Brand attachment styles: Adapting the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) scale to examine consumer perceptions of brands’ relational behaviour
将人际依恋理论中的焦虑和回避维度改编为品牌依恋风格量表，证明其能有效区分品牌并预测第三方绩效指标，为管理者评估和强化品牌关系提供新工具。
• Introduces brand attachment styles to examine consumer views of brand behavior. • Adapts the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) scale for brands. • Shows brand attachment styles are empirically distinct from related constructs. • Finds brand attachment styles are linked to third-party performance metrics. • Offers implications for how managers can assess and strengthen brand relationships. Consumer–brand relationships are dyadic yet research has largely focused on how consumers think and feel about brands, overlooking how brands are perceived to relate to consumers. We explore whether consumers also form impressions of how brands behave in relationships, drawing on attachment theory as a framework for organizing these perceptions. Specifically, we propose that the dimensions that define interpersonal attachment styles—anxiety and avoidance—can be meaningfully adapted to describe how brands are perceived to engage with consumers over time. We introduce a two-dimensional scale of brand attachment styles, adapted from the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) scale, and provide evidence of its reliability, validity, and conceptual distinctiveness from related brand constructs. Across multiple studies, we show that the scale meaningfully differentiates brands and predicts different brand performance metrics. Together, these findings offer a new lens on brand behavior—one with implications for both branding theory and relationship management in practice.