Brand Experience-Brand Love Relationship for Indian Hypermarket Brands: The Moderating Role of Customer Personality Traits

Abstract Experiential marketing is a decisive facet of brand management and customer-brand relationship. With the growth of hypermarket brands in India, customers focus on the experiential benefits from the particular hypermarket brand for developing a loving relationship. Despite the existing studies in the literature on brand experience, there are very few studies focused on the stimulus of brand experience for the brand love of customers in the perspective of Indian hypermarket brands. The goal of conducting this study is to probe the impression of the brand experience on the brand love with the inclusion of customer personality traits as moderators. For addressing the objectives, the proposed research model and concerning hypotheses are validated empirically by using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) - structural equation modeling (SEM) on the sample size of 541 customers, who visit a specific hypermarket brand’s stores frequently. The findings of the study support that the brand experience is responsible for affecting the customer- brand love. This relationship is reinforced (positively or negatively) by the customer personality traits in an effective manner. This study provides significant insights about the customers’ personality traits for improving the relationship between the brand experience and the brand love in the context of Indian hypermarket brands. Therefore, it contributes significantly to the literature related to branding and customer-brand relationship.