Loneliness Enhances Brand Love for Individualistic (but not Collectivistic) Consumers

Andy H. Ng^*

• Cardiff Business School, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom

It is not uncommon for people to experience loneliness. When people feel lonely, they are motivated to reestablish connections with other people directly or restore a sense of social connection indirectly through other means. As a brand symbolically connects all people affiliated with the same brand, constituting a broad social group, loneliness may motivate people to enhance their emotional attachment to a brand (i.e., brand love) to restore a sense of social connection indirectly through the brand. In the current research, I adopt a cultural lens to examine this proposition. Across two studies (Study 1: N = 200; Study 2: N = 267), I demonstrate that loneliness can increase consumers' brand love. However, this effect is moderated by consumers' cultural background, as operationalized as individual differences in cultural orientation (Study 1) or racial background (Study 2). Specifically, loneliness can cause an increase in brand love for individualistic consumers, but not collectivistic consumers. These findings are consistent with current theorizing and empirical findings about cultural differences in how people conceptualize ingroup and relate to strangers who belong to the same broad social group.