handle their queries, and provide information about stock and particular product details with technical needs. Nike has used Twitter very cleverly as a strategic tool for the marketing campaign during the London Olympics (2012), where it managed to outshine the official event sponsor, Adidas, with its social campaign. As per the Socialbakers’ Cheermeter record, tweets associating Nike with the word ‘Olympics’ were more than 16k, whereas ‘Adidas’ was tweeted 9,295 times during the London Olympics between 27 July and 2 August. According to Experian Hitwise, Nike managed to achieve 6 per cent growth in its number of Facebook fans during the London Olympics itself. Being a sports brand, it is important for Nike to perform well on the social media platform, as sports itself is a sociable activity where individuals form their community to learn and share the facts of competition during the sporting events which create a huge social media buzz within a short span of time. When it is Instagram, Nike generally receives 300k–400k Likes on each and every post. Nike is boosting its brand value to promote fitness with famous hashtags such as #JustDoIt, #nikewomen and #airmaxday. As running is Nike’s key focus, the ‘Nike Running’ Facebook page regularly posts every piece of information related to running and its related events. These updates tend to receive huge response and build a community of people with the same running spirit, as they discuss their hobby, sharing running tips and finding new products and events related to the same.

Conceptual Framework

Authenticity is considered to be a positively signified theory with semantic associations of genuineness (Aaker & Drolet, 1996), positive assessment, cultural feature and personal aspects agelessness and custom (Aaker & Drolet, 1996), value of brand originality (Ballantyne et al., 2006; Holt 2002; Stark, 2002), substantiveness of the brand (Ballantyne et al., 2006; Stark, 2002), cultural value or traditional connection/custom connotations, uniqueness about production process, features of an authority (Groves, 2001), confirmation and reality/truth (Grayson & Martinec, 2004), heritage value and aristocratic characteristics, stylistic and modern consistency, building relationship, procedure of production and quality commitments (Beverland, 2006) and alienation from commercial intentions (Beverland, 2006; Holt, 2002). Bruhn et al. (2012) reframed brand authenticity with the aid of four dimensions, namely continuity, reliability, originality and naturalness.

On the other hand, the various factors which are considered to foment the emotional attachment to a brand narrate that brand attachments are the brand’s personal character (Robins, Caspi, & Moffitt, 2000) and attachment styles (Swaminathan et al., 2009). The past and the concept of the future self that an individual has or expects to see materialized is the most valuable characteristic to define emotional brand attachment (Park et al., 2006). Consumers’ past experience plays a vital role in framing brand image of any firm (Joy & Dholakia, 1991; Oswald, 1999). Furthermore, consumers lean towards those particular brands which endorse themselves truly or profoundly as an idealistic brand for future (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, & Nyffenegger, 2011). The previous attachment with the brand and the concept of the future self-association with the brand that an individual has or expects to see materialized are the most valuable characteristic to define emotional brand attachment (Park et al., 2006). Brand connection with the past, cultural background, tradition, customs, national and geographical locations which help to draw the self–brand connection and attachment with the brand are considered under the dimensions of brand continuity and naturalness. Trust comes from the consumers’ end which helps to develop strong emotional attachment to the brand. As per the marketing theories, trust explains the anticipation of customers’ GRIPS-types of decisions, which an organization can consider as an important guideline to decide how to deal with the customers’ essentials (Holmes & Rempel, 1989; Sorrentino, Holmes, Hanna, & Sharp, 1995; Wieselquist, Rusbult, Foster, & Agnew, 1999). Here the brand’s responsiveness and munificence deliver a level of confidence to the customers that the brand will consistently be available to serve them in any future uncertainties as well (Rempel, Ross, & Holmes, 2001). On the other hand, originality and reliability together represent the brand authenticity which further contribute to measure the brand attachment strongly.

Further, the effectiveness of social-media marketing strategies is probably based on consumers’ positive exposure and their active and voluntary participation in various social networking sites (Kim & Drumwright, 2016). For example, Facebook users voluntarily accept to receive brand messages and share these details on their Facebook wall and/or Like or Tag people with hashtag. This digital shift in communication has served to build a more user-centric form of online community, which forces companies to have their presence on social media to grab the positive engagement from customers more rapidly (Evans et al., 2010).

Figure 1 depicts the quality of authenticity classifying it into four distinctive constructs, and Figure 2 forms brand attachment with two constructs. With the support of literature review, the conceptual model is drawn and represented in Figure 3. It indicates the triplet of brand authenticity, brand attachment and consumer behaviour. Thus,-the final conceptual model includes the role of brand attachment in formulating the consumers’ behaviour, along with investigating the moderating role played by online communities in the relationship of brand authenticity and brand attachment.

Figure 1.

Source: The authors.

Figure 2.

Source: The authors.

Figure 3.

Source: The authors.

To measure the brand authenticity the scale designed by Bruhn et al. (2012), and for brand attachment the scales delivered by Putrevu and Lord (1994) and Park et al. (2010) have been used. Yi and Jeon (2003) scale for brand loyalty, Phillips, Noble, and Noble (2011) scale for brand vocal (or brand advocacy) and Rodgers (2004) for purchase intentions have been used on a 7-point Likert scale for the current study.

Hypothesis Formation

In accordance with attachment theory, the level of attachment one has with any object can help to envisage the interaction one would have with that particular object (Bowlby, 1979). To make this simpler, people who are strongly attached with a particular brand are always ready to buy that brand at any cost (Bowlby, 1980;- Hazan & Shaver, 1994). Brand attachment can be discerned by various elements. While Robins et al. (2000) stated that brand characteristics decide brand attachment, Swaminathan et al. (2009) found that it was due to the individual characteristics of a brand’s product. Orth, Limon, and Rose (2010) associated emotional experiences with brand attachment, and Park et al. (2006) linked it with self-connections or individual’s past experience and expectations for the future, which get cashed by the brand in exchange of customers’ pre-existing bonding (Joy & Dholakia, 1991; Oswald, 1999) or brand value which is carry forward to them from their parental generation (Moore-Shay & Lutz, 1998; Oswald, 1999). Mikulincer, Hirschberger, Nachmias, and Gillath (2001) indicated the association of consumer’s self-concept with the decision of maintaining relationship with the brand. Researchers Park et al. (2006) and Malär et al. (2011) concluded that brand attachment is the result of self-validation of the consumers done by the brands. Carlston (1992) found that the number of associations made by the consumers with a brand is directly proportional to their emotional attachment with the said brand, which is again an indicator of their trust. This indicates that trust also affects the consumers’ emotional attachment with a brand (Mikulincer, 1998). Holmes and Rempel (1989), Sorrentino et al. (1995) and Wieselquist et al. (1999) explained trust as the expectation of the customers that a brand can exhibit benevolence and respond to their needs. Moreover, consumers get motivation because of trust (Park et al., 2006). Trust built on a brand’s commitment to quality and sincerity further helps the brand to build itself as an authentic one, which majorly contributes to develop brand attachment. Rempel et al. (2001) added that these expectations instil in customers the confidence that the brand will be customer-centric in every future situation of probable uncertainty. Customers trust the brands which are authentic and epitomize quality. The authors drafted the first hypothesis based on the above observation, which is as follows:

H1: Authenticity as an individual character of any brand influences the consumers to have a positive attachment to the brand.

The emotional attachment derived through the disconfirmation-of-expectation model (Oliver, 1980) explains the customer loyalty and willingness to recommend a brand (brand vocal) as a function of customer satisfaction. The customers have more willingness to stay loyal to the brand when they comprehend that their investment is appreciated by others. Thus, customers become more brand vocal and start recommending the brand to other people. Customers’ participation in developing value cocreation helps to build brand loyalty (Ranjan & Read, 2014). To encourage customers’ active involvement with the brand and for its value creation, organizations are using social media platforms that deal with customers’ personal interest, their brand satisfaction and enhancing brand loyalty. Customer participation and engagement is a significant construct which affects attitudinal loyalty (Auh, Bell, McLeod, & Shih, 2007; Hosseini, 2013) and brand satisfaction (Flores & Vasquez-Parraga, 2015; Ranjan & Read, 2014). Customers’ engagement with the brand provides them a platform to share their experience, innovative ideas, feedback, suggestions and issues with the brand (Chen, Tsou, & Ching, 2011), and thus customers have their personal investment to build the brand so they are expected to have more satisfaction (Cermak, File, & Prince, 1994) which helps customers to pay more to have that brand. Therefore, we can formulate the following hypothesis:

H2a: Consumers become positive brand vocal when they are attached to the brand due to its characteristic of authenticity.

Earlier studies have indicated brand attachment as a major constituent of brand loyalty. Fournier (1998) and Japutra et al. (2014) extended brand attachment to be an influencing characteristic of brand-relationship quality. Belk (1992) and Fournier and Yao (1997) deemed brand attachment to be the most crucial component of consumer–brand relationship, which further helps to nurture the behaviour of consumer loyalty.

H2b: Consumers’ brand attachment due to brand’s authenticity leads to develop more brand loyalty behaviour towards the brand.

Oliver (1980) suggested that customer loyalty signifies the customers’ commitment to buy the desired product or service again. Another study by Thomson et al. (2005) pointed out that those customers who are intensely attached to a specific brand are keen on investing in their bond with the brand even at a greater price and hence remain loyal to their preferred brand. However, another study conducted by Bahri-Ammari, van Niekerk, Ben Khelil, and Chtioui (2016) indicated that even though customer loyalty points towards prospective buying, the bond with the brand largely depends on factors like word-of-mouth publicity and price.

H2c: The positive relationship between a brand’s authenticity and consumers’ brand attachment provokes consumers’ purchase intention more positively.

To contribute towards a theoretical understanding of brand authenticity, the marketing strategy practitioners must explore in the direction of authentic brand narratives and engage the consumers in the process of brand building (Green, 2007; Woodside, Sood, & Miller, 2008). Brodie, Hollebeek, Juric, and Ilic (2011a) explained in their study that consumer brand engagement is an essential and descriptive element in brand communities which are developed on a digital platform (Brodie et al., 2011a). According to Habibi, Laroche, and Richard (2016), a social media-based brand community is ‘a specialized, non-geographically bound community, which is based on a set of unstructured social relationships among admirers of a brand in social media platforms’ in order to be applicable to the social media context. The advent of social media networking sites (Jahn & Kunz, 2012), especially brand communities based in social media (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) have shown strong brand engagement (Gummerus, Liljander, Weman, & Pihlström, 2012; Habibi, Laroche, & Richard, 2014; Laroche, Habibi, Richard, & Sankaranarayanan, 2012). Firms are using social media as a marketing and brand-building digital tool (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010), which helps to induce the online brand communication (Birgit Andrine Apenes Solem, 2016). Firms have become more active on social media sites (Gummerus et al., 2012) to embolden consumer brand attachment. Brodie, Ilic, Juric, and Hollebeek (2011b) and Hollebeek and Chen (2014) discuss in their studies that consumer brand engagement is a psychological construct, which is a reflection of emotional, cognitive and intentional states of behavioural interaction (e.g., social media communication). Dessart, Veloutsou, and Morgan-Thomas (2015) suggested in their study that consumers’ engagement with the online brand communities (OBCs) increased consumers’ loyalty with the particular brand. Hence, we hypothesize the moderating role of online communities to brand attachment as hypothesis H3.

H3: The relationship between brand authenticity and consumer brand attachment behaviour gets positively moderated by the active participation of consumers in the brand communities built on digital platforms.

Methodology

As the objective of the study is to explore the consumers’ attachment behaviour to a particular brand due to its perceived authenticity in the presence of OBCs built on social networking vehicles, it is highly important to understand the value of brand on social networking sites where authenticity is being cashed in such a way that it is leading the brand to have more customized customers who are active on social network services (SNSs) platform. For example, Kona Nigari bottled water is the most expensive packaged drinking water with saltwater property, harvested 2,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean of Hawaii and passing through a unique method of collection and processing. This water reaches the coast of Hawaii after travelling halfway around the world. Along its journey, this deep-ocean water travels over undersea volcanic fissures and vents, absorbing significant amounts of ionically charged electrolytes. Kona Deep claims that their water has a natural pH of 6.7, and the general use of this water improves human health, skin glow and also helps to reduce stress. Deep-ocean mineral water shows promise as an optimal rehydrating source over spring water and/or sports drink (Keen, Constantopoulos, & Konhilas, 2016). With this strong authentic characteristic, the brand is investing much on social networking sites to build their OBCs to increase their market share volume by associating with a number of customers via online communities.

Research was conducted as a descriptive action by the use of quantitative approach while collecting data for brands as a strategies module. The research contained a set of quantitative questions in order to generate the supporting mathematical data. The model and hypothesized relationship were tested using an international brand with apparel products in the sports category, the brand that fully conforms to the definition of an authentic brand and has strong claims to heritage and tradition as well. The brand selected for this research is Nike. This brand is active on social media and runs a number of digital campaigns for its individual products tailored according to the specific needs of those who are interested in getting updates about that product only. Consequently, Nike has a unique place among its competitors in terms of creativity and the updated visual content it serves on the social media.

The research is an extension to the extant literature. Data collection was done from various sources, and aimed at establishing brand authenticity as an important instrument in the competitive market. To explore this dimension, the validity of the survey instrument was crosschecked through pilot testing, and items were finalized after ensuring the reliability and objectivity of the survey questionnaire.

To test the proposed hypothesis on the selected brand, a series of both online and offline surveys was conducted to reduce the chances of getting responses from a particular way of selection and set of data, which could lead to the amassment of only a particular type of subject responses. An online questionnaire was prepared by using Google survey and circulated by email, and was also posted on Facebook and LinkedIn to collect approximately 200 responses. 182 responses were collected from respondents through face-to-face interaction, like mall-sampling method, and referred by friends/family. The questionnaire contained 28 questions on a 7-point Likert scale and some other questions which were demographic in nature, and was prepared to address nine constructs. 361 responses were finalized to prove the proposed hypothetical model and model fit, for which SEM analysis was conducted on AMOS 24.0 version.

Data Analysis and Results

Sampling

The targeted population comprised 378 respondents from different zones of the country. Out of the 378 filled questionnaires received, 361 (95%) were correctly filled. A high response rate represents a better feedback of the population. We followed Roscoe (1975), who explained that to avoid bias in the sample size, one has to consider the higher side of response rate for the distributed questionnaires.

The Instrument

The designed questionnaire is divided into nine sections to discourse exactly the four hypotheses framed by the conceptual model. The initial sections cover the demographic facts and figures about the respondents (such as their age, gender, education, designation and social association) and basic information such as the presence of a brand’s outlet in their city and their experience about the brand. The rest of the sections contain information about the nine constructs: continuity, originality, reliability, naturalness, brand self-connection, brand prominence, brand vocal, brand loyalty and purchase intention. All items were measured on a 7-point Likert scale (except the first section) where respondents were asked to choose from 1 to 7, ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

Sample Characteristics

The demographic profile details of the respondents are furnished in Table 1. As per the data collected, out of 361 respondents, almost 346 respondents said they were fully satisfied with the last experience they had with the Nike products and 304 respondents said that the Nike brand has a showroom in their city and only 52 respondents marked that they have not visited the brand’s outlet yet but they have consumed the brand’s product(s). Only 7 respondents said that they have neither used the brand’s product nor visited the brand’s outlet yet, so the final set of data omitted these 7 respondents, and the data analysis is done for 354 respondents’ responses. Out of these 354 respondents, 223 respondents said they are positively connected with Nike’s brand communities formed on various social networking platforms.

Table 1.

Demographic Profile of the Sample

Variable	Frequency	Percentage (%)	< 25	25–35	35–45	45–55	> 55
Gender
Female	166	47
Male	188	53
Age			26%	46%	18%	7%	3%
Education Level
Graduate or less	184	52
Masters	127	36
PhD	28	8
Others	14	4

Source: The authors.

Common Method Bias Test

While collecting data from various sources, the questionnaire method was used to eliminate the effect of common method bias which can affect the relationship between the measuring constructs (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). In the initial stage of common method bias, Harman’s one-factor test was employed to identify the available chance of error occurred while formatting the construct. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) extracted all nine factors with respective measurement items and explaining 72 per cent of the total variance. However, First Factor showed around 28 per cent of the variance, thereby signifying conceivable absence of common method variance in this study.

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)

SEM is a technique which helps in the merger of regressions and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), which is used to estimate concurrently a series of the interrelationships between the constructs of the hypothesized model. SEM calculation comes with two models: the measurement model and the structural model. The measurement model details the relationship of latent variables with observed variables, wherein the purpose of the measurement model is to explain the reliability and validity derived from the designed variables (Doloi, Iyer, & Sawhney, 2011). And to examine the path strength and the direction of the designed relationship between latent variables, we have used the structural model. For better understanding, we can say that the measurement model within the structural equation incorporates estimates of measurement errors of the exogenous variables and their intended latent variable (Green, 2007).

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

To test the measurement model, we designed the CFA with the help of AMOS 24.0 version. As suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981), before drafting the substantial interrelationship model, one should always test the measurement model to check if it is having an adequate level of validity and reliability (Fornell & Larcker, 1981; Ifinedo, 2006). CFA has been employed between the constructs, and construct(s) factor loadings, Cronbach α, composite reliability have been computed in Table 2.

Table 2 shows the reliability of each construct which was tested through Cronbach’s α. As the value of Cronbach’s α for all the constructs is more than 0.76, therefore, there is no reliability issue within the model. All factor loadings values are greater than 0.50, and composite reliability is also greater than 0.70. Thus, these measures are relevant and can be used for further SEM analysis.

Table 2.

Cronbach α, Composite Reliability (CR), Average Variance Extracted (AVE) and Average Shared Variance (ASV)

Construct	Factor Loadings	Cronbach α	CR
Continuity (C1–C4)	0.67, 0.69, 0.83, 0.95	0.85	0.86
Originality (01–O4)	0.73, 0.62, 0.95, 0.64	0.80	0.83
Reliability (R1–R4)	0.66, 0.65, 0.67, 0.86	0.80	0.80
Naturalness (N1–N3)	0.70, 0.94, 0.60	0.82	0.79
Brand Self-Connection (BSC1–BSC2)	0.64, 0.88	0.77	0.73
Brand Prominence (BP1–BP2)	0.70, 0.80	0.76	0.72
Brand Vocal (BV1–BV3)	0.55, 0.93, 0.81	0.79	0.81
Brand Loyal (BL1–BL3)	0.68, 0.88, 0.63	0.76	0.77
Purchase Intention (PI1–PI3)	0.82, 0.62, 0.72	0.76	0.76

Source: The authors.

Construct Validity: Convergent and Discriminant Validity

A good value of convergent validity gives the strength to the indicators of any construct when they conjoin a high percentage of variance in mutual (Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010). For convergent validity, there are three conditions: CR > 0, CR > AVE and AVE > 0.5. Table 3 clearly indicates that the perceived items in all the constructs are acceptable and resemble the constructs they fall under. So we can confirm the construct convergent validity with all the three conditions fulfilled. Hair et al. (2010) also explained the discriminant validity when a construct is completely distinct from the counterparts. There are two common methods used to assess the discriminant validity. First, the correlation between measures of theoretically different constructs should not be high, which means to measure the different constructs one should use different instruments. Second, the average variances extracted of the individual constructs are higher than the shared variances between the constructs, and the correlations relating the constructs should be lesser than the level of the square root of average share variance (AVE > MSV and AVE > ASV). And as depicted by the results of Table 3, there is no discriminant validity as well.

Table 3.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

	BP	CON	ORI	BV	REL	PI	BL	BSC	NAT	CR	AVE	MSV	ASV
BP	0.729									0.775	0.531	0.056	0.010
CON	0.015	0.532								0.869	0.536	0.013	0.003
ORI	0.065	0.047	0.713							0.830	0.509	0.022	0.005
BV	0.094	0.001	0.058	0.677						0.814	0.604	0.036	0.011
REL	0.014	0.113	0.009	0.063	0.433					0.808	0.537	0.013	0.003
PI	0.236	0.061	0.069	0.096	0.040	0.736				0.767	0.542	0.056	0.014
BL	0.019	0.055	0.148	0.128	0.007	0.147	0.628			0.773	0.529	0.022	0.009
BSC	0.021	0.022	0.006	0.189	0.038	0.037	0.028	0.344		0.785	0.554	0.036	0.006
NAT	0.068	0.153	0.075	0.127	0.073	0.192	0.038	0.171	0.754	0.794	0.548	0.018	0.004

Source: The authors.

Notes: BP: Brand Prominence, CON: Continuity, ORI: Originality, BV: Brand Vocal, REL: Reliability, PI: Purchase Intention, BL: Brand Loyalty, BSC: Brand Self-Connection, NAT: Naturality, CR: Composite Reliability, AVE: Average Variance Extracted, MSV: Maximum Shared Variance, ASV: Average Shared Variance.

Model Fit Summary

The reasonable model fit indices are acceptable when comparative fit index (CFI), the goodness of fit index (GFI), normal fit index (NFI), Tucker-Lewis Index are greater than 0.90, and RMSEA < 0.08 and SRMR < 0.10 (Gefen & Straub, 2000; Kline, 2005). The hypothesized model demonstrated acceptable to good fit with a CFI of 0.977, NFI of 0.912, RMSEA of 0.02 and SRMR of 0.03. All values meet the threshold value, thus representing an acceptable model fit.

Figure 4.

Source: The authors.

Structural Modeling

The model and estimated parameters are explained in Figure 4. The latent authenticity related factors are strongly related to each of the three item-based authenticity factors including ‘quality of the brand’ (β = 0.85), ‘heritage property of the brand’ (β = 0.62) and ‘sincerity of the brand’ (β = 0.93). The authenticity of the brand is significantly predicted by these three constructs, where quality and sincerity are having more β value than heritage but still are acceptable in case of Nike brand. Similarly, consumer behaviour is predicted by consumers’ brand vocal ability (β = 0.65), their brand loyalty character (β = 0.73) and positively increased purchase intention (β = 0.93). With regard to the influence of brand authenticity on brand attachment, Hair et al. (2014) suggested that the coefficients (with standardized values) above 2.0 counted as significant and rest of them are not usually significant. Here brand authenticity explains 39.6 per cent (R square for Nike = 0.396) of the variance of brand attachment. The regression relationship between brand authenticity and brand attachment is counted as a strong one as brand authenticity itself explains countable value of dependent variable for brand attachment. Thus, H1 has been supported by the analysis, which says that there is positive significant relationship developed between brand authenticity and consumers’ brand attachment for Nike (β = 0.78).

The next hypothesis discusses the role of brand attachment to shape the consumer behaviour, especially consumers’ brand vocal, brand loyalty and their purchase intention. Here we have a concern about this relationship whether this combination helps brands to attract consumers and make them attached with their brand or not? Does it provoke consumers to be brand vocal (H2a), make consumers more brand loyal (H2b) and whether the consumers have purchase intention about the brand (H2c)?

All the hypotheses H2a (β = 0.65, p < 0.01), H2b (β = 0.73, p < 0.01) and H2c (β = 0.93, p < 0.01) are supported for Nike brand. As per the value of explained variance, the behavioural intentions are seen to significantly support the proposed hypothesis related to consumer behaviour (see Figure 4).

Moderation: Positive Brand Engagement on SNSs

The moderating effect of brand communities built on social networking sites is strongly accountable as Nike is proactive on social networking sites where they are interacting with customers in real time and running various digital campaigns to make customers engaged and build an online community with the same interest (refer to Table 4). This interaction is making an impact on the dual relationship drawn between authenticity and attachment. This interaction is accounted through data received, where people who are engaged with the Nike brand on any social networking site are compared with people who are not in touch with the Nike brand on social networking sites. The statistics about people who are connected with Nike on SNSs and people who not connected with Nike on SNSs are delineated in sample characteristics.

As per the received Figure 4 from data analysis, the beta values show that the intentions to be attached with the brand are more significantly positive in case of the people who are connected with Nike on SNSs platform. It means building OBCs helps the firm to have more engagement with the customers, which leads to having more brand attachment stimulated by brand authenticity.

Table 4.

Moderating Effect of OBCs

Brand Authenticity	Case 1		Case 2		Z-score
Brand Authenticity	Estimate	P	Estimate	P	Z-score
	0.788	0.000	0.324	0.000	2.475

Source: The authors.

Notes: Case 1: Customer positively engaged with Nike’s OBCs; Case 2: Customer not engaged with Nike’s OBCs

With the above result, we have seen that the estimated beta value for customers positively engaged with Nike’s OBCs is more than the customers not engaged with Nike’s OBCs (0.788 > 0.324). p-value is significant in both the cases with z-score 2.475 (z-value > 1.9). So there is a significant difference in both the cases, and hence it is concluded that the interaction with the customers in the brand communities built on social networking platforms leads to having more consumer brand attachment. Table 5 summarizes the support for various hypotheses proposed in this study.

Table 5.

Summarized Report for Designed Hypothesis

	Hypothesis	Proposed Effect	Coefficient	Results
BAU → BATT	H1	+	0.78	Supported
BATT → BV	H2a	+	0.65	Supported
BATT → BL	H2b	+	0.73	Supported
BATT → PI	H2b	+	0.93	Supported
BAU x OBC → BATT	H3	+	0.86	Supported

Source: The authors.

Note: *p < 0.05.

Conclusion

The findings of the present study establish the relationship between the apparel products’ authenticity and the customers’ brand attachment behaviour, which ultimately leads customers to themselves have more purchase intention for the brand’s products and also become brand vocal for the products. Eventually, their loyalty increases positively. This relationship is getting positively moderated by customers’ active engagement with Nike’s OBCs, which means that when customers are joined and are more actively participating in the brand’s online communities, then their attachment with the brand is increasing positively.

Managerial Implications

In the present times, many companies have still not focused enough on building authenticity as a brand value, despite knowing how important this element is in shaping consumers’ mind to build their relationship with the brand (Peňaloza, 2000; Peterson, 2005). This scenario in the market provokes customers to search for more authentic brands. Most of the consumers are not getting authentic brand satisfaction, and are switching to another alternative to satisfy their requirement to have an authentic brand. Therefore, authenticity of the brand is getting more attention and search as authentic brands are more easily connected with the emotions of the consumers, and consumers have more love and affection towards their favourite brand. The current study has tried to add the magnificent role of authenticity to marketing theory where the authors have suggested that authenticity of a brand has a significantly positive impact on brand attachment. The outcome of this study is significantly valuable for further research which can explore the consumers’ particular desire which is a base to build consumers’ own identity against the authentic brands they want to consume.

With this study, the authors have concluded that customers’ buying intention gets positively influenced by the attachment they have with the brand, especially with a sports brand, and makes consumers brand vocal and brand loyal too. And without any doubt, with a brand like Nike which has many subdivisions, segmenting the target communities by special category, less so geographically to engage the customers with pre-scheduled and implemented posts across multiple social networking sites is the best digital strategy. To interact with the customers to make their life easier, a brand must use social networking sites, as on SNSs platform, a brand can handle complaints in a time-efficient manner and with a personable tone which keeps the brand identity stronger. In this way, building an online community helps to position the brand very easily, where online members share their experience, give advice to others and challenge the task, and also motivate others with their story and become even more immersed in the brand’s world, which ultimately leads to having more attachment with the brand.

In short, if the brand wants to have a pick of the consumer market, it should focus on its authenticity character seriously, and in order to get the revenue with global reputation, social networking sites should be utilized at the maximum strength, where the brand should provide super-attentive customer support, keeping online communities engaged with appropriate digital campaigns across their networks, delivery of inspirational and motivational quotes with emotionally appealing photography to the communities, and integrating the videos with quality content. If any brand is implementing these essential inputs while drafting their marketing strategies, the brand is likely to get a boost to succeed on social networking sites and ultimately enhance the brand value.

Limitations and Future Scope

This study has some limitations similar to other studies conducted in the same direction. First, the generalizability of the outcome of this-study should be focused keeping in mind the research limitations the authors have braved. The current study refers only to the apparel industry and the sample collected from the consumer(s) is from one country only. Furthermore, research could be conducted in other product categories such as beverages and services industries (hotel or airlines, etc.), where people do the recommendation as per the service provider’s authentic behaviour, and taking into consideration other parameters such as authenticity building on online purchase or purchase through social networking vehicles as well. Further research can explore the other factors such as brand image and brand credibility as dependent variables, while taking brand experience and moderation as control variables, by considering the digitally divided geographical location as a major factor to study in future. Also, in the current study, we studied the way brand authenticity characteristic associates with customers’ sentiments and fosters their attachment for a particular brand, while customers’ sentiments are subject to change with respect to time. Thus, future researchers have scope to study the same relationship with cross-sectional and comparative study between two brands and how their authenticity checklists vary with respect to the changes in technology used for branding and marketing purposes. Researchers may also focus on social networking vehicles to study how these digital platforms are creating positive appeal to the customers to get them associated with their brand as an authentic brand.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received financial support from ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, for the research.

Footnotes

Appendix

Appendix 1.

Items for Different Constructs

Construct	Items	Description
Continuity	C1	I think brand Nike is consistent over time.
	C2	I think the brand Nike stays true to itself.
	C3	Nike brand offers continuity.
	C4	The brand Nike has a clear concept that it pursues.
Originality	O1	The brand Nike is different from all other brands.
	O2	Nike brand stands out from other brands.
	O3	I think the brand Nike is unique.
	O4	The brand Nike clearly distinguishes itself from other brands.
Reliability	R1	My experience of the brand Nike has shown me that it keeps its promises.
	R2	The brand Nike delivers what it promises.
	R3	Nike brand’s promises are credible.
	R4	The brand Nike makes reliable promises.
Naturalness	N1	The brand Nike does not seem artificial.
	N2	The brand Nike makes a genuine impression.
	N3	The brand Nike gives the impression of being natural.
Brand Self-Connection (BSC)	BSC1	The Nike brand is part of who I am.
Brand Self-Connection (BSC)	BSC2	I feel personally connected with Nike brand.
Brand Prominence (BPR)	BPR1	Automatic thoughts/feelings come for Nike brand.
Brand Prominence (BPR)	BPR2	The thoughts/feelings which come naturally for Nike brand are original.
Brand Vocal	BV1	I try to get my friends and family to patronize Nike brand.
	BV2	I seldom miss an opportunity to tell others good things about Nike brand.
	BV3	I would defend Nike brand to others if I heard someone speaking poorly about the Nike brand.
Brand Loyalty	BL1	I like Nike’ brand more so than other brands.
	BL2	I have a strong preference for Nike brand.
	BL3	I give prior consideration to Nike brand when I have a need for an apparel product related to sports.
Purchase Intention	PI1	I’m likely to make a purchase of Nike products.
	PI2	I would like to have more information about Nike products.
	PI3	I’m interested in Nike products.

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